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SECTION IV.

REVENUE OF MEXICO—ITS SOURCES AND AMOUNT BEFORE THE REVOLUTION—PRESENT STATE AND PROSPECTS.

object, throughout the preceding Sections, having been to avoid all theories as much as possible, and to give what has been, as the best criterion of what may again be, I shall not depart from this rule in treating so important a branch of my subject as the revenue of the country; and shall accordingly commence my view of its present state and prospects, by a succinct account of what they were before the Revolution of 1810.

For this I must, as usual, recur to Baron Humboldt, who has investigated the subject with his wonted accuracy, in Book VI. of his most valuable work.

According to his statements, the revenue of Mexico, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, (1712), did not exceed three millions of dollars:—