Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/394

364 Humboldt gives an increase of 600,000 dollars on the expenditure of the following year; adding 200,000 dollars to the expense of the Army, 50,000 dollars to the Pension list; 50,000 to the charges for the administration of justice, and 300,000 to the general charges of collection and administration, thus making the whole amount to 10,500,000 dollars.

This estimate I believe to have been exceedingly correct, and it may be taken as the fairest possible average for the years, which immediately preceded the Revolution of 1810, up to which period Mexico had no public debt of any kind.

The deficit in the Revenue, which the Revolution occasioned, was supplied by forced loans, (which were called voluntary,) and by the establishment of the Derechos de guerra, y convoy, (Duties of War and Convoy) the Derecho de patriotas, (a tax raised to support the Royalist volunteers, who assumed the strange appellation of Patriots), and a tax, of ten per cent., upon houses, which, as all the great towns were in possession of the Spaniards, was very productive.

The total amount of these different taxes, is supposed to have been from four to five millions of dollars, which afforded, however, but a poor compensation for the loss of the Mining duties, and the Monopoly of Tobacco; both of which were reduced to a mere fraction of their former importance, by the Civil war.