Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/425

Rh This, at least, is money usefully spent, and, however dearly the accommodation may have been purchased, it ought not to be regretted, since without it, Mexico could never have risen from the state of general depression, into which the country was thrown by the long continuance of the civil war.

It now only remains for me to recapitulate the leading facts contained in the preceding pages.

The Revenue, for twenty years before the Revolution, (from 1790 to 1810,) averaged, according to the most authentic returns, twenty millions of dollars annually.

Two of the principal sources of this revenue, the Duties on gold and silver, and the Indian Capitation

have been abolished under the present System, (the one temporarily, the other for ever;) but their place is supplied by the Importation and Exportation duties, which, from the importance that the trade of the country has already acquired, have actually produced, as we have seen, 7,043,237 dollars in one year, in lieu of the 500,000 dollars, at which they were estimated under the Viceregal Government.

The Monopolies of Tobacco and Gunpowder, the Post-office, the Lottery, and the duty upon Pulque, (in the Federal City,) remain unchanged; the monopoly of Salt has been added. The confiscated