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Rh sometimes insufficient to enable the proprietor to furnish his family with the proper supplies. In this case, credit was given upon a mortgage of a part of the property; and the debt was allowed to increase, from year to year, until the whole estate was swallowed up.

It will hardly be believed that this iniquitous scheme formed not the least lucrative part of the speculations of the Mexican and Saltillo trader, and that no inconsiderable portion of the landed property in the North, was thrown by it, latterly, into their hands.

The Western Internal Provinces, which abounded more in the precious metals, were enabled, by this means, to obtain a more regular supply of European goods; and thousands of mules were employed, before the year 1810, in the trade between Dŭrāngŏ and the Capital. They came, loaded with bars of silver, hides, tallow, corn, a little wine, chile, and sometimes wheat; and returned with mining stores, (quicksilver, steel, and iron,) brandy, and manufactures, both foreign and domestic.

During this period, at Pūēblă alone, 20,000 Mantas, (pieces of cotton of thirty-two yards each,) were often made in the year; and, at Qŭerētărŏ, from sixty-three, to sixty-five, thousand Arrobas of wool were worked up into Panos, Xergetillas, Bayetas, and Xergas, under which names the different woollen manufactures, in use amongst the common people,