Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/502

472 payment of the duties, which amounted to no less a sum than Seven hundred thousand dollars, (£140,000,) would have been hardly less disadvantageous than the re-exportation of the goods.

The Collectors upon the coast, left again to act upon their own responsibility, insisted, of course, upon the payment of the duties as soon as the goods were withdrawn from the Government Magazines, and, in some instances, actually proceeded to enforce it. The consequence was, that new representations to the Government became necessary, and business was, once more, at a stand, until the point was referred by the Ministers to the President himself, who, immediately, decided it in favour of the merchants, and directed orders to be given to the Collectors upon the coast, so clear, and definitive, that no doubt or difficulty afterwards occurred, and things resumed at once their usual course.

All this unpleasant, and tedious discussion, originated, (as has been shown) in the exercise of a discretionary power in a case where every article of the mutual compact ought to have been most explicitly defined. Fortunately, the disadvantages inseparable from such a state of things were corrected, in the instance under consideration, by a strong sense of justice in the Executive; and it must be admitted, that, however good the abstract right of the merchants might be, to claim the indulgence which they at last obtained, it does no little credit to the Mexican government that it should, at a