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56 present day, would have exceeded, by at least one third, the utmost produce of the richest years before the Revolution.

The Civil War entirely destroyed this chain of communication between the highest and lowest classes of Mining speculators. In many Districts the Haciendas of the Rescatadores were ruined, as were the machinery and works of the mines themselves. In others, water was allowed to accumulate to an immense extent, in consequence of the suspension of the usual labours; while in all, the merchants, who had before supplied funds for carrying on the different operations, withdrew their capitals, as soon as the intercourse between the Seat of Government and the Provinces was interrupted. In the years 1811 and 1812, the Agricultural produce of the country likewise decreased so rapidly, that it became difficult to procure the means of subsistence. The Mining towns were surrounded by Insurgent parties, which occupied the whole of the open country, and rendered it impossible either to receive supplies, or to make remittances, without the protection of a large escort; while the exactions of the officers, by whom these escorts were commanded, (exactions, which were reduced to a system, and in which the Viceroy himself largely participated,) doubled the price of quicksilver, and every other article consumed in the mines; and thus reduced the value of Silver to the miner so much, that the marc did not repay the cost of extraction, even with the richest