Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/273

Rh rates, and borrowed in effect by giving contracts on terms favorable enough to make the transactions worth while as gambling propositions. The principal mint, for example, was turned over to the British consul general for a period of ten years in February, 1847, in exchange for some $200,000 in cash and a promise to pay one per cent on the amount coined; and on similar principles arms and other necessaries were sometimes obtained.

All of these financial operations were at least ostensibly lawful, but Santa Anna did not pause here. Wherever money could be found, he seems to have taken it, holding that the exigency outweighed all rights and all pledges. Funds belonging to the tobacco revenue were illegally seized, for instance; and a large sum due the Academy of Fine Arts fell into this voracious maw. Not only cash but everything needed for the army went the same way. At Jalapa early in April, 1847, for example, all the owners of horses received orders to bring them in. Grain, forage, lead, lumber, arms, ammunition, tools, cattle, mules and laborers were taken by force; and sometimes military officers exhibited the burglar's predilection for a midnight hour. Here was a kind of finance that saved the expenses of accounting, and without it even the low cost of the Mexican soldier would not explain Santa Anna's holding out so long?

The United States, happily, stood far above this level, but not so far that probably mere good luck did not save us from grave trouble; and it was easy to foresee many dangers — all the worse because they naturally made capital timid — when the hostilities began. The total receipts of the treasury for the fiscal year ending with June 30, 1845, were nearly thirty millions and the ordinary expenditures $22,935,828. It was estimated that during the next year the receipts would fall about three millions, and Walker — allowing the munificent amounts of something more than two and a half millions for the army and something less than five for the navy — expected to reduce the total disbursements a little, anticipating for the period ending with June, 1847, a further saving of more than four millions. The receipts for July-September, 1845, proved to be more than two millions below those of the corresponding months of 1844, and the customs income for the fiscal