Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/58

38 possession of two other deposits belonging to regidores of the capital. By these means, and by the expenditure of ten thousand pesos of his own, wherewith he made purchases in the neighboring provinces, he accumulated a considerable store of grain. He broke up effectually the trade in contraband goods between Acapulco and Peru. While this was a-doing it was found that members of the consulado had been concerned, some of them openly, in these practices. He removed the royal officials having charge of the supplies for the Philippines, putting clean-handed men in their places, and in consequence the amount of supplies sent to that colony was greater than ever before.

He checked immediately all pilfering of the royal treasury, banishing from the mines the foreigners and others who had defrauded the revenue, ordering that all money received for taxes should be sent at once to Mexico, and putting an end to other practices by which so much of the king's money had remained in the hands of dishonest officials. Owing to these reforms in the management of the treasury the viceroy was enabled to send an increased amount of money to Spain, where at this time it was sorely