Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/679

Rh to the office of auditor and superintendent-general of the new department, instructing him at the same time to appoint receivers in each district, and commence the collection of the duties on the 1st of January 1575.

Henceforward this impost under the ever watchful eyes of the grasping kings of Spain increased in productiveness to the crown and added greatly to the burdens of the inhabitants of New Spain. The smallest articles of merchandise and the commonest necessaries of life, as they passed from one owner to another, were taxed over and over again. Foreign goods, home productions, the fruits of the soil, native produce of all kinds, landed property, sold or even leased, in time all came within the reach of the elastic alcabala. The two per cent first exacted was doubled and trebled. In the decade 1601 to 1610 the yield in the Mexican department alone was 2,671,190 pesos; that of the decade 1781 to 1790, 13,575,528 pesos. The total amount which this tax yielded in the whole kingdom during 1780 to 1789 was 34,022,552 pesos, giving a net profit of 31,302,941 pesos. In the single year 1798 the total amount of this impost was 2,765,217 pesos, with net proceeds of 2,352,235 pesos, or nearly ten times the mean annual receipts during the first named decade.

Nor was the alcabala the only impost to which internal trade was subject; the peage, or transit dues which were levied upon goods on their transportation from certain places to others, still further increased the price of commodities. The effect of this grievous