Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/613

Rh for less than $42,000,000. The clergy had voluntarily donated large sums, and also paid their share of forced loans levied, nearly the whole of which was never reimbursed. On the 25th of June, 1856, the government decreed that real estate of the church, or property administered by ecclesiastical corporations, should be conveyed to the tenants at a value corresponding with the rent they were paying, estimated at six per centum per year.

The revolution of Puebla, San Luis Potosí, and Tacubaya, cost the clergy in three years nearly nine million dollars; and the constitutional party took from them about 10 millions more, making a total loss of nearly twenty millions. It was therefore computed that the property on the date of the decree for its sequestration was worth about 184 million dollars, exclusive of churches and temples. Allowing for possibly unknown sales, and other confiscations to the aggregate amount of 40 millions, we may say that the whole had become reduced to 124 millions. Taking off one third to facilitate sales, we have 83 millions. The fact is that the sales yielded much less. Most of the property had been already sold in 1869.

The chief source of revenue the church had was the tithes. It was subject to vicissitudes for several years, and it is supposed that, in the last years of the clergy's