It is proper to add to this amount the taxes levied by the different departments which may be stated at four millions more, making an aggregate of twenty-one millions, to which an addition should be made of five or ten millions more which is paid, but embezzled, and, therefore, does not find its way into the public treasury.

With a government wisely and honestly administered, this sum is more than is necessary. But how that of Mexico is supported with it, and whence it is derived, are both, as I have said, inexplicable to me. Besides their army, of thirty to forty thousand, for that is the number on the pay list, and an immense disproportion of this army officers, not less than from two to three hundred generals, an otherwise enormous civil list, and the interest on a debt very little short of a hundred millions of dollars, there are a great variety of other and extraordinary charges upon a government so unstable and revolutionary.* With a productive industry at least fifty times as great as that of Mexico, very little more than the sum above stated is levied upon our people, doubtless not so much if we take into the estimate the greater expense there of collection, which is estimated at thirty per cent. Taking peculations into the calculation, I have no doubt it is much more. And all of these taxes are of course, like all taxes, ultimately paid by the people. The annual expenditure of the Vice regal government was never more than eight millions of dollars. Can it be true that it costs more to execute laws made by the people themselves than the edicts of a despot?

* The Report of the Secretary of the Treasury in 1832, contains an estimate of the whole expenses of the government for the next year, amounting to $22,392,508. Of this sum the estimate for the army is stated at $16,466,121.

To all these heavy items must be added the taxes which are levied by the different departments for domestic purposes, the heavy exactions of tithes and other compulsory contributions to the church. These last have been estimated at two millions, but they must greatly exceed that amount. There are in the city of Mexico alone, seven or eight hundred secular and near two thousand regular clergy. The salaries of some of them are enormous. Under the Vice regal government the various perquisites and salary of the archbishop amounted to $130,000, and those of several of the bishops to $100,000, but they are all much less now. Exclusively of donations and birth-day presents, which are often very large, the archbishop does not receive more than thirty or forty thousand dollars, and the incomes of the bishops are proportionately reduced.

Some idea may be formed of the amount of these birthday presents, from the fact that General Santa Anna, on the anniversary of his birth, has been known to receive presents to the amount of $20,000.

All these enormous charges are to be paid out of the productions of a country where less is produced than in any other, except from the mines. Perhaps the universal dilapidation of all the old and large estates may indicate the quarter from which much of the revenue has hitherto been derived.

The large estates and possessions of the banished Jesuits have supplied the government with very large sums. But these, with the mine of Fresnillo, have all been sold and the money wasted. These spendthrift expedients of selling estates to pay current expenses must soon have, if they have not already, an end; and I do not see how even an economical and frugal administration will, in future, be able to find the means of defraying even the necessary expenses of the

government, and this is perhaps the greatest of all the many difficulties which are to be overcome.

There are not many wealthy men in the city of Mexico, fewer I think than in any city in the United States of treble the same size. The larger number of these are persons who have made their fortunes by government contracts and speculations in government stocks. Most of the large estates at the commencement of the revolution have become dilapidated. These large estates were chiefly, if not entirely, owned by Spaniards who were generally the adherents of the cause of the mother country, for the maxim of Juvenal, "Quantum quisquis habet in urbe tantum habet et fidei," is as true now as it was when the line was written. An incident occurred which afforded me a distressing proof of the ruin which the revolution had caused to the loyalists of Mexico, and at the same time a gratifying evidence of the estimate, which was general there, of the influence of my government.

A poor fellow in rags called to see me, and asked my aid in procuring indemnity for an estate of his father, amounting to five or six millions, which had been appropriated by one of the patriotic Generals to the use of his army, during the war of Independence. I told him that as he was not an American citizen, I could not assist him in my official capacity, and that it was not proper that I should do so in any other way. He then asked me whether if he were to come to the United States and become a citizen, I could not then interpose in his behalf. I told him that I could not. I had, however, some curiosity to look into his papers, which furnished the most conclusive evidence of the justice of his claim. Such cases were not at all uncommon.

I have rarely met with a more accomplished and elegant

lady than the venerable old Countess who is so gratefully and affectionately mentioned by Mr. Brantz Mayer. She was reduced from great opulence to extreme poverty, but with the great penury which her household exhibited, she showed in her manners, conversation and sentiments, all of the high bred Castilian lady.

Machiavel says that in a new government everything should be new. "Whoever makes himself head of a state (especially if he suspects his ability to keep it) must, as the best course, make everything as new as himself,-alter the magistracy, create new titles, confer new authorities, uncharter corporations, advance the poor, impoverish the rich; and what is said of David may be said of him- he filled the hungry with good things and the rich he sent empty away." The Mexican revolutionists at least resembled David in one half of what is said of him-but only in that half.

CHAPTER XXI.

Prohibition of Raw Cotton-Attempts to procure a Modification of this Policy Public Debt of Mexico-Mines of the Precious Metals-Present Productiveness-Undeveloped Resources-Capacities of Mexico if inhabited by the people of the United States.

THE article of raw cotton is one of the articles which are prohibited. The home supply is never equal to the very small demand of their own manufacturers, and the law is, therefore, relaxed very frequently.

The privilege of importing a certain number of bales is. granted to some commercial company for a stipulated sum, paid to the government, and, as it was said, a douceur not less in amount to the officers of the government.

I made very great exertions to procure a modification of this prohibitory policy, more particularly as to raw cotton and coarse cotton goods, but in vain. I found Santa Anna thoroughly armed with all the arguments in favor of the protective policy, and I confess that I think that if there is a country in the world where that policy is wise, that Mexico is that country. Every Mexican who can be tempted to labor is just that much gained to the productiveness as well as to the morals of the country; and, if they could be generally so tempted, too high a price could not well be paid for such a boon.

The public debt of Mexico may be, I think, safely stated to be little, if anything, less than a hundred millions of dollars. Of this amount, something more than sixty millions are due to foreigners, including a debt of thirty-six millions