to 1792 at an average 60,756 piastres per annum. - - - r 13th. Net produce of the farm of cock-fighting ", forty-five thousand piastres. 14th. Net produce of the farm of snow, thirty thousand piastres. If there were not countries in Europe where a tax is paid on day-light, we might well be surprised to see in America that the bed of snow which covers the high chain of the Andes is considered as a property of the king of Spain. The poor Indian who with danger reaches the summit of the Cordilleras can neither collect snow nor sell it in the neighbouring towns without paying a duty to government. This strange custom of considering the sale of ice and snow as a royal right, existed also in France at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the Ferme des nieges was only put a stop to at Paris because the magnitude of the duty produced such a rapid diminution of the use of cooling beverages, that the court thought it more advisable to declare the trade in ice and snow completely free. At Mexico and Vera Cruz, where the summits of the Popocatepetl and the Pic d’Orizaba furnish snows for the making of sherbets, the estanco de la nieve was only introduced in 1779.

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We have thus compared the total revenue of New Spain at different periods of the eighteenth century; let us now pursue this comparison in the different branches of impost indicated in the statistical work of Villa-Señor, published at Mexico in 1746; and we shall see at each article irrefragable proofs of the progress of population and public prosperity.

Comparative table of the revenue of New

Spain.

Sources of the public revenue. |In 1746. In 1803. Duties levied on the pro- Piastres. Piastres.

duce of the mines - 700,0003,516,000 Mint -, - - - - 357,500 1,500,000 Alcavala - - - 7:21,875,3,200,000 Almoxarifazgo - - 373,333 500,000 Indian capitation tax - 650,0001,200,000 Cruzada - - - 150,000 270,000 Media anata - - - 49,000 100,000 Duty on pulque or agave

juice - - - 161,000 800,000 Duty on cards - - || 70,000 120,000 Stamps - - - - 41,000 80,000 Sale of snow - - - 15,522, 26,000 Sale of powder - - || 71,550 145,000 Cock-fighting - - || 21, 100. 45,000

We have only included in this table the duties, the tariff of which has not been increased since 1746, when the monopoly of tobacco

was not yet introduced, and the metallic produce instead of 23 millions only 10 millions of piastres. Robertson in the edition of the History of America, published in 1788, only values the revenue of Mexico at four millions of piastres, while it actually amounted at that period to more than eighteen millions. Such was the state of ignorance in Europe at that time respecting the colonies of Spain, that that learned and illustrious historian when treating of" the finances of Peru, was compelled to derive his information from a manuscript drawn up in 1614.

M. Necker f calculated in 1784 the contributions at 23 livres 18 sous, or 4; piastres per head of all sexes and ages in France. Reckoning the number of inhabitants in New Spain at 5,837,000, and the revenue at twenty millions of piastres, we shall have 8.4, per head of all sexes and ages. Peru, which at present contains only a million of inhabitants, and yields a revenue of three millions and a half of piastres, gives nearly the same result. As the Indians subject to the capitation tax pay no alcavala, and make no use of tobacco, calculations of this sort, which are not very instructive even for Europe, are by no means applicable to America. Besides, it is not so much the mass of imposts as their distribution, and the mode of their recovery, which occasion the distress of the inhabitants. To attain a certain degree of accuracy in calculations so vague in their nature, we ought not wholly to reckon among the burdens supported by the inhabitants of | New Spain, the duties on gold and silver, and the profits of the mint, which together come in for more than a fourth part of the total revenue | of the country. We will not enter here into discussions capable of affording so very little satisfaction; and we shall rather hasten to complete the view of the Mexican finances, by treating in the following chapter of the expences of collection and the expences of government.

CHAPTER XIV.

Erpences of Collection — Public Expenditure — Situados — Net produce which flows into the Royal Treasury of Madrid— Military State—Defence of the Country—Recapitulation.

IN examining the different branches of the revenue of the state, we have indicated the expence of collection occasioned by the partial receipts. In all countries these expences vary according to the nature of impost or duty levied. We know from the researches of M. Necker", that in France, before the year 1784, the expence of collection amounted to 10+ per cent. of the whole imposts laid upon the people, while it cost more than 15 per cent. to collect the duties on consumption alone. From these proportions we may judge to a certain extent of the economy which prevails in the administration of the finances. The following table, drawn up from official papers, exhibits an af. flicting result: it proves that the inhabitants of New Spain support burdens which surpass the net revenue of the state by more than a