*

To complete the view of the immense wealth centered in the hands of a few individuals in New Spain, which may com, ete with any thing in Great Britain, or the European possessions in Hindostan, I shall add several exact statements both of the revenues of the Mexican clergy, and the pecuniary sacrifices annually made by the body of miners (cuerpo de mineria) for the improvement of mining This last body, formed by a union of theroplietors of mines, and represented by deputies who sit in the Tribunal de Mineria, advanced in three years, between 1784 and 1787, a sum of four millions of francs to individuals who were in want of the necessary funds to carry on great works. It is believed in the country that this money has not been very usefully employed (para habilitar; but its distribution proves the generosity and opulence of those who are able to make such considerable largesses. A European reader will be still more astonished when I inform him of the extraordinary fact, that the respectable family of Fagoagas lent, a few years ago, without interest, a sum of more than three millions and a half of francst to a friend, whose fortune they were in the belief would be made by it in a solid manner; and this sum was irrevocably lost in an unsuccessful new mining undertaking. The architectural works which are carried on in the ca

166,6801. sterling, Trans.

+ 145,8451.

pital of Mexico for the embellishment of the city are so expensive, that notwithstanding the low rate of wages, the superb edifice constructed by order of the Tribunal de Mineria for the School of Mines will cost at least three millions of francs of which two millions were in readiness before the foundation was laid. To hasten the construction, and particularly to furnish the students immediately with a proper laboratory for metallic experiments on the amalgamation of great masses of minerals (beneficio de patio), the body of Mexican miners contributed monthly, in the year 1803 alone, the sum of 50,000 livrest. Such is the facility with which vast projects are executed in a country where wealth is divided among a small number of individuals.

This inequality of fortune is still more conspicuous among the clergy, of whom a number suffer extreme poverty, while others possess revenues which surpass those of many of the sovereign princes of Germany. The Mexican clergy, less numerous than is believed in Europe, is only composed of ten thousand individuals, the half of whom are regulars who wear the cowl. If we include lay brothers and sisters, or servants (legos, donados y criados de los conventos), all those who are not in orders, we may estimate the clergy

125,0101. sterling. Trans.

+ 20831. sterling.

at 13 or 14,000 individuals *. Now the annual revenue of the eight Mexican bishops in the fol

* The number of monks of St. Francis in Spain amounts to 15,600, more than all the ecclesiastics of the kingdom of Mexico. The clergy in the peninsula exceed 228,000 individuals. For every thousand inhabitants there are 20 ecclesiastics, while in New Spain there are not above two to the thousand. The following is a specification of the clergy in several of the intendancies, according to the enumeration in 1793:

In the intendancy of la (secular ecclesiastics
Puebla, 667 or clerigos, and
Valladolid 293

881 regulars.

298

Including in the enumeration the Donados, or lay brothers, the convents of the capital contain more than 2,500 individuals.Author.

The clergy of the peninsula, according to M. de La Borde, from whom M. de Humboldt elsewhere professes to take his information regarding Spain, amounts to 147,657 individuals; and according to M. Townsend, who cites the returns made to the Spanish government, they amount to 118,625. M. de La Borde estimates the population of Spain at 11,000,000, and he states the proportion of the clergy to the population as 11,000,000 147,657

1: 69; though

74,497, say 741, and not 69.

But the estimate of 228,000 clergy, and a corresponding proportion of 20 in the thousand, or 1 in 50 to the population, is in every way much beyond the truth. M. de Humboldt having found from M. de la Borde that the proportion between the clergy and population in Madrid was 20: 1,000,

The bishop of Sonora, the poorest of them all, does not draw tithes. He is paid like the bishop

has been led to extend the same proportion over all Spain. Yet he afterwards, in the Statistical Analysis, states it as a peculiar merit in M. de La Borde, that he had first proved that the proportion of Spanish clergy to the population was less than that of the French clergy to the population before the revolution, which was 60,078 : 25,000,000—1:54,444, say 54 (and not i: 52, as La Borde calculates;) but a clergy of 228,000 in a population of 11 millions would be more numerous in proportion than that of France before the revolution. Trans.

* 112,300l. sterling. Trans.

+ This, at the rate of conversion which the author lays down in a note in the following page, namely five francs five sous per double piastre, does not amount to the sum of 2,695,000, but 2,829,750 francs 117,9151.-Trans.

of Panama immediately by the king (de Caras reales). His income amounts only to the 20th part of that of the bishops of Valladolid and Mechoacan; and, what is truly distressing in the diocese of an archbishop whose revenue amounts to the sum of 650,000 francs*, there are clergymen of Indian villages whose yearly income does not exceed five or six hundred francst. The bishop and chapter of Valladolid sent, at different times, to the king as a voluntary contribution, particularly during the last war against France, the sum of 810,000 francs 1. The lands of the Mexican clergy (bienes raices) do not exceed the value of 12 or 15 millions of francs §; but the clergy possess immense capitals hypothecated on the property of individuals. The whole of these capitals (capitales de Capellanias y obras pias, fondos lotales de Communidades religiosas), of which we shall give a detail in the sequel, amounts to the sum of 44 millions and a half of double piastres ||, or 233,625,000 francs T. Cortez, from the very

*27,0857. sterling. Trans.

From 201, to 251. sterling. Trans.

33,7521. sterling. Trans.

§ From 500,040l. to 625,050l. sterling. Trans.

13,485,4537. sterling. Trans.

¶ I have followed the data contained in the Representacion de los vecinos de Valladolid al Excellentissimo Senor Virey (dated 24th October, 1805), a manuscript memoir of great value. I compute in the course of this work the double piastre at 5 livres 5 sous. Its intrinsic value is 5 livres 8 sous.