all casts, whites, mestizoes and Indians are employed. The academy of fine arts, and the schools for drawing in Mexico and Xalapa have very much contributed to diffuse a taste for beautiful antique forms. Services of plate to the value of a hundred and fifty, or two hundred thousand francs, have been lately manufactured at Mexico, which for elegance and fine workmanship may rival the finest work of the kind ever executed in the most civilized parts of Europe. The quantity of precious metals which between 1798 and 1802 was converted into plate at Mexico, amounted at an average to 385 marcs of gold and 26,803 marcs of silver per annum *. The wrought plate of which the fifth is exacted, was declared at the mint as follows:

* Castille weight. It may be useful to observe, that wherever the contrary is not expressly indicated the word mare in this work means the marc of Castille.

The mint of Mexico, which is the largest and richest in the whole world, is a building of a very simple architecture belonging to the palace of the viceroys. This establishment, under the direction of the Marquis de San Roman an enlightened administrator, and a friend to the arts, contains little or nothing remarkable with respect to the improvement of the machinery or chemical processes; but it well deserves to engage the attention of travellers from the order, activity and economy which prevail in all the operations of coining This interest is enhanced by other considerations which are even obvious to those who do not turn their attention to speculations of political administration. In fact it is impos sible to go over this small building without recollecting that more than ten thousand millions of livres tournois † has issued from it in less than three hundred years, and without reflecting on the powerful influence of these treasures on the destinies of the nations of Europe.

The mint of Mexico was established fourteen years after the destruction of old Tenochtitlan, under the first viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza, by a royal cedula of the

* Vez Superintendente de la real casa de moneda.
Upwards of 408,000,000 Sterling, Trans.

11th May 1535. The coinage was at first carried on by contract by several individuals, to whom the government had farmed it out. Their lease was not renewed in 1733. Since that period all the works are under the direction of government officers, on the government account. The number of workmen employed in this mint amounts to 350 or 400; and the number of machines is so great, that it is possible to coin, in the space of a year, without displaying an extraordinary activity, more than thirty millions of piastres, that is to say, nearly three times as much as is generally performed in the sixteen mints which exist in France. At Mexico there was coined in the month of April alone, in the year 1796 the sum of 2,922,185 piastres; and in the month of December, 1793, more than 3,065,000 piastres At Paris in the year 1810, the strongest month of coinage was the month of March, when there was coined in pieces of five francs, the value of 1,271,000 piastres. Between 1726 and 1780, the coinage of gold and silver amounted to

In the sixteen
Mints of France *.

In the Mint
of Mexico.

2,446,000,700, liv. 3,364,138,060 liv.

*Necker, de l'admin. des Finances, T. iii. p. 59,

To give an idea of the activity of the mint of Mexico, we shall insert here one of the tables which the government orders every year to be printed for the information of the public respecting the state of the mines, that are considered as the regulator of the public prosperity. I shall select the year 1796 when the coinage amounted to 25,644,000 piástres although it had been 24,593,000 in 1795, and was 25,080,000 piastres in 1797.

Months of the year 1796.

Gold
Piastres.

Silvér

Gold and Silver.

Piastres. Reals. Piastres. Reals.

*

The works of the mint of Mexico contain ten rollers (laminoirs) moved by sixty mu es, fifty-two cutters, (coupoirs) nine adjusting tables (bancs d'ajustage) twenty machines for marking

the edges (à creneler) twenty stamping presses, (balanciers) and five mills for amalgamating the washings and filings called mermas. As one stamping press can strike in ten hours more than 15,000 piastres, we are not to be astonished that with so great a number of machines they are able to manufacture daily from fourteen to fifteen thousand marcs of silver. The ordinary work however does not exceed from eleven to twelve thousand marcs. From these data which are founded on official

papers, it appears that the silver produced in all the mines of Europe together would not suffice to employ the mint of Mexico more than fifteen days.

The expence of carriage, including the salaries of the officers, and the loss occasioned by the mermas, amount to a real de plata or 13 sous per marc. This loss from the mermas which was formerly computed at one third per cent, is now reduced to the half; for instead of three marcs they do not lose more than one marc and three ounces in each thousand marcs coined. With respect to the profit derived by the king from coinage, it is estimated in the following manner: if the coinage does not exceed fifteen millions of piastres per annum, the profit is only six per cent. of the quantity of gold and silver coined; when it amounts to eighteen millions of