average from 1788 to 1792 was 3,259,504 piastres. Discounting the expence of collection and salaries amounting to 371,148 piastres, there remains net revenue of 2,888,356 piastres. The activity of commerce has so much increased within the last forty years, that the produce of the alcavalas from 1765 to 1777 amounted to 19,844,053 piastres; while between 1778 and 1790 it amounted to 34,218,463 piastres. The customs of Mexico hardly produced from 1766 to 1778-6,661,900 piastres; from 1779 to 1791 they produced more than 9,462,014 piastres. In 1799, the revenue of the alcavalas only amounted to 2,407,000 piastres; but it has greatly increased since that time. In the revenues the expence of collection defrayed by the people amounts to 13 per cent. The alcavala not being paid by the Indians we conclude that this impost is equal to an annual capitation of 13 piastres on the whites and mixed casts.

4th. Net produce of the Indian capitation tax* one million three hundred thousand piastres. The increase of the produce of this tribute proves the increase of the Indian population, a fact very little known in Europe, which affords. great consolation to the friends of humanity. From 1788 to 1792, the capitation tax on the

Indians amounted at an average to 1,057,715 piastres annually. Now the expences of collection and salaries were 55,770 piastres, to which we must add 102,624 piastres for pensions paid to the descendants of Montezuma and several of the Conquistadores, for sums destined for the support of the halberdiers (alabarderos) of the viceroy, and for other charges. When we discount these 158,394 piastres from the gross produce of the tribute, we find a net produce of tribute (liquido) of 899,321 piastres. In 1799 this liquido amounted to 1,247,000 piastres, while in 1746 it was only 650,000 piastres. The capitation of the Indians from 1765 to 1777 was stated in the registers at 10,444,483 piastres; and from 1778 to 1790 at 11,506,602 piastres. The expence of collection of this impost does not exceed six per cent. of the net produce.

晶

5th. Net produce of the duty on pulque eight hundred thousand piastres. This duty on the fermented juice of the agave*, the wine of the Indians produced in the towns of Mexico, Toluca, and Puebla de los Angeles at an average from 1788 to 1792 a net annual sum of 761,131 piastres in 1799 it amounted to 754,000 piastres. Expence of collection of this revenue seven per cent. of the liquido. The manufacture of pulque was altogether pro

*See vol. ii. p. 525.

hibited by the laws of Charles I. and Philip III.

6th. Net produce of the duty on imports and exports, under the name of almoxarifazgo, half a million of piastres.

7th. Produce of the sale of papal indulgences or bulls de la cruzada two hundred and seventy thousand piastres.

8th. Net produce of the post*, two hundred and fifty thousand piastres. This produce between 1765 and 1777 was 1,006,054 piastres; and between 1778 and 1790 was 2,420,426 piastres; an augmentation which both demonstrates the progress of civilization and com

merce.

9th. Net produce of the sale of powdert, one hundred and fifty thousand piastres; from 1788 to 1792 it was at an average 144,636 piastres annually.

10th. Net produce of the revenue levied on clerical benefices, under the name of mesada and media anata, one hundred thousand piastres.

11th. Net produce on the sale of cards, one hundred and twenty thousand piastres‡.

12th. Net produce of stamp duties (papel Sellado) eighty thousand piastres; from 1788

*Renta de Coreos.

+ Liquido del real estanco de la polvera. See vol. iii. p. 470. Estanco de naypes.'

to 1792 at an average 60,756 piastres per

annum.

13th. Net produce of the farm of cock-fighting*, forty-five thousand piastres.

1

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.

Estanco de los juegos de gallos.

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.

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