Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/121

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MINERAL PRODUCTIONS.
95
Amount brought forward, $3,800,000
Pay of Oidores, and other persons employed in judicial functions and measures for the conversion of the Indians, 250,000
Pensions, 200,000
Hospital expenses, repairs of factories, 400,800
Return of imposts, 1,496,000
——————
$6,146,800
Amount of Income, $14,449,696
"" Expenses, $6,146,800
——————
Balance, $8,302,896

This was then the clear income of Mexico in the year 1809. The same amount may be considered as the usual yearly revenue from the close of the eighteenth century, and if we deduct a half of this sum as being afterwards expended on this side of the Atlantic, it may be calculated that about four millions of dollars were transmitted to Spain annually.

3d. Mineral Productions.

In order to judge what regions of New Spain were most productive in mineral wealth and their relative productiveness, we will insert the value of the royal dues upon silver, amounting in all to the rate of 10½ per cent, in 1795, in which year $24,593,481 were coined in gold and silver at the Mexican mint.

San Luis Potosi, 96,000 Marks of silver,—which may be estimated at eight dollars and a quarter per mark.
Zacatecas, 69,000
Guanajuato, 67,000
Rosario, 45,000
Bolaños, 41,000
Mexico, 36,000
Guadalajara, 19,000
Durango, 33,000
Zimapan, 10,000
Sombrerete, 7,000
Chihuahua, 7,000

All the mines in the Spanish possessions consumed annually 30,000 quintal of quicksilver, which, at the rate if $50, (at which they might be calculated, on anaverage of years) amounts to a millon and a half.

When fifteen millions were annually coined theking received 6 per ct. upon that sum; and when the amount exceeded 18 millions, scarcely 7. Thus difference was owing to the rules and system of the mint, in which there were the same expenses in coining from