ragement and protection; and it is principally in consequence of his exertions that they have been enabled so soon to overcome those national prejudices against strangers, with which all our Companies had to contend upon their first establishment. In November 1826, not a trace of this feeling seemed to remain. The Marquis of Rayas, indeed, whose family is celebrated for its piety, was still intractable enough to object to the employment of heretics in his mine, but he proved by his courtesy towards all my party that he did not consider a friendly intercourse with us as at all objectionable. In this respect the clergy of Guanajuato have shown an admirable example, many of them having advocated from the pulpit the cause of foreigners, and endeavoured to convince their countrymen of the advantages to be derived from an unreserved communication with them.
The State of Guănăjūātŏ contains, according to the census of 1825, a registered population of 382,829 souls, or 450,000, if something more than one-sixth be added to cover the deficiencies in the official returns. These are supposed to have been unusually incorrect, in consequence of an attempt to enforce the payment of a sort of Income tax, at the very time when the census was forming.
The revenue consists, as has been stated generally in the Fourth Section of the Third Book, in the Tobacco monopoly, the Alcavalas, the Mint dues, and Municipal duties payable on various articles of
