We shall now briefly analyse the numerous causes that are the 

 sources of error in determining the revenues and debt of a state. 

 First, then, there is the year to which these statistical elements must 

 be referred; this circumstance alone, paying a due regard to the dif- 

 ferent phases of prosperity or misery through which a state may pass, 

 presents results that differ in a most astonishing manner in the short 

 interval of a few years. We shall cite Spain, whose revenues in 1802 

 amounted, independently of those she derived from her rich colonies 

 and from several other sources, to the sum of 7,900,000, whilst in 

 the year 1789 they only amounted to 6,000,000. We should find 

 the difference still more considerable were we to compare the reve- 

 nues of that monarchy in 1807 with those of 1809. 



The estimate of the debt calculated at different periods presents 

 still greater differences. The Russian and Austrian empires, and the 

 Prussian monarchy, which now have all very considerable debts, had 

 scarcely any before the first French revolution. In the short period 

 of eight years, from 1816 to 1823, France augmented the nominal 

 capital of her debt by a sum of l,998,787,720frs. From the year 

 1803 to 1815 our own debt was increased 491,940,407. On the 

 llth October, 1824, the federal debt of the United States was 

 90,797,920 dollars: towards the close of 1826 it was only 

 74,000,000 dollars, and it is calculated that it will be perfectly ex- 

 tinct by 1834. 



A no less remarkable difference arises from the mode of calculating 

 the revenues. Some take the total amount of receipts, including the 

 expenses of collection and of administration, which they call the 

 gross revenue. Others, on the contrary, deduct from the total 

 revenue the sums expended in its collection and the administration 

 of the state. The difference between these the gross and the net 

 revenue, will be more or less according to the imperfection of the 

 administrative systems. The states of Europe in this particular, as 

 in every other, present the greatest differences ; for while it has been 

 calculated that the expences of collecting the revenue and the admi- 

 nistration of government amount in this country but to 11 per cent., 

 they constitute in France a ninth part of the receipts. In the budget 

 of the kingdom of Hanover they figure for rather better than one- 

 ninth, in that of Bavaria one-eighth, and in Portugal one-third. 



In the compilation of a statistical table, which we are about to 

 offer, we have given, whenever it was possible, the gross revenue of 

 each state, because the expences of collecting it and of administering 

 the government form a real part of the sums paid by the con tributa- 

 ries they represent a part of the resources of a country. But there 

 are certain sums which appear in the column of receipts of some 

 budgets of which the statistical writer ought to take no account, 

 because they are only deposits or capitals advanced for the purchase 

 of salt, tobacco, and other articles which the government resells at a 

 very considerable profit. There are also several states where, what 

 is called the state domains have an administration of their own, and 

 the revenues of which, notwithstanding their great importance, never 

 appear in the budget. We may say, that, in general, almost all the 

 state revenues of the small states of the German Confederation are 



