CHAP. xxn. AMERICAN MINES. 153 



lent him upwards of two hundred thousand 

 pounds, which was never after repaid. The mines 

 of the district of Zaccatecas were about the year 

 1750 in such a state of abandonment that they 

 scarcely furnished silver to the amount of more 

 than one hundred thousand pounds ; but by the 

 spirited exertions of an individual, Laborde, in a 

 few years after their produce was raised to ten 

 times that amount. Thus, whilst the numerous 

 small mining-establishments, if they had not lan- 

 guished, had increased but slowly, the larger ones 

 here noticed, with some others, had made a most 

 astonishing progress. 



The gradual increase of capital which had pro- 

 duced this effect had been aided by another favour- 

 able circumstance. The supply of mercury had 

 become more regular, and at a cheaper rate. In 

 the year 1590 the price was one hundred and 

 eighty-seven piastres the quintal ; in sixty years 

 after it had fallen to eighty-two, in thirty years 

 more to sixty-two, and in the next ten years to 

 forty-two. Mercury had been furnished by the 

 government at a monopoly price: it had been 

 used as an implement of favouritism by the viceroys 

 in Mexico, and the officers under them in the 

 mining-districts. It had been chiefly drawn from 

 Huancavelica in Peru, or from Almaden in Anda- 

 lusia; but after the calamities suffered by those 

 mines the court of Spain drew a large supply from 

 the Austrian mines of Idria, by which, after gain- 



