234. DECLINING PRODUCE CHAP, xxv, 



" If," says Mr. Ward, " it were possible to 

 obtain returns from the other mining districts, 

 the disproportion between the produce before and 

 after the year 1810 would be found to be equally 

 striking. In each district the principal mines 

 were abandoned, the machinery was allowed to 

 go to ruins, and the silver raised was merely the 

 gleanings of more prosperous times ; the workings 

 (where any were attempted) being confined almost 

 entirely to the upper levels 1 . 



The only exception to this general decline was 

 in the mines of Tasco, which was a military sta- 

 tion constantly defended by a numerous body of 

 royalist troops. Though once taken by the in- 

 surgents, it was speedily retaken, and the Tribunal 

 de Mineria undertook to work the mines which 

 had formerly been the property of Labord, a man 

 celebrated for wealth acquired by mining, and 

 their operations were attended with such success 

 that the annual produce amounted to four hun- 

 dred thousand dollars. 



"It is a fact," remarks Ward, "universally 

 admitted, that in almost all the mining districts, 

 although the towns have been ruined by the emi- 

 gration of the wealthy inhabitants, whose capitals 

 were formerly invested in mining operations, the 

 lower classes have, throughout the revolution, 

 found means to draw their subsistence from the 



1 Ward's Mexico, vol. ii. p. 21. 



