CHAPTER VIII. 

 MEXICAN FINANCES. 



DISORDER OF MEXICAN FINANCES ENORMOUS USURY. CHAR- 

 ACTER OF FINANCIAL OPERATIONS. EXPENSES OF ADMINIS- 

 TRATIONS. ANALYSIS OF MEXICAN DEBT COMPARISON OF 



INCOME AND OUTLAY DEFICIT. 



The distracted political condition of Mexico since 1809, has 

 contributed largely to the proverbial impoverishment and financial 

 discredit of a country, which, nevertheless, has during the whole 

 intervening period, been engaged in furnishing an important share 

 of the world's circulating medium. The revolutionary and factious 

 state of parties ; the unrestrained ambition of leaders ; the violence 

 with which they displaced rivals ; their short tenure of office when 

 they attained power and the consequent impossibility of maturing 

 any permanent scheme of finance ; the ordinary reliance of states- 

 men upon a large army, and the immense cost of its support ; the 

 continual and habitual recourse to loans at ruinous rates of usury ; 

 the comparative ignorance of domestic resources and their failure 

 of development in consequence either of intestine broils or the igno- 

 rance and slothfulness of the population, together with the plunder 

 of the treasury by unprincipled demagogues and despots, may all 

 be regarded as the basis of Mexican misrule and pecuniary misfor- 

 tune. For nearly forty years every minister of finance has been 

 taxed to discover means for daily support. Let us illustrate the 

 system commonly pursued. 



On the 20th of September, fifteen days before the treaty of Es- 

 tansuela, the administration of president Bustamante offered the 

 following terms for a loan of $1,200,000. It proposed to receive 

 the sum of $200,000 in cash, and $1,000,000 represented in the 

 paper or credits of the government. These credits or paper were 

 worth, in the market, nine per cent. About one-half of the loan 

 was taken, and the parties obtained orders on the several maritime 

 custom houses, receivable in payment of duties. 



The revenues of the custom house of Matamoros, had been al- 

 ways appropriated to pay the army on the northern frontier of the 

 republic, but during the administration of General Bustamante, the 

 commandant of Matamoros issued bonds or drafts against that cus- 



