PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



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The extraordinary number of persons about the court and government are 

 easily distinguished from their practice of wearing cocked hats. The ribands 

 and orders at the button-holes of clerks, and the prodigious display of stars 

 by fidalgos, merchants, and even shop-keepers, which their taste for public 

 show induces them daily to exhibit, prove that these sort of decorations are 

 procured with much facility in the capital. 



Many of the claims upon the treasury are satisfied by bills upon the other 

 captaincies, and few military or other persons, receiving appointments to 

 distant places, do not take an order upon the treasury of that province for 

 the liquidation of their arrears ; and the provincial erarios are frequently in the 

 same difficulties, in consequence of those demands. The treasury of Rio draws 

 largely upon Bahia and Pernambuco. The latter has generally of late 

 liquidated such demands to the amount of thirty contas of reas (about £9000) 

 per month; but it is not unusual for English merchants receiving those 

 securities to hold them for a long period before payment can be obtained . 



The Brazilian government unquestionably might boast of being one of the 

 richest in the world, if the immense capabilities of the country were adminis- 

 tered with energy and spirit, and a due regard paid to the measures requisite to 

 derive only a fair portion from them of the advantages they present. The 

 revenue of the Brazil arises principally from the following imposts, viz. one- 

 j&fth upon all gold ; a decimo upon all productions of the land, upon the 

 annual value of all houses and sbacaras, upon slaves, upon the exchange of 

 proprietorship of slaves and property. A duty upon all articles passing the 

 river Parahiba into the mining and interior districts, is collected at a register 

 established for the purpose ; and imposts are paid on passing various rivers with 

 mules and horses. New negroes also pay an additional duty on entering the 

 interior districts. All cattle entering the province of Rio de Janeiro pay a tax 

 of nearly ten per cent. ; the beef, besides, pays a duty of five reas per pound. 



The customs are a very important branch of revenue, and may be estimated 

 to produce at Rio from five to six hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum, 

 of which the English merchants pay upwards of three hundred thousand pounds, 

 and that body collectively do not contribute upon the whole much less than six 

 hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling annually to the Brazilian customs : 

 fifteen per cent, is paid by them upon all imports, (which by-the-bye is at present 

 very unfairly levied, but more of that hereafter,) and certain duties upon pro- 

 duce exported, which does not appear to be at all equal at the different mari- 



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