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quillity shall be re-established, we must go back 

 again to the period which preceded the revolu- 

 tion. The annual average of the clear receipts 

 of the whole contributions, from 1793 to 1796, 

 without comprehending the farm of tobacco, 

 was 1,426,700 piastres. In adding to this, 

 586,300 piastres as the net product of the 

 farm (the average of the same period), we find 

 the revenue of the Capitania general de Caracas, 

 deducting the expence of collecting, to be 

 2,013,000 piastres. This revenue has gone on 

 diminishing, on account of the difficulties of 

 maritime trade, in the last years of the 18th, 

 and the first years of the 19th century; but 

 from 1807 to 1810 it rose to more than 2,500,000 

 piastres (of which 1,200,000 piastres arose from 

 the customs, 700,000 from the farm of tobacco, 

 and 400,000 from the alcavala of land and sea). 

 All these receipts were absorbed by the expence 

 of the administration ; sometimes a surplus of 

 200,000 piastres was poured into the treasury 

 of Madrid, but these examples were extremely 

 rare. Since Caraccas has no longer received 

 the situado of New-Spain, resources have from 

 time to time been drawn from the no less im- 

 poverished bank of Santa-Fe. The gross reve- 

 nue of all the provinces which now form the 

 republic of Columbia, amounted, according to 

 my researches, at the moment of the revolution, 



