CHAPTER XIII. 1760–1771.

their fortunes and income upon the unrestrained production and manufacture of this article. Thousands of the poorer classes were engaged in its preparation for market, while in all the cities, towns, and villages, there were multitudes who lived by selling it to the people. Every man, and perhaps every woman, in Mexico, used tobacco, and consequently this project of the visitador gave reasonable cause for dissatisfaction to the whole of New Spain. Nevertheless, the firmness of Galvez, the good temper of the Mexicans, and their habitual submission to authority, overcame all difficulties. The inhabitants of Cordova were not deprived of all control over the cultivation of tobacco, and were simply obliged to sell it to the officers of the king at a definite price, whilst these personages were ordered to continue supplying the families of the poor, with materials for the manufacture of cigars; and by this device the public treasury was enabled to derive an important revenue from an article of universal consumption. Thus the