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 always 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 custom house for $150,000, receivable for all kinds of duties as cash. He disposed of these bonds to the merchants of that port for $100,000—and, in addition to the bonus of $50,000, allowed them interest on the $100,000, at the rate of three per cent. per month, until they had duties to pay which they could extinguish by the drafts.
Another transaction, of a singular nature, developes the character of the government's negotiations, and can only be accounted for by the receipt of some advantages which the act itself does not disclose to the public.
The mint at Guanajuato, or the right to coin at that place, was contracted for, in 1842, by a most respectable foreign house in Mexico, for $71,000 cash, for the term of fourteen years, at the same time that another offer was before the government, stipulating for the payment of $400,000 for the same period, payable in annual instalments of $25,000 each. The $71,000 in hand, were, however, deemed of more value than the prospective four hundred thousand. This mint yielded a net annual income of $60,000.
These are a few examples presented in illustration of the spendthrift abandonment of the real resources of the country; and the character of the transactions at once discloses the true origin and continuance of national discredit. The demand of the hour was irresistible, and if the