[22] These calculations are made in dollars, reales, or pieces of the value of 121/2 cents, and medios, or pieces of the value of 61/4 cents.
[23] The actual coinage of all the mints in the republic in 1844 amounted, in fact, to the sum of $13,732,861; but we assume $14,000,000 as a fair annual average for a period of several years.
[24] Zavala's Historia de las Revoluciones de Mejico. Tomo 1.
[25] The cultivation of cotton is a branch of agriculture of almost marvellous increase. Mr. Burke, a member of our congress, from South Carolina, in 1789, when speaking of southern agriculture, remarked that "cotton was likewise in contemplation." During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, when 7012 bags of the article were imported into Liverpool a perfect panic was produced by so unusual a supply, at present 150,000 bags may reach a single port without greatly affecting the price. In 1791 the whole United States produced only two millions of pounds, whilst in 1848, the Commissioner of Patents calculated the whole crop at 1,066,000,000 lbs.
[26] Whilst these pages are passing through the press information has been received from the Mexican gazettes that in 1846 there were sixty-two cotton factories for spinning and weaving, and five for manufacturing woollens;—that the first mentioned have been greatly improved by the introduction of the best kinds of machinery, and that two new factories for woollens have been set in operation in the state of Mexico, which produce cloths and cassimeres that are eagerly purchased by the best classes. The cost of these fabrics is not mentioned, but it is probably fifty per cent. higher than if manufactured in the United States.
[27] Mejico in 1842 by del Rivero. Madrid, 1844.
[28] See Otero Cuestion Social y Politica de Mejico, pp. 38, 39, 43.
[29] Mexico as it Was and Is, p. 329.
[30] Rivero, Mejico in 1842, p. 130.
[31] Norman's Rambles in Yucatan, p. 32.