[Footnote 70: The actual cuerda is a square of 75 varas each side, about one-tenth less than an acre. Abbad understood by a cuerda a rectangle of 75 varas front by 1,500 varas depth, that is, 20 cuerdas superficies of those actually in use.—Acosta.]
[Footnote 71: The bocoy in Puerto Rico, equal from 12 to 20 centals of sugar, according the quality.]
[Footnote 72: British India produced about that time over 1,500,000 tons of cane-sugar per annum.]
[Footnote 73: Colonel Flinter, An Account of the Island of Puerto
Rico. London, 1834]
CHAPTER XXXIV
COMMERCE AND FINANCES
Until the year 1813 the captains-general of Puerto Rico had the superintendence of the revenues. The capital was the only authorized port open to commerce. No regular books were kept by the authorities. A day-book of duties paid and expended was all that was considered necessary. Merchandise was smuggled in at every part of the coast,[74] the treasury chest was empty, and the Government officers and troops were reduced to a very small portion of their pay.
The total revenues of the island, including the old-established taxes and contributions, produced 70,000 pesos, and half of that sum was never recovered on account of the abuses and dishonesty that had been introduced in the system of collection.
An intendancy was deemed necessary, and the Home Government appointed Alexander Ramirez to the post in February, 1813. He promptly introduced important reforms in the administration, and caused regular accounts to be kept. He made ample and liberal concessions to commerce, opened five additional ports with custom-houses, freed agriculture from the trammels that had impeded its development, and placed labor, instruments, seeds, and modern machinery within its reach. He printed and distributed short essays or manuals on the cultivation of different products and the systems adopted by other nations, promoted the immigration of Canary Islanders, founded the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country, and edited the Diario Económico de Puerto Rico, the first number of which appeared February 28, 1814.
The first year after the establishment of these improvements, notwithstanding the abolition of some of the most onerous taxes, the revenues of the capital rose to $161,000, and the new custom-houses produced $242,842.