his mines a clear profit of 6,000,000 of dollars, or about 1,200,000l. sterling. He obtained the title of Count by the munificence of his donations to the Court of Madrid; and never was title more dearly bought; for he presented Charles III. with two ships of the line, (one of 112 guns,) constructed at the Havana, of the most costly materials, entirely at his own expence; and accommodated him besides with a loan of one million of dollars, no part of which has yet been repaid. He likewise built the two great Haciendas of San Antonio and Regla, which cannot, together, have cost less than 1,200,000 dollars, (240,000l.); and he purchased landed property to such an extent, that even in the present depressed state of the agricultural interests of Mexico, the revenue of the present Count exceeds one hundred thousand dollars; and ought, in more favourable times, to amount to nearly two. (40,000l.)
From the year 1774, the produce of the Regla mines began to decrease, not because there was any change either in the quantity or the quality of the ores, but because the workings having been carried, upon some points, ninety varas below the level of the Moran Adit, the expences of the drainage, which was effected by twenty-eight Malacates, each requiring forty horses in the twenty-four hours, became so considerable as to leave little or no profit to the proprietor. In 1783 the weekly cost of extraction alone exceeded nine thousand dollars, and the works were suspended in conse-
