vices, by facilitating the operations at a time when our commerce most imperiously required that assistance. Its beneficial influence has not only been felt in the Capital, but has been spread to all the Cities most engaged in commerce. The Offices which it established at Riga in course of the last Year, and at the commencement of the present at Astrachan, will extend the circle of its activity. Its Capital, which at the time of its institution amounted only to 17,000,000, now amounts to the 30,000,000, fixed by the Manifesto of 1817. The deposits, both at the Bank and at its Branches, including what remained from 1820, have amounted, for repayment, to 49,481,000 roubles, and, at interest, to 126,874,000 roubles.

The total sum at its disposal, in addition to its own Capital, amounts to 205,000,000.

The Bank and its Branches have effected the following arrange ments: they have advanced, in sums for repayment, 18,818,000 roubles; they have assigned, from one City to another, 30,663,000: they have restored sums, placed at their disposal, with the intention of deriving interest from them, to the amount of 92,804,405. They have discounted, by Bills of Exchange, the sum of 228,619,000. They have advanced, upon deposits of merchandize, 7,890,000. They have discounted, in Bank Notes, 20,350,000; and in Foreign Bills of Exchange, 3,035,000. The whole of their operations have amounted to 309,357,000.

The advances upon commodities have exceeded by 2,600,000 those made in 1820; and the discount on Bills of Exchange presents a surplus of 58,000,000.

Of the Paper Money protested, there is an amount of 1,403,751 which has not been paid. The majority of it is found to be counterfeited. The Government, however, knows and will prosecute the Forgers. By all that we can learn, the Bank will not experience considerable losses owing to these Persons. These losses will be amply compensated by the profits which the Bank has made, and which amount to 3,204,385 roubles The total of returns into the Funds of this Establishment, and the Publick Offices, in 1821, amounts to 1,178,454,398 roubles in paper, and 9,165,739 roubles in silver.

Such, Gentlemen, is the situation of our Credit Establishments It proves that our system of Publick Credit is built on a solid basis, and that we cannot entertain a doubt of the advantage which it will confer upon the State.

The sacred word of the Sovereign, to whom Russia is indebted for this new benefit; the punctuality with which the sums set apart for this service are paid; the rigorous observance of the rules which fix their application; become, when combined, the essential guarantees of our system of credit. Debts formerly contracted are at length perfectly ascertained; each of them has been arranged, upon rules agreeable to

the Creditors of the State, and the means have been provided for satis→ fying them.

Our system of Credit, in consolidating itself, offers the means of providing for expenses which might exceed the ordinary resources of the Treasury, and gives greater facilities to its operations.

The extreme necessity of having recourse, on ordinary occasions, to new issues of Bank Paper, so injurious to private and publick interests, cannot, henceforward, conflict with the existence of our system of credit. The paper money, arrested in its progress towards depreciation, has acquired a greater value; we neither expect nor desire a sudden rise. By diminishing the mass of paper from 836,000,000 to 596,000,000, we might have obtained a more sensible amelioration; but the distressing situation of our commerce has relaxed the progress towards such salutary results.

The consolidation of our system of credit leaves us the choice of the means by which we may, in a short time, see the accomplishment of our wishes. We can before-hand predict their success. Our Funds, appearing in general circulation, have not only been secured against loss, but have risen in value. Such are the happy effects of a regulated system of credit. Those which we have still a right to expect will follow the progressive march of time, which alone can prepare and reorganize them.

REPORT of the Minister of Finance to the Extraordinary Cortes of Spain.-8th October, 1822. (Translation.)

URGED by the duty imposed upon me by the functions which I exercise, I am about to communicate with the Cortes upon one of the most important points on which it has to deliberate, and which has offered one of the chief reasons for its extraordinary convocation.

The Finances, which are the soul of States, and without which every branch of the Administration would be paralyzed and destroyed, are about to be presented to the consideration of the August Congress, under their true point of view. The Cortes will be made acquainted with their present state, will discover the extent of the resources which the Government possesses, together with that of the debts which it has to discharge, and, without the inconvenience of correcting the vices and defects which may be remarked, will employ itself in facilitating those plans which may be necessary, in order successfully to meet the publick necessities, and to relieve the Nation from the Factious Bands which infest its Frontier Provinces. I will briefly explain to the Cortes the state which the Publick Finances presented at the close of the Session of its first ordinary Legislature, or the end of the second economical Year; the dispositions of the Government with respect to the same branch in the third Year; and, finally, the precise increase

of the Taxes necessary for discharging the Expenses of the Publick Service, up to the end of June, 1823; as well as the means by which, in my opinion, that increase, in addition to the Estimates voted by the Cortes, may be met. I must claim the indulgence of the Cortes in giving me a patient hearing, and supplying by its wisdom any defects in my mode of explanation; and I beg that it will direct its attention to the frankness and precision with which I will attempt to exhibit to them the former and the present state of the Publick Finances.

It would be useless for me to present even a sketch of their his tory during the first economical Year, a work which has already been performed by the Ministry, in the Memoir read before the Cortes on the 5th of March. It is sufficient to say, that, of the Taxes voted for the first Year, there was experienced a deficiency of 181,442,774 reals, 25 maravedis, and that, at the end of the same Year, there was also an arrear in the Estimates of the Ministry, of 107,451,582 reals, 1 maravedi.

With this deficiency and arrear, we entered upon the second economical Year. It was met, it is true, by 116,257,292 reals 4 maravedis of balances, viz. 31,440,773 reals 13 maravedis, of the Years anterior to the 1st of July, 1820, and 84,816,518 reals 25 maravedis, of that corresponding to the first economical Year; but the collection of the second Year being compared with the estimate made by the Finance Committee of the contributions and revenues of the State, as stated in the Journal of the Cortes, there appeared the enormous deficit of 322,060,935 reals 31 maravedis. The data on which this result is formed are to be found in the circumstantial Account of the Treasurer-Ge neral and Accountant, which was presented to the Cortes. So remark able a difference is doubtless not extraordinary, considering the high value at which the produce of the Revenues of Monopoly, Stamps, Registers, and other branches, were estimated, and the circumstance of having admitted into the Account an item which has proved to be imaginary. I must nevertheless state to the Cortes, that this dimi nution from the estimated value (which in some branches has proved lamentably large) is in a great measure owing to the want of sufficient zeal in the Officers, and even, in some instances, to their sinister operations; for our Enemies make war upon us in a thousand different ways, and they have not forgotten that, to deprive us as far as possible of resources, is a most powerful means of attack. The Government zealously exerts, and will continue to exert, every vigilance on this subject, and will act rigidly and inflexibly towards the guilty; but it cannot go beyond its powers, which are circumscribed within a narrow circle.

With regard to the repartition for the second economical Year, the Accounts of the Distribution drawn up by the Treasurer-General and Accountant, and the Abstracts made in my Office, and the others su

joined to them, show that there have been made good in the said second Year 134,414,441 reals 10 maravedis, for effects previous to the Year 1821, and 600,136,957 reals 7 maravedis, for effects belonging to the second economical Year; that there arises a surplus on the Estimates of the first Year, considered generally; though in particular, and at the commencement of the third economical Year, there remain due to the voted Estimates of the second Year, 191,255,313 reals 1 maravedi. It does not appear necessary, on the present occasion, to advert to the inequality which has occurred during the two Years, and in consequence of which, less from some branches, and more from others, have been collected. The Minister, in the Memorial already cited, has said enough upon the cause of this difference, which, solely deserves to be noticed under a regular order of things, when the Estimates necessary for all the details of the Service omit nothing, keep a due proportion to the resources, and allow to no branch a preference over another. Besides, the foresight of the Cortes has prepared a remedy for this evil, by means of the system of account and reckoning wisely established by its Decree of the 7th of May of this Year. The Government hastened to carry this Decree into execution, by means of the Instruction which it published on the 9th of June, and has constantly followed up the same object, amidst the various obstacles of time and circumstances which have been opposed to its complete adjustment. The same circumstances have been little favourable, or rather, we might say, altogether unfavourable, to the Publick Finances, in what we have to state respecting the third economical Year. The occurrences of the first days of that Year rendered torpid the publick service, more particularly in the Capital, from whence proceed all the measures of the Government, and the result of the collection in the Provinces was, as might be expected, thereby greatly influenced.

When I took charge of the Finance Department on the 7th of August, the Decrees of the Cortes respecting the Contributions granted during its last Legislature were in circulation, but they had not failed to suffer some delay, both in the Secretariat of the Congress, and that of my Department, by the hindrance experienced in the dispatch of business in general, during the melancholy days of last July. The Intendants of the Provinces, newly created in the Divisions of the Territory decreed by the Cortes, were already appointed, as well as the Chiefs who were to be established, as well in them as in the Old Provinces, in conformity to the Administrative System ultimately established; but these Functionaries could not themselves repair to their Appointments, nor establish their Offices and Stations, without a precipitation which caused great ultimate injury to the Service. Every thing is now sufficiently forward, and I hope that in a little time all will be settled in the Provinces.

But the Collection has suffered, as might have been feared, from what I have stated. In the month of June, it amounted to the sum of 30,172,120 reals 1 maravedi, on the liquid productions; it fell in July to 18,066,197 reals 10 maravedis; it increased in August to 29,782,009 reals 7 maravedis, according to the Accounts received from the greater part of the Provinces (for from all, and particularly from the Islands, nothing could hitherto be collected ;) and I have good reason to hope that it will increase progressively in the succeeding months, as the Government will act with greater energy, now that the Territory is properly divided; as strict Orders have been communicated to the Intendants to enforce the Collections with exactness, by means of the authority vested in them by the Cortes; and as the Government has noticed, and will continue to notice with severity, the neglect and want of zeal of its Agents. Thus the Collection will be ameliorated, and, in all parts of the economical Administration of the State, will be felt the beneficial influence of a just rigour, applied with an equal impartiality to the Chief of a Province and to the lowest of his Subalterns, whenever their conduct may deserve it.

Nor do the last month's receipts of the Loan contracted on the 22d of November, 1821, offer an adequate resource to the Ministry, considering how limited was the produce of the Revenue and Taxes which came into the Publick Treasury. On the 7th of August there was received from that Channel, according to the Statements of the Treasurer-General, the amount of 117,613,037 reals 22 maravedis, of which sum 9,000,000 were appropriated to the payment of the Dividends of the same Loan for the half-year ending last May, 600,000 reals to the liquidation of the expenses of the furnishing of Certificates of Dividends, and 3,000,000 to its redemption or extinction. Consequently, since the 7th of August, only 4,500,000 of the real proceeds of the said Loan could have been appropriated.

The present state of this Loan will be understood from the details furnished by the Director of the Great Book of the Publick Debt. The Cortes will see from them that the Rentes at 5 per Cent. which ve been placed in the hands of Ardouin, Hubbard, and Co, as rities, amount to 36,713,432 reals 4 maravedis: first, 92,734,321 Capital, at the price of the Negotiation of the securities of the Loans placed in the hands of the Government Agents; secondly, ,400,000 reals, the produce of the monthly payments in specie, ulated in the aforesaid Contract of the 22d November; and, rdly, 140,000,000 reals, corresponding to the 14,000,000 of Rentes ticipated in conformity to the same. Certificates of these Rentes have been received, payable in London, to the amount of 27,610,800 reals, and, payable in Paris, to the amount of 1,060,240 reals; in all 28,671,200 reals of Rentes, which have to receive 8,042,232 reals 4