If In These Latter Years, The Expense Of The General Treasury Of The Havannah Amounted To More Than Four Millions Of Piastres, This Increase Of Expense Is Solely Owing To The Obstinate Struggle Maintained Between The Mother Country And Her Freed Colonies.

Two millions of piastres were employed to pay the land and sea forces which poured back from the American continent, by the Havannah, on their way to the Peninsula.

As long as Spain, unmindful of her real interests, refuses to recognize the independence of the New Republics, the island of Cuba, menaced by Columbia and the Mexican Confederation, must support a military force for its external defence, which ruins the colonial finances. The Spanish naval force stationed in the port of the Havannah generally costs above 650,000 piastres. The land forces require nearly one million and a half of piastres. Such a state of things cannot last indefinitely if the Peninsula do not relieve the burden that presses upon the colony.

From 1789 to 1797 the produce of the custom-house at the Havannah never rose to more than 700,000 piastres. In 1814 it was 1,855,117. From 1815 to 1819 the royal taxes in the port of the Havannah amounted to 11,575,460 piastres; total 18,284,807 piastres; or, average year, 3,657,000 piastres, of which the municipal taxes formed 0.36.

The public revenue of the Administracion general de Rentas of the jurisdiction of Havannah amounted:

in 1820 to 3,631,273 piastres. in 1821 to 3,277,639 piastres. in 1822 to 3,378,228 piastres.

The royal and municipal taxes of importation at the custom-house of the Havannah in 1823 were 2,734,563 piastres.

The total amount of the revenue of the Havannah in 1824 was 3,025,300 piastres.

In 1825 the revenue of the town and jurisdiction of the Havannah was 3,350,300 piastres.

These partial statements show that from 1789 to 1824 the public revenue of Cuba has been increased sevenfold.

According to the estimates of the Cajas matrices, the public revenue in 1822 was, in the province of the Havannah alone, 4,311,862 piastres; which arose from the custom-house (3,127,918 piastres), from the ramos de directa entrada, as lottery, tithes, etc. (601,808 piastres), and anticipations on the charges of the Consulado and the Deposito (581,978 piastres). The expenditure in the same year, for the island of Cuba, was 2,732,738 piastres, and for the succour destined to maintain the struggle with the continental colonies declared independent, 1,362,029 piastres. In the first class of expenditure we find 1,355,798 piastres for the subsistence of the military forces kept up for the defence of the Havannah and the neighbouring places; and 648,908 piastres for the royal navy stationed in the port of the Havannah. In the second class of expense foreign to the local administration we find 1,115,672 piastres for the pay of 4234 soldiers who, after having evacuated Mexico, Columbia and other parts of the Continent formerly Spanish possessions, passed by the Havannah to return to Spain; 164,000 piastres is the cost of the defence of the castle of San Juan de Ulloa.

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