No doubt Wellington was right in saying that there was a certain amount of jobbery in the distribution of taxation, and that more could have been raised by a better system. But Portuguese figures of the time seem to make it clear that even if a supernatural genius had been administering the revenue instead of the Conde de Redondo, all could not have been obtained that was demanded. The burden of the war expenses was too heavy for an impoverished country, with no more than two and a half million inhabitants, which was compelled to import a great part of its provisions owing to the stress of war. The state of Portugal may be estimated by the fact that in the twelve months between February 1811 and January 1812 £2,672,000 worth of imported corn, besides 605,000 barrels of flour, valued at £2,051,780 more, was brought into the country and sold there[151]. On the other hand the export of wine, with which Portugal used to pay for its foreign purchases, had fallen off terribly: in 1811 only 18,000 pipes were sold as against an average of 40,000 for the eight years before the outbreak of the Peninsular War. An intelligent observer wrote in 1812 that the commercial distress of the country might mainly be traced to the fact that nearly all the money which came into the country from England, great as was the sum, found its way to the countries from which Portugal was drawing food, mainly to the United States, from which the largest share of the wheat and flour was brought. ‘As we have no corresponding trade with America, the balance has been very great against this country: for the last three years this expenditure has been very considerable, without any return whatever, as the money carried to America has been completely withdrawn from circulation.’ [151] Halliday’s _Present State of Portugal_, p. 320. The shrinkage in the amount of the gold and silver current in Portugal was as noticeable in these years as the same phenomenon in England, and (like the British) the Portuguese government tried to make up the deficiency by the issue of inconvertible paper money, which gradually fell in exchange value as compared with the metallic currency. The officers of the army, as well as all civil functionaries, were paid their salaries half in cash and half in notes--the latter suffered a depreciation of from 15 to 30 per cent. Among the cares which weighed on Wellington and Charles Stuart was that of endeavouring to keep the Regency from the easy expedient of issuing more and more of a paper currency which was already circulating at far less than its face value. This was avoided--fortunately for the Portuguese people and army, no less than for the Anglo-Portuguese alliance.