having then risen to upwards of ten millions.[10] And since then the deficiency has averaged about five millions sterling; and even now, that Spain is declared so prosperous, will not be rightly stated at a much lower figure, although finance ministers resort to the most ingenious devices to prove it much less. But if it is so trifling as they would have us believe, why do they not pay their dividends? Forced loans, anticipated imposts, unpaid pensions, and shabby shifts of every kind, show us how far we are to credit their balance-sheets. One financier--that very slippery person, Señor Carrasco--actually showed a surplus--upon paper. "The present revenue," wrote Mr Ford in 1846, "may be taken at about twelve or thirteen millions sterling. But money is compared by Spaniards to oil--a little _will_ stick to the fingers of those who measure it out; and such is the robbing and jobbing, the official mystification and peculation, that it is difficult to get at _facts_ when cash is in question." The sum stated, however, is about the mark, and bears out Lord Clarendon's often-quoted declaration in the House of Lords, that the Spanish revenue is one-half greater than it was ever before known to be. Few men have had better opportunities than Lord Clarendon of acquiring information on the affairs of Spain; and his well-known friendly feeling towards her present rulers precludes the suspicion of his giving a higher colouring than the strictest truth demands to any statement likely to be prejudicial or unpleasant to them. It is a fact that the revenue is still upon the increase; and it has augmented, in the last fifteen years, by more than one-half, for in 1835 it was but seven hundred and fifty-nine millions of reals, or, in round numbers, £7,600,000 sterling. It certainly seems strange that, with an increase of revenue of at least four millions, the decrease of deficit should barely amount to two, although the country, at the former period, was plunged in a most expensive war, and had an enormous army on foot; the estimate for the war department alone, for 1837--according to Mr Mendizabal's budget already quoted, presented to the Cortes--being upwards of seven and a-half millions sterling, _or within one million of the total amount of estimated revenue_. Thus we see that Spain presents the curious phenomenon of an expenditure augmenting in proportion as the revenue increases. In most countries the puzzle is the other way; and how, to force the revenue up to the expenditure, is the knotty point with statesmen. The most benevolent can hardly help suspecting that some foul play is at the bottom of this augmentative propensity of Spanish financial outgoings. But Spain is _par excellence_ the country of itching palms; and in view of the statements we have here made, and which defy refutation, most persons will probably agree with a writer already cited, when he says that, "with common sense and common honesty, much might be done towards