Soon after returning from Virgin Bay Walker had, in order to raise means for the support of his troops, resorted to a military contribution on the principal traders doing business at San Juan del Sur. Among others, John Priest, the United States consul, who kept an inn and drinking-house, was assessed at the same rate as others of his calling. Priest refused to pay, on the ground that he was a foreign consul, showing thereby an intelligence more akin to his inn-keeping than to his consular character. He talked largely about having an American man-of-war brought into port for the purpose of enabling him to sell grog quietly to soldiers and sailors without being obliged to pay taxes for the support of a government which could not claim him as a citizen. But as he had on a former occasion complained loudly at the outrages said to have been practised on his person and property by the Legitimists, but had, when the United States sent a sloop-of-war to inquire into his grievances, made the commander of the ship appear very ridiculous by demanding compensation for Priest, when the latter had really signed a paper fully exonerating the Chamorro government, the consular inn-keeper’s threats carried little weight with them. For his contumacy, he found a native guard placed in his house, with orders not to permit any one to pass in or out until the assessment was paid. Not many hours elapsed before the inn-keeper forgot his consular dignity, and came forward with the money to pay the contribution. There were, in fact, few sources of revenue at San Juan. Most of the lots in the town are held by the occupants at a monthly rent, to be paid to the State; and in addition to this there were the customs and the monopoly of the sale of beef. These revenues, small as they were, could not be honestly collected through means of native functionaries. One of the Leoneses, acting as collector, was caught taking bribes from a merchant for smuggling; and the complaints against Mendez for killing cattle and selling beef in fraud of the revenue were almost daily. The habit of cheating the State, prevailing in all parts of Central America, leads to the maladministration which produces revolution; and the habit of revolution in turn reacts and increases the disposition of officers to make as much as possible for themselves at the public expense, since the tenure of their offices must, necessarily, be short. It is difficult to say which is cause and which effect; and it may be that they are both common effects of a radically bad social organization. Nor can reforms in revenue, either as to the method of raising or of collecting it, be well attempted in the midst of war. The taxes to which the people are accustomed, being those most readily collected, must be resorted to in times when the demand for money is urgent.