His primary aim was to support the war. This he intended to do because he felt an ardent patriotism, but other reasons also lay in his mind. Abominating the military class, he desired to have as many as possible of the corrupt officers left on the field, and he designed to keep the army so busy, that it would not be able to prevent the states, which were generally Federalist and democratic in sentiment, from organizing their strength, and making sure that no tyrannical central power would ever raise its front again. But the first requirement for military operations was money. Farías had, therefore, to take up immediately the financial problem, and he found it most difficult.[21.3] Of all the fields of Mexican misgovernment the worst had been the treasury, for it not only required a care and a good judgment that were peculiarly foreign to the national temperament, but provided opportunities for illegitimate gains that were most congenial. During Spanish rule the needs of the country had been fully met, and about nine millions a year, almost half of the revenues, left as a surplus. Under Itúrbide a financial system which three centuries of able administration had built up was despised, and with mines abandoned, agriculture discouraged, commerce paralyzed, honesty relaxed, taxes diminished for the sake of popularity, and expenses increased for the sake of glory, the foundations of ruin were promptly laid. The logical superstructure soon mounted high in the shape of two British loans, which bound Mexico to pay about twenty-six million dollars in return for about fifteen, a large part of which was practically thrown away by her agents.[21.5] [FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES] The expulsion of the rich and thrifty Spaniards, the costs of civil wars, in which the nation paid for both sides, unwise and unstable fiscal systems, borrowing at such rates as four per cent a month, incredibly bad management,[21.4] and methods of accounting that made it impossible for the minister of the treasury to know the actual state of things, were enough to complete the edifice; but they were supplemented with peculation, embezzlement, multiplication of offices, collusion between importers and customhouses, and systematic smuggling winked at by half-starved officials. Revenue after revenue was mortgaged, and by 1845 the government found itself entitled to only about thirteen per cent of what entered the treasury.[21.5]