Since the beginning of hostilities our blockade, assisted by new methods of wholesale smuggling, had greatly reduced the income from duties, which had always been the principal reliance; the adoption of the federal system had given the best part of the internal revenue to the states; and the residue was almost wholly eaten up by the officials. The foreign debt amounted now to more than fifty millions and the domestic debt was nearly twice as great. Every known source of income had been anticipated. Freewill offerings had proved illusory. By ceasing to make payments on account of the debt in May, 1846, the government had largely increased its income, of course, but it had forfeited all title to financial sympathy; and the high officials, who robbed the treasury still in this time of supreme distress, had stripped it of all title to respect.[21.5] The government, therefore, had no real credit. Men who made this kind of gambling their business would now and then furnish a little money for a brief term at an exorbitant rate. In February, 1846, for example, a loan was placed at a total sacrifice of about thirty-seven per cent. But when the treasury was authorized to borrow fifteen millions in a regular way, nobody cared to furnish any part of the sum. New taxes were equally vain. In October, 1846, the government imposed a special war "contribution" in order to save the Mexicans, it explained, from becoming foreigners in their own country, like the Spaniards of Florida; and the chief result was to enrage a handful of persons, who found they had been silly enough to pay while almost everybody else had laughed. In November a forced loan was demanded of the clergy, but the project aroused such opposition that substantially it had to be given up. The whole gamut of methods, even violence, has been tried in vain, said the ministry in December. Business was dead, confidence gone, capital in hiding or sojourning abroad; and if by good luck a bag of silver dropped into the treasury, it seemed to evaporate instantly. Financially, reported the Spanish minister, the situation of the country was "truly frightful."[21.5]