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The council-pensionary Steyn was a most competent financier, and he with Jan Hop, the treasurer-general of the Union, and with William Bentinck, head and spokesman of the nobles in the Estates of Holland, were urgent in impressing upon the Regent the crying need of retrenchment.

If, therefore, as appears from the official reports of the treasurer-general, Larzabal, in my possession, the receipts at the treasury, in 1780, amounted only to $700,000 including the situado, or annual allowance for the expenses of government sent from New Spain, and after the ordinary charges of administration had been paid, a surplus of $170,000 remained in the hands of the treasurer; at present we have the satisfaction to find that the revenue is equal to $2,625,176.50 and the expenses do not exceed $2,179,731.87 by which means an annual surplus of $445,444.62 is left, applicable to the payment of the debt contracted during the extraordinary period above mentioned, now reduced to about $900,000 and afterwards transferable to the general funds belonging to the crown.

The treasurer-general accordingly gave his memorable banquet to a distinguished party of noblemen. The conversation, during dinner, turned, as was inevitable, upon the Cardinal. His ostentation, greediness, insolence, were fully canvassed.

The treasurer-general accordingly gave his memorable banquet to a distinguished party of noblemen. The conversation, during dinner, turned, as was inevitable, upon the Cardinal. His ostentation, greediness, insolence, were fully canvassed.

The price of their simony paid and their vacated offices sold, the pope made his choice of those he was to poison: the number was fixed at three, one old and two new; the old one was Cardinal Casanova, and the new ones Melchiore Copis and Adriano Castellense, who had taken the name of Adrian of Carneta from that town where he had been born, and where, in the capacity of clerk of the chamber, treasurer-general, and secretary of briefs, he had amassed an immense fortune.

The town, in sign of jubilee, was illuminated for several successive nights. 'A Te Deum was also sung in the parish church of Los Remedios at La Laguna, with sermon and high mass performed at the expense of Don Josef Bartolome de Mesa, Treasurer-General of the Royal Exchequer.

The new princes of the Church were Don Diego de Mendoza, archbishop of Seville; Jacques, archbishop of Oristagny, the Pope's vicar-general; Thomas, archbishop of Strigania; Piero, archbishop of Reggio, governor of Rome; Francesco Bargia, archbishop of Cosenza, treasurer-general; Gian, archbishop of Salerno, vice-chamberlain; Luigi Bargia, archbishop of Valencia, secretary to His Holiness, and brother of the Gian Borgia whom Caesar had poisoned; Antonio, bishop of Coma; Gian Battista Ferraro, bishop of Modem; Amedee d'Albret, son of the King of Navarre, brother-in-law of the Duke of Valentinois; and Marco Cornaro, a Venetian noble, in whose person His Holiness rendered back to the most serene republic the favour he had just received.

In reality Le Chevalier squandered his patrimony recklessly. The treasury of the party presided over by an old officer of Frotté's, Bureau de Placène, who pompously styled himself the Treasurer-General was empty, and orders came from "high places," without any one exactly knowing whence they emanated, for the faithful to refill them by pillaging the coffers of the state.

The treasurer-general accordingly gave his memorable banquet to a distinguished party of noblemen. The conversation, during dinner, turned, as was inevitable, upon the Cardinal. His ostentation, greediness, insolence, were fully canvassed.

They exercised a strong supervision of finance, and sovereign authority over the entire administration of the "Generality" lands. Ambassadors were appointed by them, also the Treasurer-General of the Union, and numerous other important officials. Yet with all these attributes and powers the States-General possessed only a derived, not an inherent, authority.