Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 6. CHAPTER SIX (continued)

Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tome mine. Worked in the
early days mostly by means of lashes on the backs of slaves, its
yield had been paid for in its own weight of human bones. Whole
tribes of Indians had perished in the exploitation; and then the
mine was abandoned, since with this primitive method it had
ceased to make a profitable return, no matter how many corpses
were thrown into its maw. Then it became forgotten. It was
rediscovered after the War of Independence. An English company
obtained the right to work it, and found so rich a vein that
neither the exactions of successive governments, nor the
periodical raids of recruiting officers upon the population of
paid miners they had created, could discourage their
perseverance. But in the end, during the long turmoil of
pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous Guzman
Bento, the native miners, incited to revolt by the emissaries
sent out from the capital, had risen upon their English chiefs
and murdered them to a man. The decree of confiscation which
appeared immediately afterwards in the Diario Official, published
in Sta. Marta, began with the words: "Justly incensed at the
grinding oppression of foreigners, actuated by sordid motives of
gain rather than by love for a country where they come
impoverished to seek their fortunes, the mining population of San
Tome, etc. . . ." and ended with the declaration: "The chief of
the State has resolved to exercise to the full his power of
clemency. The mine, which by every law, international, human,
and divine, reverts now to the Government as national property,
shall remain closed till the sword drawn for the sacred defence
of liberal principles has accomplished its mission of securing
the happiness of our beloved country."

And for many years this was the last of the San Tome mine. What
advantage that Government had expected from the spoliation, it is
impossible to tell now. Costaguana was made with difficulty to
pay a beggarly money compensation to the families of the victims,
and then the matter dropped out of diplomatic despatches. But
afterwards another Government bethought itself of that valuable
asset. It was an ordinary Costaguana Government--the fourth in
six years--but it judged of its opportunities sanely. It
remembered the San Tome mine with a secret conviction of its
worthlessness in their own hands, but with an ingenious insight
into the various uses a silver mine can be put to, apart from the
sordid process of extracting the metal from under the ground. The
father of Charles Gould, for a long time one of the most wealthy
merchants of Costaguana, had already lost a considerable part of
his fortune in forced loans to the successive Governments. He was
a man of calm judgment, who never dreamed of pressing his claims;
and when, suddenly, the perpetual concession of the San Tome mine
was offered to him in full settlement, his alarm became extreme.
He was versed in the ways of Governments. Indeed, the intention
of this affair, though no doubt deeply meditated in the closet,
lay open on the surface of the document presented urgently for
his signature. The third and most important clause stipulated
that the concession-holder should pay at once to the Government
five years' royalties on the estimated output of the mine.