in the Spanish Finances, was at first a tax of 10 per cent., afterwards of 14 per cent., and is at present of only 6 per cent., upon the sale of every sort of property, whether movable or immovable; and it is repeated every time the property is sold. The levying of this tax requires a multitude of revenue officers sufficient to guard the transportation of goods, not only from one province to another, but from one shop to another. It subjects not only the dealers in some sort of goods, but those in all sorts, every farmer, every manufacturer, every merchant and shopkeeper, to the continual visits and examination of the tax-gatherers. Through the greater part of a country in which a tax of this kind is established, nothing can be produced for distant sale. The produce of every part of the country must be proportioned to the consumption of the neighbourhood. It is to the Alcavala, accordingly, that Ustaritz imputes the ruin of the manufactures of Spain. He might have imputed to it likewise the declension of agriculture, it being imposed not only upon manufacturers, but upon the rude produce of the land.

ALCAZAR de St Juan, a city on the border of a small lake, in the province of Toledo, in Castile. It contains 2200 inhabitants. It has a saltpetre refinery, and some gunpowder works.

ALCAZAR Leguer, a town of Africa, in the kingdom of Fez, and in the province of Ifalat. It was taken by Alphonso, king of Portugal, in 1468; but soon after that it was abandoned to the Moors. It is seated on the coast of the straits of Gibraltar. Long. 3. 50. W. Lat. 38. 0. N.