Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol. 1 of 2 / A Historical, Geographical, Political, Statistical and Social Account of That Country From the Period of the Invasion by the Spaniards to the Present Time.

by Brantz Mayer

BOOK II.

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CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

COLONIAL SYSTEM—EARLY GRANTS OF POWER TO RULERS IN MEXICO, BY THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.—ABUSE OF IT.—COUNCIL OF THE INDIES—LAWS.—ROYAL AUDIENCES—CABILDOS—FUEROS.—RELATIVE POSITIONS OF SPANIARDS AND CREOLES.—SCHEME OF SPANISH COLONIAL TRADE.—RESTRICTIONS ON TRADE.—ALCABALA—TAXES—PAPAL BULLS.—BULLS DE CRUZADA—DE DEFUNTOS—OF COMPOSITION.—POWER OF THE CHURCH—ITS PROPERTY—INQUISITION.—THE ACTS OF THE INQUISITION—REPARTIMIENTOS.—INDIANS— AGRICULTURISTS—MINERS—MITA.—EXCUSES FOR MALADMINISTRATION.

Before we present the reader a brief sketch of the viceroyal government of New Spain, it may, in no small degree, contribute to the elucidation of this period if we review the Spanish colonial system that prevailed from the conquest to the revolution which resulted in independence.

As soon as the Spaniards had plundered the wealth accumulated by the Incas and the Aztecs in the semi-civilized empires of Mexico and Peru, they turned their attention to the government of the colonies which they saw springing up as if by enchantment. The allurements of gold and the enticements of a prolific soil, under delicious skies, had not yet ceased to inflame the ardent national fancy of Spain, so that an eager immigration escaped by every route to America. An almost regal and absolute power was vested by special grants from the king in the persons who were despatched from his court to found the first governments in the New World. But this authority was so abused by some of the ministerial agents that Charles V. took an early occasion to curb their power and diminish their original privileges. The Indians who had been divided with the lands among the conquerors by the slavish system of repartimientos, were declared to be the king's subjects. In 1537 the Pope issued a decree declaring the aborigines to be "really and truly men,"—"ipsos veros homines,"—who were capable of receiving the Christian faith.

The sovereign was ever regarded from the first as the direct fountain of all authority throughout Spanish America. All his provinces were governed as colonies and his word was their supreme law. In 1511, Ferdinand created a new governmental department for the control of his American subjects, denominated the Council of the Indies, but it was not fully organized until the reign of Charles the Fifth in 1524. The Recopilacion de las leyes de las Indias declared that this council should have supreme jurisdiction over all the Western Indies pertaining to the Spanish crown, which had been discovered, at that period, or which might thereafter be discovered;—that this jurisdiction should extend over all their interests and affairs; and, moreover, that the council, with the royal assent, should make all laws and ordinances, necessary for the welfare of those provinces. [19] This Council of the Indies consisted of a president, who was the king, four secretaries, and twenty-two counsellors, and the members were usually chosen from among those who had either been viceroys or held high stations abroad. It appointed all the officers employed in America in compliance with the nomination of the crown, and every one was responsible to it for his conduct. As soon as this political and legislative machine was created it began its scheme of law making for the colonies, not, however, upon principles of national right, but according to such dictates of expediency or profit as might accrue to the Spaniards. From time to time they were apprised of the wants of the colonists, but far separated as they were from the subject of their legislation, they naturally committed many errors in regard to a people with whom they had not the sympathy of a common country, and common social or industrial interests. They legislated either for abstractions or with the selfish view of working the colonies for the advantage of the Spanish crown rather than for the gradual and beautiful development of American capabilities. The mines of this continent first attracted the attention of Spain, and the prevailing principle of the scheme adopted in regard to them, was, that the mother country should produce the necessaries or luxuries of life for her colonial vassals, whilst they recompensed their parent with a bountiful revenue of gold and silver.

The bungling, blind, and often corrupt legislation of the Council of the Indies soon filled its records with masses of contradictory and useless laws, so that although there were many beneficent acts, designed especially for the comfort of the Indians, the administration of so confused a system became almost incompatible with justice. If the source of law was vicious its administration was not less impure. The principal courts of justice were the Audiencias reales, or Royal Audiences. In addition to the president,—who was the Viceroy, or Captain General,—the audiencia or court was composed of a regent, three judges, two fiscales or attorneys, (one for civil and the other for criminal cases) a reporter, and an alguazil, or constable. The members of these courts were appointed by the king himself, and, being almost without exception, natives of old Spain, they possessed but few sympathies for the colonists.

After the Royal Audiences, came the Cabildos whose members, consisting of regidores and other persons appointed by the king, and of two alcaldes annually elected by the regidores from among the people,—constituted a municipal body in almost every town or village of importance. These cabildos had no legislative jurisdiction, but superintended the execution of the laws within their districts and regulated all minor local matters. The office of regidor was a regular matter of bargain and sale; and, as the regidores subsequently elected the alcaldes, it will be seen that this admitted of great corruption, and tended to augment the direct oppression of the masses subjected to their jurisdiction. It was an instrument to increase the wealth and strengthen the tyrannical power of the rulers.

These ill regulated audiencias and cabildos, were, in themselves, capable of destroying all principles of just harmony, and were sufficient to corrupt the laws both in their enactment and administration. But all men were not equal before these tribunals. A system of fueros or privileges, opposed innumerable obstacles. These were the privileges of corporate bodies and of the professions; of the clergy, called public or common; and of the monks, canons, inquisitions, college, and universities; the privileges of persons employed in the royal revenue service; the general privileges of the military, which were extended also to the militia, and the especial privileges of the marines, of engineers, and of the artillery. An individual enjoying any of these privileges was elevated above the civil authority, and, whether as plaintiff or defendant, was subject only to the chief of the body to which he belonged, both in civil and criminal cases. So great a number of jurisdictions created an extricable labyrinth, which, by keeping up a ceaseless conflict between the chiefs in regard to the extent of their powers, stimulated each one to sustain his own authority at all hazards, and, with such resoluteness as to employ even force to gain his purpose. [20] Bribery, intrigue, delay, denial of justice, outrage, ruin, were the natural results of such a system of complicated irresponsibility; and consequently it is not singular to find even now in Mexico and South America large masses of people who are utterly ignorant of the true principles upon which justice should be administered or laws enacted for its immaculate protection. The manifesto of independence issued by the Buenos Ayrean Congress in 1816, declares that all public offices belong exclusively to the Spaniards; and although the Americans were equally entitled to them by the laws, they were appointed only in rare instances, and even then, not without satiating the cupidity of the court by enormous sums of money. Of one hundred and seventy viceroys who governed on this continent but four were Americans; and of six hundred and ten Captains General and Governors, all but fourteen were natives of old Spain! Thus it is evident that not only were the Spanish laws bad in their origin, but the administrative system under which they operated denied natives of America in almost all cases the possibility of self government.

The evil schemes of Spain did not stop, however, with the enactment of laws, or their administration. The precious metals had originally tempted her, as we have already seen, and she did not fail to build up a commercial system which was at once to bind the colonists forever to the mines, whilst it enriched and excited her industry at home in arts, manufactures, agriculture, and navigation. As the Atlantic rolled between the old world and the new, America was excluded from all easy or direct means of intercourse with other states of Europe, especially at a period when the naval power of Spain was important, and frequent wars made the navigation of foreign merchantmen or smugglers somewhat dangerous in the face of her cruisers. Spain therefore interdicted all commercial intercourse between her colonies and the rest of the world, thus maintaining a strict monopoly of trade in her own hands. All imports and exports were conveyed in Spanish bottoms, nor was any vessel permitted to sail for Vera Cruz or Porto Bello, her only two authorized American ports, except from Seville, until the year 1720, when the trade was removed to Cadiz as a more convenient outlet. It was not until the War of the Succession that the trade of Peru was opened, and, even then, only to the French. By the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, Great Britain with the asiento, or contract for the supply of slaves, obtained a direct participation in the American trade, by virtue of a permission granted her to send a vessel of five hundred tons annually to the fair at Porto Bello. This privilege ceased with the partial hostilities in 1737, but Spain found herself compelled, on the restoration of peace in 1739, to make some provision for meeting the additional demand which the comparatively free communication with Europe had created. Licenses were granted, with this view, to vessels called register-ships, which were chartered during the intervals between the usual periods for the departure of the galeons. In 1764, a further improvement was made by the establishment of monthly packets to Havana, Porto Rico and Buenos Ayres, which were allowed to carry out half cargoes of goods. This was followed in 1774, by the removal of the interdict upon the intercourse of the colonies with each other; and, this again, in 1778, under what is termed a decree of free trade, by which seven of the principal ports of the peninsula were allowed to carry on a direct intercourse with Buenos Ayres and the South Sea. [21] Up to the period when these civilized modifications of the original interdict were made, the colonists were forbidden to trade either with foreigners or with each other's states, under any pretext whatever. The penalty of disobedience and detection was death.

Having thus enacted that the sole vehicle of colonial commerce should be Spanish, the next effort of the paternal government was to make the things it conveyed Spanish also. As an adjunct in this system of imposition, the laws of the Indies prohibited the manufacture or cultivation in the colonies, of all those articles which could be manufactured or produced in Spain. Factories were therefore inhibited, and foreign articles were permitted to enter the viceroyalties, direct from Spain alone, where they were, of course, subjected to duty previous to re-exportation. But these foreign products were not allowed to be imported in unstinted quantities. Spain fixed both the amount and the price; so that by extorting, ultimately, from the purchaser, the government was a gainer in charges, profits and duties; whilst the merchants of Cadiz and Seville, who enjoyed the monopoly of trade, were enabled to affix any valuation they pleased to their commodities. The ingenuity of the Spaniards in contriving methods to exact the utmost farthing from their submissive colonists, is not a little remarkable. "They took advantage of the wants of the settlers, and were, at one time, sparing in their supplies, so that the price might be enhanced, whilst, at another, they sent goods of poor quality, at a rate much above their value, because it was known they must be purchased. It was a standing practice to despatch European commodities in such small quantities as to quicken the competition of purchasers and command an exorbitant profit. In the most flourishing period of the trade of Seville, the whole amount of shipping employed was less than twenty-eight thousand tons, and many of the vessels made no more than annual voyages. The evident motive on the part of the crown for limiting the supply was, that the same amount of revenue could be more easily levied, and collected with more certainty as well as despatch, on a small than on a large amount of goods." [22]

Whilst the commerce of Spain was thus burdened by enormous impositions, the colonies were of course cramped in all their energies. There could be no independent action of trade, manufacture, or even agriculture, under such a system.

America,—under the tropics and in the temperate regions, abounding in a prolific soil,—was not allowed to cultivate the grape or the olive, whilst, even some kinds of provisions which could easily have been produced on this continent were imported from Spain.

Such were some of the selfish and unnatural means by which the Council of the Indies,—whose laws have been styled, by some writers, beneficent—sought to drain America of her wealth, whilst they created a market for Spain. This was the external code of oppression; but the internal system of this continent, which was justified and enacted by the same council, was not less odious. Taxation, without representation or self government, was the foundation of our revolt; yet, the patient colonies of Spain were forced to bear it from the beginning of their career, so that the idea of freedom, either of opinion or of impost, never entered the minds of an American creole.

Duties, taxes, and tithes were the vexatious instruments of royal plunder. The alcabala, an impost upon all purchases and sales, including even the smallest transactions, was perhaps the most burthensome. "Every species of merchandise, whenever it passed from one owner to another, was subject to a new tax; and merchants, shopkeepers and small dealers, were obliged to report the amount of their purchases and sales under oath." From the acquisition of an estate, to the simple sale of butter, eggs, or vegetables in market, all contracts and persons were subject to this tax, except travellers, clergymen and paupers. Independently of the destruction of trade, which must always ensue from such a system, the reader will at once observe the temptations to vice opened by it. The natural spirit of gain tempts a dealer to cheat an oppressive government by every means in his power. It is therefore not wonderful to find the country filled with contrabandists, and the towns with dishonest tradesmen. Men who defraud in acts, will lie in words, nor will they hesitate to conceal their infamy under the sanction of an oath. Thus was it that the oppressive taxation of Spain became the direct instrument of popular corruption, and, by extending imposts to the minutest ramifications of society, it made the people smugglers, cheats, and perjurers. In addition to the alcabala, there were transit duties through the country, under which, it has been alleged, that European articles were sometimes taxed thirty times before they reached their consumer. The king had his royal fifth of all the gold and silver, and his monopolies of tobacco, salt and gunpowder. He often openly vended the colonial offices, both civil and ecclesiastical. He stamped paper, and derived a revenue from its sale. He affixed a poll tax on every Indian; and, finally, by the most infamous of all impositions, he derived an extensive revenue from the religious superstition of the people. It was not enough to tax the necessaries and luxuries of life,—things actually in existence and tangible,—but, through a refined alchemy of political invention, he managed to coin even the superstitions of the people, and add to the royal income by the sale of "Bulls de cruzada"—"Bulls de defuntos,"—"Bulls for eating milk and eggs during lent,"—and "Bulls of composition." Bales upon bales of these badly printed licenses were sent out from Spain and sold by priests under the direction of a commissary. The villany of this scheme may be more evident if we detain the reader a moment in order to describe the character of these spiritual licenses. Whoever possessed a "Bull de cruzada" might be absolved from all crimes except heresy; nor, could he be suspected even of so deadly a sin, as long as this talismanic paper was in his possession. Besides this, it exempted him from many of the rigorous fasts of the church; while two of them, of course, possessed double the virtue of one. The "Bull for the dead" was a needful passport for a sinner's soul from purgatory. There was no escape without it from the satanic police, and the poor and ignorant classes suffered all the pains of their miserable friends who had gone to the other world, until they were able to purchase the inestimable ticket of release. But of all these wretched impostures, the "Bull of composition" was, probably, the most shameful as well as dangerous. It "released persons who had stolen goods from the obligation to restore them to the owner, provided the thief had not been moved to commit his crime in consequence of a belief that he might escape from its sin by subsequently purchasing the immaculate 'Bull.'" Nor were these all the virtues of this miraculous document. It had the power to "correct the moral offence of false weights and measures; tricks and frauds in trade; all the obliquities of principle and conduct by which swindlers rob honest folks of their property; and, finally, whilst it converted stolen articles into the lawful property of the thief, it also assured to purchasers the absolute ownership of whatever they obtained by modes that ought to have brought them to the gallows. The price of these Bulls depended on the amount of goods stolen; but it is just to add, that only fifty of them could be taken by the same person in a year."[23]

These disgusting details might suffice to show the student how greatly America was oppressed and corrupted by the Spanish government; yet we regret that there are other important matters of misrule which we are not authorised to pass by unnoticed. Thus far we have considered the direct administration and taxing power of the king and Council of the Indies; we must now turn to the despotism exercised over the mind as well as the body of the creoles.

The holy church held all its appointments directly from the king, though the pope enjoyed the privilege of nomination; consequently the actual influence and power of the Hispano-American church, rested in the sovereign. The Recopilacion de las leyes expressly prohibits the erection of cathedrals, parish churches, monasteries, hospitals, native chapels, or other pious or religious edifices, without the express license of the monarch. [24] As all the ecclesiastical revenues went to him, his power and patronage were immense. The religious jurisdiction of the church tribunals extended to monasteries, priests, donations, or legacies for sacred purposes, tithes, marriages, and all spiritual concerns. The fueros of the clergy have been already alluded to. "Instead of any restraint on the claims of the ecclesiastics," says Dr. Robertson, "the inconsistent zeal of the Spanish legislators admitted them into America to their full extent, and, at once imposed on the Spanish colonies a burden which is in no slight degree oppressive to society in its most improved state. As early as 1501 the payment of tithes as it was called, in the colonies was enjoined, and the mode of it regulated by law. Every article of primary necessity towards which the attention of settlers must naturally be turned was submitted to that grievous exaction. Nor were the demands of the clergy confined to articles of simple and easy culture. Its more artificial and operose productions, such as sugar, indigo, and cochineal, were declared to be titheable, and, in this manner, the planter's industry was taxed in every stage of its progress from its rudest essay to its highest improvement." [25] Thus it is that even now, after all the desolating revolutions that have occurred, we see the wealth of the Mexican church so exorbitantly exceeding that of the richest lay proprietors. The clergy readily became the royal agents in this scheme of aggrandizement; convent after convent was built; estate after estate was added to their possessions; dollar after dollar, and diamond after diamond were cast into their gorged treasuries, until their present accumulations are estimated at a sum not far beneath one hundred millions. [26] The monasteries of the Dominicans and Carmelites possess immense riches, chiefly in real estate both in town and country; whilst the convents of nuns in the city of Mexico,—especially those of Concepcion, Encarnacion and Santa Terasa,—are owners of three-fourths of the private houses in the capital, and proportionably, of property in the different states of the republic. [27]

Wherever the church of Rome obtained a foothold in the sixteenth century the Holy Inquisition was not long in asserting and establishing its power. Unfortunately for the zealots of this monastic tribunal, the ignorance of the Indians did not permit them to wander into the mazes of heresy, so that the Dominican monks found but slender employment for their cruel skill. The poor aborigines were hardly worth the trouble of persecution, for the conquerors had already plundered them, and, unfortunately, the Jews did not emigrate to the wilds of America. The inquisition, however, could not restrain its natural love of labor, so, that, diverting its attention from the bodies of its victims it devoted itself, with the occasional recreation of an auto da fe, to the spiritual guardianship of Spanish and Indian intellects. Education was of course modified and repressed by such baneful influences. Men dared neither learn nor read, except what was selected for them by the monks. At the end of the eighteenth century there were but three presses in Spanish America,—one in Mexico, one in Lima, and one which belonged to the Jesuits at Cordova; but these presses were designed for the use of the government alone in the dissemination of its decrees. The eye of the inquisition was of course jealously directed to all publications. Booksellers were bound to furnish the Holy Fathers annually with a list of their merchandise, and the fraternity was empowered to enter wheresoever it pleased, to seek and seize prohibited literature. Luther, Calvin, Vattel, Montesquieu, Puffendorff, Robertson, Addison, and even the Roman Catholic Fenelon, were all proscribed. The inquisition was the great censor of the press, and nothing was submitted to the people unless it had passed the fiery ordeal of the holy office. It was quite enough for a book to be wise, classical, or progressive, to subject it to condemnation. Even viceroys and governors were forbidden to license the publication of a work unless the inquisition sanctioned it; and we have seen volumes in Mexico, still kept as curiosities in private libraries, out of which pages were torn and passages obliterated by the Holy Fathers, before they were permitted to be sold. [28]

Inasmuch as the Indians formed the great bulk of Hispano-American population, the king, of course, soon after the discovery, directed his attention to their capabilities for labor. We have seen in a previous part of this chapter that by a system of repartimientos they were divided among the conquerors and made vassals of the land holders, although always kept distinct from the negroes who were afterwards imported from Africa. Although the Emperor Charles V., enacted a number of mild laws for the amelioration of their fate, their condition seems, nevertheless, to have been very little improved,—according to our personal observation,—even to the present day. We have noticed that a capitation tax was levied on every Indian, and that it varied in different parts of Spanish America, from four to fifteen dollars, according to the ability of the Indians. They were likewise doomed to labor on the public works, as well as to cultivate the soil for the general benefit of the country, whilst by the imposition of the mita they were forced to toil in the mines under a rigorous and debasing system which the world believed altogether unequalled in mineral districts until the British parliamentary reports of a few years past disclosed the fact, that even in England, men and women are sometimes degraded into beasts of burden in the mines whose galleries traverse in every direction the bowels of that proud kingdom. [29] Toils and suffering were the natural conditions of the poor Indian in America after the conquest, and it might have been supposed that the plain dictates of humanity would make the Spaniards content with the labor of their serfs, without attempting afterwards, to rob them of the wages of such ignominious labor. But even in this, the Spanish ingenuity and avarice were not to be foiled, for the corregidores in the towns and villages, to whom were granted the minor monopolies of almost all the necessaries of life, made this a pretext of obliging the Indians to purchase what they required at the prices they chose to affix to their goods. Monopoly—was the order of the day in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Its oppressions extended through all ranks, and its grasping advantages were eagerly seized by every magistrate from the alguazil to the viceroy. The people groaned, but paid the burthensome exaction, whilst the relentless officer, hardened by the contemplation of misery, and the constant commission of legalized robbery, only became more watchful, sagacious and grinding in proportion as he discovered how much the down-trodden masses could bear. Benevolent viceroys and liberal kings, frequently interposed to prevent the continuance of these unjust acts, but they were unable to cope with the numerous officials who performed all the minor ministerial duties throughout the colony. These inferior agents, in a new and partially unorganized country, had every advantage in their favor over the central authorities in the capital. The poorer Spaniards and the Indian serfs had no means of making their complaints heard in the palace. There was no press or public opinion to give voice to the sorrows of the masses, and personal fear often silenced the few who might have reached the ear of merciful and just rulers. At court, the rich, powerful and influential miners or land holders, always discovered pliant tools who were ready by intrigue and corruption to smother the cry of discontent, or to account plausibly for the murmurs, which upon extraordinary occasions, burst through all restraints until they reached either the Audiencia or the representative of the sovereign. These slender excuses may, in some degree, account for and palliate the maladministration of Spanish America from the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century.

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The ensuing chapters of this book contain the annals of New Spain from the foundation of the viceroyal system to the beginning of the revolution that grew out of its corruptions. The materials for this portion of Mexican history are exceedingly scant. During the jealous despotism and ecclesiastical vigilance of old Spanish rule, and the anarchy of modern miscalled republicanism, few authors have ventured to penetrate the gloom of this mysterious period. The Jesuit Father Cavo, and Don Carlos Maria Bustamante have alone essayed to narrate, consecutively, the events of the viceroyalty; and although no student of the past is attracted by their crude and careless style, yet we may confidently rely on the characteristic facts detailed in their tedious work. [30]

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Footnotes

[19] Recop. de las leyes, lib. 2, title 2, ley 2.

[20] Mendez, Observaciones sobre les leyes de Indias y sobre la independencia de America. London, 1823. p. 174.

[21] Ward's Mexico in 1827, vol. 1, p. 116.

[22] North American Review, vol. xix. p. 117.

[ [23] See Pazo's letters on South America, pages 88, 89, North American Review, art. antec., pages 186 and 187, et Depons.

[ [24] Recopilacion, lib. i, Tit. vi, Ley 2, North American Review, art. antec. p. 189.

[ [25] Robertson's Hist. of Amer.; Zavala Hist. Revo. of Mexico.

[ [26] Otero, Cuestion social, pages 38, 39, 43.

[ [27] Zavala Hist. Revo. de Mexico, pages 16, 17, vol. 1.

[ [28] See Zavala, vol. 1, p. 52.

[ [29] See British Parliamentary Report on the condition of the miners and mining districts.

[ [30] "Los Tres Siglos de Mejico, durante el Gobierno Español," 1521 to 1766, written by Father Andres Cavo, of the Society of Jesus; 1767 to 1821, written by Don Carlos Maria Bustamante.

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CHAPTER II.
1530–1551.

FOUNDING OF THE VICEROYALTY OF NEW SPAIN.—NEW AUDIENCIA—FUENLEAL—MENDOZA.—EARLY ACTS OF THE FIRST VICEROY—COINAGE.—REBELLION IN JALISCO—VICEROY SUPPRESSES IT.—COUNCIL OF THE INDIES ON REPARTIMIENTOS.—INDIAN SERVITUDE.—QUIVARA—EXPEDITIONS OF CORONADO AND ALARCON.—PEST IN 1546—REVOLUTION—COUNCIL OF BISHOPS.—MINES—ZAPOTECS REVOLT—MENDOZA REMOVED TO PERU.

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Antonio de Mendoza, Count of Tendilla,
I. Viceroy of New Spain.
1530–1551.

In the year 1530, the accusations received in Spain against Nuño de Guzman, and the oidores Matinezo and Delgadillo, who at that period ruled in Mexico under royal authority, were not only so frequent, but of so terrible a character, that Charles V., resolved to adopt some means of remedying the evils of his transatlantic subjects. He was about to depart from Spain however, for Flanders, and charged the Empress to adopt the necessary measures for this purpose during his absence. This enlightened personage, perceiving the difficulty of ruling so distant, extended and rich an appendage of the Spanish crown, by inferior officials alone, wisely determined to establish a Viceroyalty in New Spain. It was a measure which seemed to place the two worlds in more loyal affinity. The vice king, it was supposed, would be the impersonation of sovereignty, the direct representative of the national head, and would always form an independent and truthful channel of information. His position set him, eminently, above the crowd of adventurers who were tempted to the shores of America; and, removable at the royal pleasure, as well as selected from among those Spanish nobles whose fidelity to the crown was unquestionable, there was but little danger that even the most ambitious subject would ever be tempted to alienate from the Emperor the affection and services either of emigrants or natives.

The Empress, in fulfilling the wishes of her august spouse, at first fixed her eyes upon the Count de Oropesa and on the Marshal de Fromesta, as persons well fitted to undertake the difficult charge of founding the Mexican viceroyalty. But these individuals, upon various pretexts, declined the mission, which was next tendered to Don Manuel Benavides, whose exorbitant demands for money and authority, finally induced the sovereign to withdraw her nomination. Finally, she resolved to despatch Don Antonio de Mendoza, Count of Tendilla, one of her chamberlains, who requested only sufficient time to regulate his private affairs before he joyfully set forth for his viceroyalty of New Spain. In the meantime, however, in order not to lose a moment in remedying the disorders on the other side of the Atlantic, the Empress created a new Audiencia, at the head of which was Don Sebastian Ramirez de Fuenleal, bishop of St. Domingo, and whose members were the Licenciados Vasco de Quiroga, Alonso Maldonado, Francisco Cainos and Juan de Salmeron. The appointment of the bishop was well justified by his subsequent career of integrity, beneficence and wisdom; whilst Vasco de Quiroga has left in Michoacan, and, indeed, in all Mexico, a venerated name, whose renown is not forgotten, in private life and the legends of the country to the present day.

In 1535, Mendoza arrived in Mexico with letters for the Audiencia, and was received with all the pomp and splendor becoming the representative of royalty. His instructions were couched in the most liberal terms, for, after all, it was chiefly on the personal integrity and discretion of a viceroy that the Spanish sovereigns were obliged to rely for the sure foundation of their American empire. Of the desire of the Emperor and Empress to act their parts justly and honestly in the opening of this splendid drama in America there can be no doubt. Their true policy was to develope, not to destroy; and they at once perceived that, in the New World, they no longer dealt with those organized classes of civilized society which, in Europe, yield either instinctively to the feeling of loyalty, or are easily coerced into obedience to the laws.

Mendoza was commanded, in the first place, to direct his attention to the condition of public worship; to the punishment of clergymen who scandalized their calling; to the conversion and good treatment of the Indian population, and to the erection of a mint in which silver should be coined according to laws made upon this subject by Ferdinand and Isabella. All the wealth which was found in Indian tombs or temples was to be sought out and devoted to the royal treasury. It was forbidden, under heavy penalties, to sell arms to negroes or Indians, and the latter were, moreover, denied the privilege of learning to work in those more difficult or elegant branches of labor which might interfere with the sale of Spanish imported productions.

During the following year Mendoza received despatches from the Emperor in which, after bestowing encomiums for the manifestations of good government which the viceroy had already given, he was directed to pay particular attention to the Indians; and, together with these missives, came a summary of the laws which the Council of the Indies had formed for the welfare of the natives. These benevolent intentions, not only of the sovereign but of the Spanish people also, were made known to the Indians and their caciques, upon an occasion of festivity, by a clergyman who was versed in their language, and, in a similar way, they were disseminated throughout the whole viceroyalty. This year was, moreover, memorable in Mexican annals as that in which the first book, entitled La Escala de San Juan Climaca, was published in Mexico, in the establishment of Juan Pablos, having been printed at a press brought to the country by the viceroy Mendoza. Nor was 1536 alone signalized by the first literary issue of the new kingdom; for the first money, as well as the first book came at this time from the Mexican mint. According to Torquemada two hundred thousand dollars were coined in copper; but the emission of a circulating medium, in this base metal, was so distasteful to the Mexicans, that it became necessary for the viceroy to use stringent means in order to compel its reception for the ordinary purposes of trade.

Between the years 1536 and 1540 the history of the Mexican viceroyalty was uneventful, save in the gradual progressive efforts made not only by Mendoza, but by the Emperor himself, in endeavoring to model and consolidate the Spanish empire on our continent. Schools were established; hospitals were erected; the protection of the Indians, under the apostolic labors of Las Casas was honestly fostered, and every effort appears to have been zealously made to give a permanent and domestic character to the population which found its way rapidly into New Spain. In 1541 the copper coin, of which we have already spoken as being distasteful to the Mexicans, suddenly disappeared altogether from circulation, and it was discovered that the natives had either buried or thrown it into the lake as utterly worthless. The viceroy endeavored to remedy the evil and dispel the popular prejudice by coining cuartillas of silver; but these, from their extreme smallness and the constant risk of loss, were equally unacceptable to the people, who either collected large quantities and melted them into bars, or cast them contemptuously into the water as they had before done with the despised copper.

It was not until about the year 1542, that we perceive in the viceroyal history, any attempts upon the part of the Indians to make formidable assaults against the Spaniards, whose oppressive and grinding system of repartimientos was undoubtedly beginning to be felt. At this period the Indians of Jalisco rose in arms, and symptoms of discontent were observed to prevail, also, among the Tarascos and Tlascalans, who even manifested an intention of uniting with the rebellious natives of the north. Mendoza was not an idle spectator of these movements, but resolved to go forth, in person, at the head of his troops to put down the insurgents. Accordingly he called on the Tlascalans, Cholulans, Huexotzinques, Tezcocans, and other bands or tribes for support, and permitted the caciques to use horses and the same arms that were borne by the Spaniards. This concession seems to have greatly pleased the natives of the country, though it was unsatisfactory to some of their foreign masters.

In the meanwhile, the coasts of America on the west, and the shores of California especially, were examined by the Portuguese Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, as far north as near the 41st° of latitude; whilst another expedition was despatched to the Spice islands, under the charge of Ruy Lopez de Villalobos.

The viceroy was moreover busy with the preparation of his army designed to march upon Jalisco, and, on the 8th of October, 1542, departed from Mexico with a force of fifty thousand Indians, three hundred cavalry, and one hundred and fifty Spanish infantry. Passing through Michoacan, where he was detained for some time, he, at length, reached the scene of the insurrection in Jalisco; but before he attacked the rebels he proclaimed through the ecclesiastics who accompanied him, his earnest wish to accommodate difficulties, and, even, to pardon, graciously, all who would lay down their arms and return to their allegiance. He ordered that no prisoners should be made except of such as were needed to transport the baggage and equipments of his troops; and, in every possible way, he manifested a humane desire to soften the asperities and disasters of the unequal warfare. But the rebellious Indians were unwilling to listen to terms:—"We are lords of all these lands," said they, heroically, in reply, "and we wish to die in their defence!"

Various actions ensued between the Spaniards, their allies, and the insurgents, until at length, Mendoza obtained such decided advantages over his opponents that they gave up the contest, threw down their arms, and enabled the viceroy to return to his capital with the assurance that the revolted territory was entirely and permanently pacified. His conduct to the Indians after his successes was characterized by all the suavity of a noble soul. He took no revenge for this assault upon the Spanish authority, and seems, to have continually endeavored to win the natives to their allegiance by kindness rather than compulsion.

These outbreaks among the Indians were of course not unknown in Spain, where they occasioned no trifling fear for the integrity and ultimate dominion of New Spain. The natural disposition of the Emperor towards the aborigines, was, as we have said, kind and gentle; but he perceived that the causes of these Indian discontents might be attributed not so much, perhaps, to a patriotic desire to recover their violated rights over the country, as to the cruelty they endured at the hands of bold and reckless adventurers who had emigrated to New Spain and converted the inoffensive children of the country into slaves. Accordingly, the Emperor, convened a council composed of eminent persons in Spain, to consider the condition of his American subjects. This council undertook the commission in a proper spirit, and adopted a liberal system towards the aborigines, as well as towards the proprietors of estates in the islands and on the main, which, in time, would have fostered the industry and secured the ultimate prosperity of all classes. There were to be no slaves made in the future wars of these countries; the system of repartimientos was to be abandoned; and the Indians were not, as a class, to be solely devoted to ignoble tasks. [31] The widest publicity was given to these humane intentions in Spain. The Visitador of Hispaniola, or San Domingo, Miguel Diaz de Armendariz, was directed to see their strict fulfilment in the islands; and Francisco Tello de Sandoval was commissioned to cross the Atlantic to Mexico, with full powers and instructions from the Emperor, to enforce their obedience in New Spain.

In February, 1544, this functionary disembarked at St. Juan de Ulua, and, a month afterwards, arrived in the capital. No sooner did he appear in Mexico than the object of his mission became gradually noised about among the proprietors and planters whose wealth depended chiefly upon the preservation of their estates and Indians in the servile condition in which they were before the assemblage of the Emperor's council in Spain during the previous year. Every effort was therefore made by these persons and their sattelites to prevent the execution of the royal will. Appeals were addressed to Sandoval invoking him to remain silent. He was cautioned not to interfere with a state of society upon which the property of the realm depended. The ruin of many families, the general destruction of property, the complete revolution of the American system, were painted in glowing colors, by these men who pretended to regard the just decrees of the Emperor as mere "innovations" upon the established laws of New Spain. But Sandoval was firm, and he was stoutly sustained in his honorable loyalty to his sovereign and christianity, by the countenance of the viceroy Mendoza. Accordingly, the imperial decrees were promulgated throughout New Spain, and resulted in seditious movements among the disaffected proprietors which became so formidable that the peace of the country was seriously endangered. In this dilemma,—feeling, probably, that the great mass of the people was the only bulwark of the government against the Indians, and that it was needful to conciliate so powerful a body,—permission was granted by the authorities, to appoint certain representatives as a commission to lay the cause before the Emperor himself. Accordingly two delegates were despatched to Spain together with the provincials of San Francisco, Santo Domingo and San Agustin, and other Spaniards of wealth and influence in the colony.

In the following year, Sandoval, who had somewhat relaxed his authority, took upon himself the dangerous task of absolutely enforcing the orders of the Emperor with some degree of strictness, notwithstanding the visit of the representatives of the discontented Mexicans to Spain. He displaced several oidores and other officers who disgraced their trusts, and deprived various proprietors of their repartimientos or portions of Indians who had been abused by the cruel exercise of authority. But, in the meantime, the agents had not ceased to labor at the court in Spain. Money, influence, falsehood and intrigue were freely used to sustain the system of masked slavery among the subjugated natives, and, at last, a royal cedula was procured commanding the revocation of the humane decrees and ordering the division of the royal domain among the conquerors. The Indians, of course, followed the fate of the soil; and thus, by chicanery and influence, the gentle efforts of the better portion of Spanish society were rendered entirely nugatory. The news of this decree spread joy among the Mexican landed proprietors. The chains of slavery were rivetted upon the natives. The principle of compulsory labor was established forever; and, even to this day, the Indian of Mexico remains the bondsman he was doomed to become in the sixteenth century.

Between the years 1540 and 1542, an expedition was undertaken for the subjugation of an important nation which it was alleged existed far to the north of Mexico. A Franciscan missionary, Marcos de Naza, reported that he had discovered, north of Sonora, a rich and powerful people inhabiting a realm known as Quivara, or the seven cities, whose capital, Cibola, was quite as civilized as an European city. After the report had reached and been considered in Spain, it was determined to send an armed force to this region in order to explore, and if possible to reduce the Quivarans to the Spanish yoke. Mendoza had designed to entrust this expedition to Pedro de Alvarado, after having refused Cortéz permission to lead the adventurers,—a task which he had demanded as his right. But when all the troops were enlisted, Alvarado had not yet reached Mexico from Guatemala, and, accordingly, the viceroy despatched Vasquez de Coronado, at the head of the enterprise. At the same time he fitted out another expedition, with two ships, under the orders of Francisco Alarcon, who was to make a reconnoisance of the coast as far as the thirty-sixth degree, and, after having frequently visited the shores, he was, in that latitude to meet the forces sent by land.

Coronado set forth from Culiacan, with three hundred and fifty Spaniards and eight hundred Indians, and, after reaching the source of the Gila, passed the mountains to the Rio del Norte. He wintered twice in the region now called New Mexico, explored it thoroughly from north to south, and then, striking off to the north east, crossed the mountains and wandering eastwardly as far north as the fortieth degree of latitude, he unfortunately found neither Quivara nor gold. A few wretched ruins of Indian villages were all the discoveries made by these hardy pioneers, and thus the enchanted kingdom eluded the grasp of Spain forever. The troop of strangers and Indians soon became disorganized and disbanded; nor was Alarcon more successful by sea than Coronado by land. His vessels explored the shores of the Pacific carefully, but they found no wealthy cities to plunder, nor could the sailors hear of any from the Indians with whom they held intercourse.

In 1546, a desolating pestilence swept over the land, destroying, according to some writers, eight hundred thousand Indians, and, according to others, five-sixths of the whole population. It lasted for about six months; and, at this period, a projected insurrection among the black slaves and the Tenochan and Tlaltelolcan Indians, was detected through a negro. This menaced outbreak was soon crushed by Mendoza, who seized and promptly executed the ringleaders.

A portion of the Visitador Sandoval's orders related to the convocation of the Mexican bishops with a view to the spiritual welfare of the natives, and the prelates were accordingly all summoned to the capital, with the exception of the virtuous Las Casas, whose humane efforts in behalf of the Indians, and whose efforts to free them from the slavery of the repartimientos had subjected him to the mortal hatred of the planters. The council of ecclesiastics met; but it is probable that their efforts were quite as ineffectual as the humane decrees of the Emperor, and that even in the church itself, there may have been persons who were willing to tolerate the involuntary servitude of the natives rather than forego the practical and beneficial enjoyment of estates which were beginning to fall into the possession of convents and monastaries on the death of pious penitents.

Meanwhile the population of New Spain increased considerably, especially towards the westward. It was soon perceived by Mendoza that a single Audiencia was no longer sufficient for so extended a country. He, therefore, recommended the appointment of another, in Compostella de la Nueva Gallacia, and in 1547, the Emperor ordered two letrados for the administration of justice in that quarter. The ultimate reduction of the province of Vera-Paz was likewise accomplished at this period. The benignant name of "True Peace" was bestowed on this territory from the fact that the inhabitants yielded gracefully and speedily to the persuasive influence and spiritual conquest of the Dominican monks, and that not a single soldier was needed to teach them the religion of Christ at the point of the sword.

During the two or three following years there was but little to disturb the quietness of the colony, save in brief and easily suppressed outbreaks among the Indians. Royal lands were divided among poor and meritorious Spaniards; property which was found to be valueless in the neighborhood of cities was allowed to be exchanged for mountain tracts, in which the eager adventurers supposed they might discover mineral wealth; and the valuable mines of Tasco, Zultepec, and Temascaltepec, together with others, probably well known to the ancient Mexicans, were once more thrown open and diligently worked.

The wise administration of the Mexican viceroyalty by Mendoza had been often acknowledged by the Emperor. He found in this distinguished person a man qualified by nature to deal with the elements of a new society when they were in their wildest moments of confusion, and before they had become organized into the order and system of a regular state. Mendoza, by nature firm, amiable, and just, seems nevertheless to have been a person who knew when it was necessary in a new country, to bend before the storm of popular opinion in order to avoid the destruction, not only of his own influence, but perhaps of society, civilization and the Spanish authorities themselves. In the midst of all the fiery and unregulated spirit of a colony like Mexico, he sustained the dignity of his office unimpaired, and by command, diplomacy, management, and probably sometimes by intrigue, he appears to have ensured obedience to the laws even when they were distasteful to the masses. He was successful upon all occasions except in the enforcement of the complete emancipation of the Indians; but it may be questioned whether he did not deem it needful, in the infancy of the viceroyalty at least, to subject the Indians to labors which his countrymen were either too few in number or too little acclimated in Mexico to perform successfully. History must at least do him the justice to record the fact that his administration was tempered with mercy, for even the Indians revered him as a man who was their signal protector against wanton inhumanity.

Whilst these events occurred in Mexico, Pizarro had subjugated Peru, and added it to the Spanish crown. But there, as in Mexico, an able man was needed to organize the fragmentary society which was in the utmost disorder after the conquest. No one appeared to the Emperor better fitted for the task than the viceroy whose administration had been so successful in Mexico. Accordingly, in 1550, the viceroyalty of Peru was offered to him, and its acceptance urged by the Emperor at a moment when a revolt against the Spaniards occurred among the Zapotecas, instigated by their old men and chiefs, who, availing themselves of an ancient prophecy relative to the return of Quetzalcoatl, assured the youths and warriors of their tribe that the predicted period had arrived and that, under the protection of their restored deity, their chains would be broken. In this, as in all other endeavors to preserve order, the efforts of Mendoza were successful. He appeased the Indians, accepted the proffered task of governing Peru; and, after meeting and conferring with his successor, Velasco, in Cholula, departed from Mexico for the scene of his new labors on the distant shores of the Pacific.

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Footnote

[31] Herrera Decade vii., lib. vi., chap. v.

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CHAPTER III.
1551–1564.

VELASCO ENDEAVORS TO AMELIORATE THE CONDITION OF THE INDIANS.—UNIVERSITY OF MEXICO ESTABLISHED—INUNDATION.—MILITARY COLONIZATION—PHILIP II.—FLORIDA.—INTRIGUES AGAINST VELASCO—PHILIPINE ISLES.—DEATH OF VELASCO—MARQUES DE FALCES.—BAPTISM OF THE GRAND CHILDREN OF CORTÉZ.—CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE MARQUES DEL VALLE—HIS ARREST—EXECUTION OF HIS FRIENDS.—MARQUES DE FALCES—CHARGES AGAINST HIM—HIS FALL.—ERRORS OF PHILIP II.—FALL OF MUÑOZ AND HIS RETURN.—VINDICATION OF THE VICEROY.

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Don Luis de Velasco,
II. Viceroy of New Spain.
1551–1564.

The new viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, arrived in Mexico without especial orders changing the character of the government. He was selected by the Emperor as a person deemed eminently fitted to sustain the judicious policy of his predecessor; and it is probable that he had secret commands from the court to attempt once more the amelioration of the Indian population. There is no doubt that Charles the Fifth was sincere in his wish to protect the natives; and, if he yielded at all,—as we have seen in the narrative of the last viceroyalty,—to the demands of the owners of repartimientos, it was probably with the hope that a better opportunity of sustaining his humane desires would occur as soon as the conquerors or their followers, were glutted by the rich harvests they might reap during the early years of the settlement.

Accordingly, we find, as soon as Velasco had been received in Mexico with all suitable ceremony and honor, that, notwithstanding the continued opposition of the proprietors and planters, he proclaimed his determination to carry out the orders that had been given to Mendoza, so far as they tended to relieve the Indians from the personal labors, tributes, and severe service in the mines with which they had been burdened by the conquerors. This, as was expected, created extraordinary discontent. The cupidity of the sovereign and of his representative were appealed to. It was alleged that not only would the Spanish emigrants suffer for the want of laborers, but that the royal treasury would soon be emptied of the taxes and income which, thus far, had regularly flowed into it. But Don Luis was firm in his resolution, and declared that "the liberty of the Indians was of more importance than all the mines in the world, and that the revenues they yielded to the Spanish crown were not of such a character that all divine and human laws should be sacrificed, in order to obtain them."

In 1553, the attention of the viceroy was specially directed to the subject of education, for the population had so greatly increased in the few years of stable government, that unless the best means of instructing the growing generation were speedily adopted, it was probable that New Spain would lose many of the descendants of those families which it was the policy of the crown to establish permanently in America. The University of Mexico was therefore consecrated and opened in this year; and, in 1555, Paul IV., bestowed upon it the same privileges and rights as were enjoyed by that of Salamanca in Spain.

But this was a sad year for the city of Mexico, in other respects. The first inundation since the conquest, occurred in 1553, and for three days the capital was under water and the communication kept up in boats and canoes. Every effort was made by the viceroy to prevent the recurrence of the evil, by the erection of a dyke to dam up the waters of the lake; and it is related by contemporary historians, that he even wrought with his own hands at the gigantic work, during the first day, in order to show a good example to the citizens who were called on to contribute their personal labor for their future protection from such a disaster.

*****

There were few outbreaks among the Indians during this viceroyalty, yet there were troublesome persons among the original tribes of the Chichimecas,—some bands of whom were not yet entirely subjected to the Spanish government,—who contrived to keep up a guerilla warfare, which interrupted the free circulation of the Spaniards through the plains and mountain passes of the Bajio. These were, in all probability, mere predatory attacks; but as it was impossible for the viceroy to spare sufficient numbers of faithful soldiers for the purpose of scouring the hiding places and fastnesses of these robber bands, he resolved to found a number of villages composed of natives and foreigners, and to place in them, permanently, sufficient numbers of troops to protect the adjacent country roads, and to form the nucleus of towns, which, in the course of time, would grow to importance. Such was the origin, by military colonization, of San Felipe Yztlahuaca, and of San Miguel el Grande, now known as Allende, from the hero of that name to whom it gave birth. It was the constant policy of the Emperor to extend the avenues of industry for his emigrant subjects by such a system of security and protection; and, accordingly, Don Francisco Ibarra, was despatched to the interior with orders to explore the northern and western regions, but, on no account, to use arms against the natives except in case of the utmost urgency. Ibarra traversed a wide and nearly unknown region, discovered rich mines of gold and silver, and colonized many places of considerable importance in the subsequent development of Mexico, and among them, the city of Durango, which is now the capital of the state of that name.

*****

The abdication of Charles V. was unofficially announced in Mexico in 1556; but it was not until the 6th of June of the following year that his successor Philip II. was proclaimed in the capital of New Spain. The policy of the old Emperor was not changed by the accession of the new king; nor does the monarch appear to have influenced in any particular manner the destiny of Mexico during the continuance of Velasco's government, except by the fitting out, at his special command, under the order of his viceroy, of an expedition for the conquest of Florida, which proved disastrous to all concerned in it. Crowds flocked in the year 1558 to the standard raised for this adventure, which it was supposed would result in gratifying the Spanish thirst for gold. In the following year the few who remained of the untoward enterprise, returned with their commanders to Havana and thence to New Spain.

Thus far Velasco's administration had been successful in preserving the peace in Mexico,—in opening the resources of the country in mines, agriculture and pastoral affairs,—and in alleviating the condition of the Indians by gradual restraints on his countrymen. His power was unlimited; but he had, in no instance abused it, or countenanced its abuse in others. Anxious not to rely exclusively upon his own resources, but to take council from the best authorities in cases of difficulty or doubt, he invariably consulted the Audiencia in all emergencies. But, just and loyal as had been his official conduct, it had not saved him from creating enemies; and these, unfortunately, were not only found among the rich oppressors whose shameless conduct he strove to punish, but even among the members of the Audiencia itself. These men combined secretly to undermine the influence of the viceroy, and despatched commissioners to Spain, who represented to the king that the health of his representative was in a failing state, and that it was extremely needful he should be sustained by a council whose duty it was to direct him upon all questions of public interest. The intriguers were successful in their appeal, and a decree soon arrived in New Spain announcing that the viceroy should thenceforth do nothing without the previous sanction of the Audiencia. This order of the king immediately put the power into the hands of individuals whose object was rather to acquire sudden wealth than to govern a new and semi-civilized nation justly, or to enact laws which would develope the resources of the country. The viceroy had been impartial. He held the balance between the Indian laborer and the Spanish extortioner. His office and emoluments placed him, at that period, high above the ordinary temptations of avarice. But the Audiencia, composed of several persons, whose position was far inferior to the viceroy's, was accessible to intrigue and corruption, and the unfortunate Indians soon found to their cost, that the royal limitation on Velasco's power had lost them a friend and staunch supporter. The Audiencia and the viceroy were soon surrounded by parties who advocated their different causes with zeal; but the loyal viceroy did not murmur in the discharge of his duty and faithfully followed the order of the king to submit his judgment to the council. Nevertheless all were not so patient as Velasco. Counter statements were sent, by skilful advocates, to Spain; and Velasco himself required an examination to be made into his official conduct.

Accordingly, Philip II. appointed a certain licenciado Valderrama, as visitador of New Spain, who arrived in 1563, and immediately began the discharge of his functions by a course of exaction, especially from the Indians, which neither the appeals nor the arguments of the viceroy could induce him to abandon. The arrival of this harsh and cruel personage, was, indeed, sad for Mexico, and, in the country's history, he still retains the name of "El Molestador de los Indios."

Fortunately for Velasco an escape from the double tyranny of the Audiencia and of Valderrama was opened to him in an expedition to the Philipine islands which the king had ordered him to colonize. But whilst he was engaged in organizing his forces and preparing for the voyage, his health suddenly gave way, and on the 31st of July, 1564, he expired amid the general grief of all the worthier classes of Mexico, and, especially, of the Indians, whom he had befriended. Death silenced the murmurs of the intriguers. When the beneficent viceroy could no longer interfere with the selfish interests of the multitude, crowds flocked around his bier to honor his harmless remains.

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Don Gaston de Peralta, Marques de Falces,
III. Viceroy of New Spain.
1564–1568.

On the death of Don Luis de Velasco the First, the reins of government remained in the hands of the Royal Audiencia, in conformity with the order of Philip II. Francisco de Zeinos, Pedro de Villalobos, and Geronimo de Orozoco were then the oidores; while Valderrama, whose visit occurred during the government of Don Luis de Velasco, as we have already narrated, had departed for Spain. In 1564, the expedition which was planned and prepared under the last viceroy, sailed for the Philipine islands, and founded the celebrated city of Manilla, which has since played so distinguished a part in the history of oriental commerce.

The year 1566 was an important one, at least in the social history of Mexico, for it was fraught with danger to the son and representative of the illustrious conqueror. The Marques del Valle, heir of Hernando Cortéz, had been for sometime established in the capital, where he formed the nucleus of a noble circle, and was admired by all classes for the splendor with which he maintained the honor of his house. His palace was constantly filled with the flower of Mexican aristocracy, and among the knightly train of gallant men, few were more distinguished for gentle bearing and personal accomplishment than Alonso de Avila Alvarado, and his brother Gil Gonzalez. The Marques del Valle, distinguished the former by his special attentions, and this, together with the imprudent conduct or expressions of Alonso, made him suspected by persons who simulated an extraordinary zeal for the Spanish monarchy, whilst, in fact, their chief object was to ingratiate themselves with men of power or influence in order to further their private interests.

On the 30th of June, 1566, the Dean of the Cathedral, Don Juan Chico de Molina, baptized in that sacred edifice, the twin daughters of the Marques del Valle, whose sponsors were Don Lucas de Castilla and Doña Juana de Sosa. The festivities of the gallant Marques upon this occasion of family rejoicing, were, as usual among the rich in Spanish countries, attended with the utmost magnificence; and in order to present our readers a picture of the manners of the period, we shall describe the scene as it is related by those who witnessed it.

It was a day of general rejoicing and festivity in the city of Mexico. From the palace of the Marques to the door of the cathedral, a passage was formed under lofty and splendid canopies composed of the richest stuffs. A salute of artillery announced the entry of the twins into the church, and it was repeated at their departure. At the moment when the rites of religion were completed and the infants were borne back to their home through the covered way, the spectators in the plaza were amused by a chivalric tournament between twelve knights in complete steel. Other rare and costly diversions succeeded in an artificial grove, which the Marques had caused to be erected in the plazuela, or lesser square, intervening between his palace and the cathedral. Nor were these amusements designed alone for persons of his own rank, for the masses of the people were also summoned to partake his bountiful hospitality. At the doors of his princely dwelling tables were sumptuously spread with roasted oxen, all kinds of wild fowl and numberless delicacies, whilst two casks of white and red wine,—then esteemed in Mexico the most luxurious rarities,—were set flowing for the people.

At night, Alonso Gonzalez de Avila, the intimate companion of the Marques, entertained the chief personages of Mexico with a splendid ball, during which there was a performance, or symbolical masque representing the reception of Hernando Cortéz by the Emperor Montezuma. Alonso, splendidly attired, sustained the part of the Mexican sovereign. During one of the evolutions of the spectacle, Avila threw around the neck of the young Marques a collar of intermingled flowers and jewels, similar to the one with which his father had been adorned by Montezuma; and, at the conclusion of the scene, he placed on the heads of the Marques and his wife a coronet of laurel, with the exclamation,—"How well these crowns befit your noble brows!"

These simple diversions of a family festival were, doubtless, altogether innocent, and, certainly, not designed to prefigure an intention upon the part of the Marques and his friends to usurp the government of the New World. But it is probable that he had unwisely made enemies of men in power who were either ridiculously suspicious, or eagerly sought for any pretext, no matter how silly, to lay violent hands upon the son of Cortéz. It is probable, too, that the prestige,—the moral power,—of the great conqueror's name had not yet ceased to operate in Mexico; and, in those days when individuals were not dainty in ridding themselves of dangerous intruders, it is not unlikely that it was the policy of the Audiencia and its coadjutors to drive the gallant Marques from scenes, which, in the course of time, might tempt his ambition. The extreme popularity of such a man was not to be tolerated.

However, the domestic festival, symbolical as it was deemed by some of a desire to foreshadow the destiny of the son of Cortéz, was allowed to pass over. The oidores and their spies, meditating in secret over the crowning of Cortéz and his wife by Avila, and the remarkable words by which the graceful act was accompanied, resolved to embrace the first opportunity to detect what they declared was a conspiracy to wrest the dominion of New Spain from Philip II.

When men are anxious to commit a crime, a pretext or an occasion is not generally long wanting to accomplish the wicked design. Accordingly we find that on the 13th of August, the anniversary of the capture of the capital, the alleged conspiracy, was to break out. A national procession, in honor of the day, was to pass along the street of San Francisco and to return through that which now bears the name of Tacuba. Certain armed bands, convened under the pretext of military display, were to be stationed in the way, while, from a small turret in which he had concealed himself, Don Martin Cortéz, the son of the conqueror by the Indian girl Mariana, was to sally forth, and seize the royal standard, and being immediately joined by the armed bands, was, forthwith, to proclaim the Marques del Valle king of Mexico and to slay the oidores as well as all who should offer the least resistance.

Such was the story which the authorities had heard or feigned to have heard through their trusty spies. Nearly a month before the dreaded day, however, the Audiencia assembled, and requested the presence of the Marques del Valle, under the pretext that despatches had been received from the king of Spain, which, by his special order, were only to be opened in presence of the son of Cortéz. The Marques, who imagined no evil, immediately responded to the call of the oidores, and the moment he entered the hall the doors were guarded by armed men. Cortéz was ordered to seat himself on a common stool, while one of the functionaries announced to him that he was a prisoner, in the name of the king. "For what?" eagerly demanded the Marques. "As a traitor to his Majesty!" was the foul reply. "You lie!" exclaimed Cortéz, springing from his seat, and grasping the hilt of his dagger;—"I am no traitor to my king,—nor are there traitors among any of my lineage!"

The natural excitement of the loyal nobleman subsided after a moment's reflection. He had been entrapped into the hands of the Audiencia, and finding himself completely, though unjustly, in their power, he at once resolved to offer no childish opposition, when resistance would be so utterly useless. With the manly dignity of a chivalrous Spaniard, he immediately yielded up his weapons and was taken prisoner to the apartments that had been prepared for him. His half brother, Don Martin, was also apprehended, and orders were sent to the city of Tezcoco for the seizure of Don Luis Cortéz who resided there as justice or governor. In Mexico, Alonso Avila Alvarado, and his brother Gil Gonzalez, with many other distinguished men were incarcerated, and the papers of all the prisoners were, of course, seized and eagerly scrutinized by the sattelites who hoped to find in them a confirmation of the imaginary conspiracy.

Among the documents of Alonso de Avila a large number of love letters were found; but neither in his papers nor in those of his brother, or of the many victims of these foul suspicions, who languished in prison, did they discover a single line to justify their arrest. Nevertheless, Don Alonso and his brother Don Gil Gonzalez, were singled out as victims and doomed to death. The authorities dared not, probably, strike at a person so illustrious and so popular as the Marques del Valle; but they resolved to justify, in the public eye, their inquisitorial investigation, by the sacrifice of some one. The public would believe that there was in reality a crime when the scaffold reeked with blood; and, besides, the blow would fall heaviest on the family of Cortéz when it struck the cherished companions of his home and heart.

On the 7th of August, at seven in the evening, Alonso and Gil Gonzalez were led forth to the place of execution in front of the Casa de Cabildo. Their heads were struck off and stuck on spears on the roof of the edifice; whence they were finally taken, at the earnest remonstrance of the Ayuntamiento, and buried with the bodies of the victims in the church of San Agustin. Every effort had been made to save the lives of these truly innocent young men. But although the principal persons in the viceroyalty, united in the appeal for mercy if not for justice, the inexorable oidores carried out their remorseless and bloody decree. It is even asserted that these cruel men would not have hesitated to inflict capital punishment upon the Marques himself had not the new viceroy, Don Gaston de Peralta, Marques de Falces, arrived at San Juan de Ulua, on the 17th of September, 1566.

As soon as this personage reached Mexico he began to enquire into the outrage. He was quickly satisfied that the whole proceeding was founded in malice. The oidores were removed, and others being placed in their posts, the viceroy despatched a missive to the court of Spain containing his views and comments upon the conduct of the late officials. But the document was sent by a man who was secretly a warm friend of the brutal oidores, and, to save them from the condign punishment they deserved, he withheld it from the king.

Yet these functionaries, still fearing that their crime would be finally punished, not only treacherously intercepted the despatch of the viceroy, but also took the speediest opportunity to send to the king accusations against Don Gaston himself, in which they charged him with negligence in his examination of the conspiracy, with treasonable alliance with the Marques del Valle, and with a design to usurp the government of New Spain. They founded their allegations upon the false oaths of several deponents, who alleged that the viceroy had already prepared and held at his orders thirty thousand armed men. This base imposture, as ridiculous as it was false, originated in an act of Peralta which was altogether innocent. Being a man of fine taste, and determining that the viceroyal residence should be worthy the abode of his sovereign's representative, he caused the palace to be refitted, and, among the adornments of the various saloons, he ordered a large painting to be placed on the walls of one of the chambers in which a battle was represented containing an immense number of combatants. This was the army which the witnesses, upon their oaths, represented to the king, as having been raised and commanded by the viceroy! It can scarcely be supposed possible that the Audiencia of Mexico would have resorted to such flimsy means to cover their infamy. It seems incredible that such mingled cruelty and childishness could ever have proceeded from men who were deputed to govern the greatest colony of Spain. Yet such is the unquestionable fact, and it indicates, at once, the character of the age and of the men who managed, through the intrigues of court, to crawl to eminence and power which they only used to gratify vindictive selfishness or to glut their inordinate avarice.

Philip the II. could not, at first, believe the accusations of the oidores against the family of Cortéz and the distinguished nobleman whom he had sent to represent him in Mexico. He resolved, therefore, to wait the despatches of the viceroy. But the oidores had been too watchful to allow those documents to reach the court of Spain; and Philip, therefore, construing the silence of Don Gaston de Peralta, into a tacit confession of his guilt, sent the Licenciados Jaraba, Muñoz, and Carillo to New Spain, as Jueces Pesquisidores, with letters for the viceroy commanding him to yield up the government and to return to Spain in order to account for his conduct.

These men immediately departed on their mission and arrived safely in America without accident, save in the death of Jaraba one of their colleagues. As soon as they reached Mexico, they presented their despatches to the viceroy, and Muñoz took possession of the government of New Spain. The worthy and noble Marques de Falces was naturally stunned by so unprecedented and unexpected a proceeding; but, satisfied of the justice of his cause as well as of the purity of his conduct, he left the capital and retired to the castle of San Juan de Ulua, leaving the reins of power in the hands of Muñoz whose tyrannical conduct soon destroyed all the confidence which hitherto had always existed, at least between the Audiencia and the people of the metropolis. [32] It was probably before this time that the Marques del Valle was released;—and deeming the new empire which his father had given to Spain no safe resting place for his descendants, he departed once more for the Spanish court. The viceroy himself had fallen a victim to deception and intrigue.

*****

It seems to have been one of the weaknesses of Philip the Second's character to have but little confidence in men. With such examples as we have just seen, it may, nevertheless, have been an evidence of his wisdom that he did not rely upon the courtiers who usually surround a king. He had doubted, in reality, the actual guilt of the Marques de Falces, and was, therefore, not surprised when he learned the truth upon these weighty matters in the year 1568. The government of Muñoz, his visitador, was, moreover, represented to him as cruel and bloody. The conduct of the previous Audiencia had been humane when compared with the acting governor's. The prisons, which already existed in Mexico were not adequate to contain his victims, and he built others whose dark, damp and narrow architecture rendered incarceration doubly painful to the sufferers. Don Martin Cortéz, the half brother of the Marques del Valle, who remained in the metropolis as the attorney and representative of his kinsman, was seized and put to torture for no crime save that the blood of the conqueror flowed in his veins, and that he had enjoyed friendly relations with the suspected conspirators. Torture, it was imagined would wring from him a confession which might justify the oidores. The situation of New Spain could not, indeed, be worse than it was, for no man felt safe in the midst of such unrestrained power and relentless cruelty; and we may be permitted to believe that outraged humanity would soon have risen to vindicate itself against such brutes and to wrest the fruits of the conquest from a government that sent forth such wicked sattelites. Even the Audiencia itself,—the moving cause of this new and bad government,—began to tremble when it experienced the humiliating contempt with which it was invariably treated by the monster Muñoz.

But all these acts of maladministration were more safely reported to the Spanish court by the nobles and oidores of Mexico, than the despatches of the unfortunate Marques de Falces. Philip eagerly responded to the demand for the removal of Muñoz. He despatched the oidores Villanueva and Vasco de Puga, to Mexico, with orders to Muñoz to give up the government in three hours after he received the royal despatch, and to return immediately to Spain for judgment of his conduct. The envoys lost no time in reaching their destination, where they found that Muñoz had retired to the convent of Santo Domingo, probably as a sanctuary, in order to pass Holy Week. But the impatient emissaries, responding to the joyful impatience of the people, immediately followed him to his retreat, and, after waiting a considerable time in the anti-chamber, and being, at last, most haughtily received by Muñoz, who scarcely saluted them with a nod, Villanueva drew from his breast the royal cedula, and commanded his secretary to read it in a loud voice.

For a while the foiled visitador sat silent, moody and thoughtful, scarcely believing the reality of what he heard. After a pause, in which all parties preserved silence, he rose and declared his willingness to yield to the king's command; and thus, this brutal chief, who but a few hours before believed himself a sovereign in Mexico, was indebted to the charity of some citizens for a carriage in which he travelled to Vera Cruz. Here a fleet was waiting to transport him to Spain. The late viceroy, the Marques de Falces, departed in a ship of the same squadron, and, upon his arrival at the court, soon found means to justify himself entirely in the eyes of his sovereign. But it went harder with Muñoz. He vainly tried his skill at exculpation with the king. Philip seems to have despised him too much to enter into discussion upon the merits of the accusations. The facts were too flagrant. The king returned him his sword, declining to hear any argument in his justification. "I sent you to the Indies to govern, not to destroy!" said Philip, as he departed from his presence; and that very night the visitador suddenly expired!

Whether he died of mortification or violence, is one of those state secrets, which, like many others of a similar character, the chronicles of Spain do not reveal!

Don Martin Cortéz and his family took refuge in Spain where his case was fully examined; and whilst the investigation lasted, from 1567 to 1574, his estates in Mexico were confiscated. He was finally declared innocent of all the charges, but his valuable property had been seriously injured and wasted by the officers of the crown, to whom it was intrusted during the long period of sequestration.

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Footnote

[ [32] Liceo Mexicano vol. 1, p. 263, et seq.

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CHAPTER IV.
1568–1589.

ALMANZA VICEROY.—CHICHIMECAS REVOLT—JESUITS——INQUISITION.—PESTILENCE.—NO INDIAN TRIBUTE EXACTED.—ALMANZA DEPARTS—XUARES VICEROY.—WEAK ADMINISTRATION—INCREASE OF COMMERCE.—PEDRO MOYA DE CONTRERAS VICEROY.—REFORMS UNDER A NEW VICEROY.—HIS POWER AS VICEROY AND INQUISITOR.—ZUÑIGA VICEROY.—TREASURE—PIRACY.—CAVENDISH—DRAKE CAPTURES A GALEON. ZUÑIGA AND THE AUDIENCIA OF GUADALAJARA—HIS DEPOSITION FROM POWER.

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Don Martin Enriquez de Almanza.
IV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1568–1580.

The salutary lesson received by the Audiencia in the events which occurred in the metropolis during late years, induced its members to conduct themselves with less arrogance during the short time they held supreme power after the departure of the Visitadores. In October of 1568, a new viceroy, Don Martin Enriquez de Almanza, arrived at Vera Cruz, whence he reached the capital on the 5th of the following November after having routed the English whom he found in possession of the Isle of Sacrificios.

Don Martin immediately perceived, upon assuming the reins of government, that it was necessary to calm the public mind in the metropolis which, from recent occurrences, now began to regard all men in authority with jealousy and distrust. He let the people understand, therefore, from the first, that he did not design to countenance any proceedings similar to those which had lately almost disorganized and revolutionized the colony. An occasion soon presented itself in which his prudence and discretion were required to adjust a serious dispute concerning the Franciscan monks and in which the people sympathized with the brotherhood and their supposed rights. Any act of rigor or harshness would have kindled the flame of sedition, but the mild diplomacy of the viceroy sufficed to calm the litigants and to restore perfect peace to the capital. A religious dispute, in such a community as Mexico then was, seemed, indeed, an affair of no small moment, especially when it arose in so tempestuous a period of the nation and was the first occasion to try the temper and talents of a new viceroy.

But the attention of Don Martin was soon to be drawn from the capital towards the frontiers of his government, where he found that the troublesome bands of wandering Chichimecas, had been busy in their old work of robbery and spoliation, whilst the Audiencia was engaged in its intrigues and corruption in the city of Mexico. The impunity with which these martial vagabonds had been allowed to proceed, increased their daring, and the evils they inflicted on the country were becoming continually greater. Not satisfied with having despatched the chief alcalde of the hostile region with the militia to punish the rebels, he joined the forces of that, officer, and succeeded after great slaughter in compelling the Indians to quit the soil they had hitherto ravaged. It should be recorded, in justice to the viceroy, that he ordered the Indian children who fell into the hands of his soldiery, to be spared, and, at the end of the campaign, brought them all to the metropolis, where he distributed them among rich families so that they might receive a christian education. In order to save the region from further devastation he established therein a colony, to which he gave the name of San Felipe, perhaps in honor of his king, as he bestowed upon it the title of "city."

Such was the condition of things when Pedro Moya de Contreras arrived in Mexico as Inquisitor, having been sent by Philip to establish the dread tribunal of the faith in that capital. The Spanish king feared that the doctrines of the reformation which were then rife in Europe might find friends among his transatlantic subjects, and he mercifully resolved to give them, as a guardian of their consciences, this sad and dreadful present. In 1572, Doctor Pedro Sanchez, a Jesuit, with various brethren of the same order, came to the city of Mexico, and founded a college in certain edifices which were ceded to them for that purpose by Alonso Villaseca. The brethren of the holy office, or inquisition, meanwhile organized their body, for future operations, and settled under the wings of the church of Santo Domingo.

It was at this period, also, that Don Martin established the alcabala; and, although the merchants opposed the measure, which was entirely new to them, and alleged that it was a mortal blow to their business, they were unable to force the viceroy to retract his measure. His determination was founded on the fact that trade had now become established on a firm and robust basis, and that it could well bear without injury an impost of this character.

*****

In the years 1574 and 1575 there were serious discussions between the temporal and spiritual powers of Mexico, growing out of a royal order that no prelate should be admitted in the country unless he bore a suitable license from the Council of the Indies. In 1576, Mexico was again visited by a frightful pestilence, which spread rapidly, and carried off large numbers of victims. The whole of New Spain was ravaged by it, and neither care, nor medical science, seems to have had the least effect either in curing or in alleviating the sufferers. The symptoms of this malady were a violent pain in the head which was succeeded by a burning fever, under which the patient sank. None survived the seventh day, and it is reported that near two millions perished under the dreadful scourge. The malady abated at the close of the rainy season, and disappeared entirely at the beginning of 1577.

In the two succeeding years, Don Martin commanded that the usual annual tribute should not be collected from the Indians. This measure was designed to alleviate the lot of these suffering subjects of the king and to testify the paternal regard which he cherished for a race that served him and his subjects so beneficially in the mines. It was in the mineral districts that the Indians were in reality the greatest sufferers and laborers in New Spain. Their toil was incessant. Their task masters gave them no respite in the bowels of the earth, for they wrought as if they designed to scrape every vein and artery of the colony's soil. Silver and labor were calculated with exactness, and no limit to the Indian's industry was prescribed save that which was imposed by his capacity for work and his power of endurance. The viceroy, seeking to alleviate this, introduced a milder system, as far as he was able, among the leading miners of the colony. He insisted upon permitting the Indians regular repose, and he forbade their entire confinement within the mines, but commanded that they should be allowed time to breathe the fresh air on the surface of the earth, and suffered to attend to their own domestic labors, or to toil on public works for a competent recompense.

The government of Don Martin had thus far been unusually calm, but his last moments in Mexico were to be disturbed by a quarrel with a Franciscan monk, named Rivera, who had called at the palace to see the viceroy on a matter of business for his convent, and had been forced to wait a considerable time without being finally honored with an audience. The petulant friar regarded this as a slight upon the brotherhood, and, shortly afterwards, whilst preaching in the cathedral, declared, with a sneering and offensive purpose against the viceroy, that "in the palace all became equal, and that no difference was made between ecclesiastics and secular folks!"

The viceroy could not permit so flagrant a breach of decorum and so dangerous a taunt in a popular appeal, to rest unrebuked. He therefore demanded the punishment of the pulpit critic, and the Audiencia ordered Rivera to depart forthwith for Spain. But the haughty monk in order to avoid the disgrace of expulsion, united the whole body of his fraternity in the quarrel, and singing the psalm "In exitu Israel de Ægipto," they departed from the city by the road leading to Vera Cruz. The viceroy seems to have been moved by this act of the brotherhood, and immediately wrote to Rivera in soothing terms requesting him to return to Mexico where justice should be done him. The Franciscan returned, but soon after received a royal order to depart for Spain.

In 1580, the abundant rain caused again an inundation of the capital, and Don Martin Enriquez was about to engage in the construction of the celebrated canal of Huehuetoca, when he was removed to the viceroyalty of Peru.

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Don Lorenzo Xuares, Conde de la Coruña,
V. Viceroy of Mexico.
1580–1583.

Don Lorenzo Xuares, Conde de la Coruña, was appointed by the king, successor of Almanza, and made his triumphal entry into the city of Mexico on the evening of the 4th of October, 1580. The gay and affable character of this personage at once attracted the people and the colonial court; and in consequence of the rapidly increasing population, wealth, and luxury of New Spain, as well as from the unreserved demeanor of the viceroy, it was supposed that a golden age had arrived in the history of Mexico, which would forever signalize the administration of Xuares.

Perhaps the viceroy was too lenient and amiable for the task that had been imposed on him in America. The epoch of speculation and adventure had not yet passed by, and of course, the corruption which ever follows in their train required still to be closely watched and quickly checked. To this duty Xuares did not immediately address himself, and the result was that the oidores, the alcaldes, and all who administered justice, at once put themselves up to auction and sold their services, their favors, or their decisions to the highest bidder. Disorder reigned in every department, in the year following the arrival of Xuares; and even the royal revenues, which hitherto had generally remained sacred, were squandered or secreted by the persons to whose care and fidelity their collection was intrusted. The limitations which we have already seen were placed upon a viceroy's power in the time of Velasco, now tied the hands of Xuares. He could not dismiss or even suspend the defrauders of the revenue or the public wretches who prostituted their official power for gold. Nor was he, probably, unwilling to be deprived of a dangerous right which would have placed him in direct hostility to the army of speculators and jobbers. And yet it was necessary for the preservation of the colony that these evils should be quickly abated. In this political strait, concealing his intentions from the viceroyal court, he applied to Philip to send a Visitador with ample powers to readjust the disorganized realm.

The commerce of New Spain had augmented astonishingly within a few years. Vera Cruz and Acapulco had become splendid emporiums of wealth and trade. The east and the west poured their people into Mexico through these cities; and, in the capital, some of the most distinguished merchants of Europe, Asia, and Africa met every year, midway between Spain and China, to transact business and exchange opinions upon the growing facilities of an extended commerce. Peru and Mexico furnished the precious metals which were always so greedily demanded by the east. In 1581, Philip II., in view of this state of things in his colony, issued a royal order for the establishment in Mexico for a Tribunal de Consulado, [33] though, it was not, in fact, actually put in effective operation until the year 1593, under the administration of Velasco the Second. In the midsummer of 1582, the viceroy expired, probably of mingled anxiety and old age; and it was well for Mexico that he passed so rapidly from a stage in whose delicate drama, his years and his abilities altogether unfitted him to play so conspicuous a part.

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Don Pedro Moya de Contreras,
Archbishop of Mexico, First Inquisitor and Visitador, and
VI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1583–1585.

Upon the death of Xuares, the Audiencia immediately assumed the direction of the state; but the members of this august tribunal were altogether ignorant of the demand made by the late viceroy for a Visitador, until Don Pedro de Contreras, placed in their hands the despatch from Philip, naming him for this important service.

The archbishop was a man well known in Mexico. Cold, austere, rigid in his demeanor and principles, he was the very man to be chosen for the dangerous duty of contending with a band of rich, proud and unscrupulous officials. His sacred character as arch-prelate of Mexico, was of no little use in such an exigency, for it gave him spiritual as well as temporal power over masses which might sometimes be swayed by their conscientious dread of the church, even when they could not be controlled by the arm of law. Besides this, he was the first Inquisitor of Mexico, and in the dreaded mysteries of the holy office, there was an overwhelming power before which the most daring offenders would not venture to rebel or intrigue.

It may be well imagined that the unexpected appearance of so formidable an ecclesiastic upon the state, armed with the sword as well as the cross, was well calculated to awe the profligate officials. The members of the Audiencia trembled when they read the royal order, for the archbishop knew them well, and had been long cognizant, not only of their own maladministration but of the irregularities they countenanced in others.

Don Pedro immediately undertook the discharge of his office, and in a few days, heard a great number of complaints against various individuals, but as he did not design proceeding with revengeful severity against even the most culpable, he resolved to report his proceedings to the king, and, in the meanwhile, to retain in office all persons who performed their duties faithfully whilst he put an end to the most flagrant abuses.

As soon as Philip II. heard, in 1584, of the death of Mendoza, he added the title and powers of viceroy to those already possessed by the archbishop, and, with his commission as royal representative, he sent him additional authority which had never been enjoyed by any of his predecessors. He was, thus, empowered to remove, at will, all persons from public employment, and even to expel ministers and oidores, as well as to visit with severe punishments all who deserved them. Under this ample discretion the viceroy removed some of the oidores, suspended others, hanged certain royal officers who had disgraced their trusts, and brought the tribunals of justice into perfect order. The king had proposed to bring the dispersed Indians into towns and villages so as to control them more effectually, but the viceroy, after consulting the priests who were best acquainted with that population, deemed it best to defer the execution of the royal order until he laid the objections to it before Philip. [34] In 1585, a seminary for the Indians was established, in which they were taught to read, write and comprehend the rudiments of the Catholic faith. This institution was under the charge of the Jesuits, whose zeal for education has been celebrated in the history of all countries into which this powerful and enlightened order of the priesthood has penetrated. A provincial council of American bishops, was, moreover, convened this year in Mexico under the auspices of Contreras.

Nor was the viceroy eager only to correct the civil and religious abuses of the country without attending to the fiscal advantages which he knew the king was always eager to secure from his colonies. In testimony of his zeal he despatched, at this period, a rich fleet for Spain. It bore three millions three hundred thousand ducats in coined silver, and one thousand one hundred marks in gold, together with a variety of other valuable products, all of which arrived safely in port.

The power of this vigorous ruler, as viceroy, continued, however, but for a single year. He was the scourge of officials in all classes, while the good men of the colony prayed heartily for the continuance of his authority; but it is probable that his rigor had excited against him the talents for intrigue which we have heretofore seen were sometimes so actively and successfully employed both in Mexico and Spain. In October of 1585, his successor arrived in the capital.

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Don Alvaro Enrique de Zuñiga, Marques de Villa Manrique,
VII. Viceroy of Mexico.
1585–1589.

The arrival of the Marques de Villa Manrique was not designed to interfere with the functions of the archbishop and former viceroy Contreras, as Visitador. He was solicited to continue his plenary examination into the abuses of government in New Spain, and to clear the country of all malefactors before he retired once more to the cloisters. Accordingly, Don Pedro remained in Mexico some time discharging his duties, and it is probably owing to his presence that the first year of the new viceroy passed off in perfect peace. But in the succeeding year, in which the archbishop departed for Spain, his troubles began by a serious discussion with the Franciscans, Agustins and Dominicans, in which the monks at last appealed from the viceroy to the king. Before Contreras, the visitador, left Mexico he had managed to change all the judges composing the tribunals of the colony. The men he selected in their stead were all personally known to him or were appointed upon the recommendation of persons whose integrity and capacity for judgment were unquestionable.

This remarkable man died soon after his arrival in Madrid, where he had been appointed president of the Council of the Indies. Like all reformers he went to his grave poor; but when the king learned his indigence he took upon himself the costs of sepulture, and laid his colonial representative and bishop to the tomb in a manner befitting one who had exercised so great and beneficial an influence in the temporary reform of the New World. The sole stain upon the memory of Contreras is perhaps the fact that he was an inquisitor.

In 1587, the viceroy Zuñiga despatched a large amount of treasure to Spain. Enormous sums were drained annually from the colonies for the royal metropolis; but, in this year the fleet from Vera Cruz sailed with eleven hundred and fifty-six marks of gold, in addition to an immense amount of coined silver and merchandise of great value. These sums passed safely to the hands of the court; but such was not the case with all the precious freights that left the American coasts, for, at this period, the shores of our continent, on both oceans, began to swarm with pirates. The subjects of various European nations, but especially the English, were most active in enterprises which, in those days, were probably regarded more as privateering than as the bandit expeditions they have since been considered not only in morals but in law. In the year before, Cavendish had taken in the Pacific, a Spanish ship, which was bound from Manilla to Acapulco, with a rich cargo of wares from China; and, in this year, it was known that Drake, another noted adventurer, after making himself celebrated by the capture of San Agustin, in Florida, had sailed for the Pacific ocean, whose rich coasts, as well as the oriental traders, formed a tempting booty for the bucanier.

As soon as the viceroy heard of this piratical sailor's approach to the western boundary of his colony, he commanded the troops in Guadalajara to embark at Acapulco, under the orders of Doctor Palacios, in all the vessels which were then in port, and to scour the shores of America until the British marauder was captured. But, upon the commander's arrival at Acapulco, he was informed that the freebooter had already abandoned the west coast after sacking several towns, and that he had not been seen or heard of any where for a long period. Drake, meanwhile, was in concealment among the distant and unfrequented coves of California, in such a situation, however, that he could easily intercept the galeon, which passed every year from the Philipines to Mexico, laden with goods and metals of considerable value. In due time he pounced upon his unsuspecting prey; and, carrying her into a bay near the Cape of San Lucas, plundered her valuable cargo, and set fire to the deserted hull. The news of this mishap soon reached the ears of Palacios, who, of course, immediately set sail after the corsair. But Drake was already far on his way to a spot of safety in which he and his companions might enjoy the fruits of their piratical adventure.

This successful attack upon a vessel of so much importance to the colony,—for only one was annually permitted to cross the Pacific,—greatly troubled the people who depended upon its arrival for their yearly supply of oriental wares. But as soon as the general calm was gradually restored, an internal trouble arose which was well nigh proving of serious import to the viceroyalty. Zuñiga does not seem to have been contented with the jurisdiction which had hitherto been conceded to the viceroy, but, being anxious to extend his authority over certain towns and villages, under the control of the Audiencia of Guadalajara, he demanded of that body the surrender of their dominion. The Audiencia, however, was jealous of its rights, and would not yield to the viceroy who was equally pertinacious. The dispute ran high between the parties. Threats were used when diplomacy failed, and at length, the disputants reached, but did not pass, the verge of civil war, for, on both sides they seem to have ordered out troops, who, fortunately never actually engaged in combat.

This ill judged act of the viceroy was fatal to his power. Letters and petitions were forthwith despatched to Madrid requiring and begging the removal of a man whose rashness was near producing a civil war. This was a charge not to be disregarded by the king, and, accordingly, we find that a successor to Zuñiga was immediately named, and that the bishop of Tlascala was appointed visitador to examine the conduct of the deposed viceroy.

On the 17th of January, 1590, this prelate, who seems to have been originally inimical to Zuñiga, and who should therefore have disdained the office of his judge, ordered him to depart from Mexico. All the property of the late viceroy,—even the linen of his wife,—was sequestrated; the most harassing annoyances were constantly inflicted upon him; and, after six years, poor and worn down by unceasing trials, he returned to Spain, where the influence of his friends at court procured the restoration of his property.

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Footnotes

[ [33] This was a mercantile tribunal.

[ [34] The Indians alluded to in this passage were vaguely designated as Chichimecas, Otomics, and Mexican. They probably inhabited a tract of country lying north west of the kingdom of Michoacan.—See 1st. vol. Trans. Amn. Ethnl. Soc. p. 2.

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CHAPTER V.
1589–1607.

LUIS DE VELASCO—THE SECOND—BECOMES VICEROY.—DELIGHT OF THE MEXICANS.—FACTORIES REOPENED—CHICHIMECAS—COLONIZATION.—ALAMEDA—INDIANS TAXED FOR EUROPEAN WARS.—COMPOSITION—FOWLS—ACEBEDO VICEROY.—EXPEDITION TO NEW MEXICO.—INDIAN AMELIORATIONS.—DEATH OF PHILIP II.—NEW SCHEME OF HIREING INDIANS.—CALIFORNIA.—MONTESCLAROS VICEROY.—INUNDATION.—ALBARRADA.

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Don Luis de Velasco,—the Second,—Conde de Santiago,
VIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1589–1595.

Luis de Velasco, Count de Santiago, was the son of the second viceroy of New Spain, and during the administration of his father, as well as for some years afterwards, had resided in Mexico where he filled several offices, and especially that of corregidor of Zempoala. He was not on friendly terms with the last viceroy, Zuñiga, for he had suddenly quitted New Spain in the same vessel that brought his predecessor to America. Upon his arrival at the Spanish court he was sent as ambassador to Florence; and the exaggerated news of the supposed civil war in Mexico having been received just as he returned from his mission, Philip determined to send him back to New Spain. This decision was, no doubt, founded upon Velasco's intimate acquaintance with Mexico and its people, with whom his interests had been so long bound up that he might almost be regarded as a native of the country.

On the 25th of January, 1590, Velasco entered the capital with more pomp and rejoicing than had ever attended the advent of previous viceroys, for the Mexicans looked upon him as a countryman. As soon as he was seated in power his first acts demonstrated his good sense and mature judgment. His wish was to develope the country; to make not only its mineral and agricultural resources available to Spain, but to open the channels through which labor could obtain its best rewards. He therefore ordered the manufactories of coarse stuffs and cloths which had been established by Mendoza to be once more opened, after the long period in which the Spanish mercantile influence had kept them shut. This naturally produced an excitement among the interested foreign traders, but the viceroy firmly maintained his determination to punish severely any one who should oppose his decree.

In 1591, the troublesome Chichimecas, of whose disturbances we have already spoken in other chapters, again manifested a desire to attack the Spaniards. They were congregated in strongly armed bands in the neighborhood of Zacatecas, and menaced the Spanish population living in the neighborhood of the rich mines. Travellers could not pass through the country without a military escort. Strong garrisons had been placed by the government on the frontiers, and merciless war declared against them, but all was unavailing to stop their marauding expeditions among the whites. In this year, however, they sent commissioners to treat with the Spaniards in Mexico, and after confessing that they were tired of a war which they found useless, they consented to abstain from further molestation of the district, provided the viceroy would agree to furnish them with a sufficiency of meat for their support. Velasco of course consented to this demand of the cattle stealers, and, moreover, obtained their consent to the admission among them of a body of Tlascalans who would instruct them in a civil and christian mode of life. Four hundred families of these faithful friends of the Mexicans were selected for this colony; and, together with some Franciscan friars, they settled in four bodies so as to form an equal number of colonies. One of these settlements was made on the side of a rich mineral hill and took the name of San Luis Potosi,—the second formed San Miguel Mesqitic,—the third San Andres,—and the fourth Colotlan. Such was the origin of these towns, in which the two tribes lived for many years in perfect harmony, but without intermingling or losing their individuality.

Another attempt was also made, as had been done previously, to gather the dispersed bands of Mexican and Otomi Indians into villages and settlements, where they would gradually become accustomed to civilized life. Velasco, like his predecessor Moya, consulted with the curas and the people who were best acquainted with the temper of these races, and learned that they still opposed humane efforts for civilization, preferring the vagabond life they had so long led and which had now become necessary and natural. Nevertheless he thought it his duty to try the experiment. But the first Otomi who was reduced to the necessity of abandoning his nomadic habits and building for himself a regular habitation, not only destroyed his wife and children, but terminated his own existence by hanging. The viceroy then suspended his operations and reported the untoward result, together with the opinion of his advisers, to the court of Spain.

Velasco, ever anxious not only for the amelioration of the condition of the Indians, but for the embellishment of the capital which was now growing into considerable importance, caused the Alameda of Mexico to be laid out and planted in 1593, for the recreation of the citizens. This magnificent grove, with its beautifully shaded avenues and walks,—embellished by fountains and filled with every thing that can give repose or comfort to the fatigued people who are anxious to steal off awhile from the toil and bustle of a large city,—still exists in Mexico as an evidence of the taste and liberality of the viceroy, and will be more particularly described, hereafter, in that portion of this work which treats of the city of Mexico, and of the manners and customs of its inhabitants.

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In 1594, Philip the Second finding himself straitened for means to carry on the European wars in which he was engaged, recurred to the unfortunate and unjust system of forced loans to increase his revenue. He did not confine himself in this odious compulsory tax to the old world which was most concerned in the result of his wars, but instructed Velasco to impose a tribute of four reales or fifty cents upon Indians, in addition to the sum they already paid his majesty. Velasco reluctantly undertook the unwelcome task; but anxious to lighten the burden upon the natives as much as possible, and, at the same time, to foster the raising of poultry and cattle among these people, he compounded the whole tax of a dollar which they were obliged to pay, for seven reales, or eighty-seven and a half cents and one fowl, which, at that time, was valued at a single real, or twelve and a half cents. This, it will be perceived, was amiably designed by the viceroy, but became immediately the subject of gross abuse. The Indians are slowly moved either to new modes of cultivation or to new objects of care, even of the most domestic and useful character. Instead of devoting themselves to the raising of poultry with the industrious thrift that would have saved one-eighth of their taxation or twelve and a half per cent, they allowed the time to pass without providing the required bird in their homesteads, so that when the tax gatherer arrived they were forced to buy the fowl instead of selling it. This of course raised the price, and the consequence was that the Indian was obliged often to pay two or three reales more than the original amount of the whole taxation of one dollar! It is related that one of the oidores who had taken eight hundred fowls, reserved two hundred for the consumption of his house, and through an agent sold the rest at three reales, or thirty-seven and a half cents each, by which he contrived to make a profit of two hundred per cent. Various efforts were made to remedy this shameful abuse or to revoke the decree, but the system was found to be too profitable among the officials, to be abandoned without a severe struggle. We are unable to discover that the viceroy, in this instance, used his authority to restore the Indians to their original rights.

In 1595, it was determined to colonize the supposed kingdom of Quivara, which now received the name of New Mexico, but, before the expedition could set forth under the command of Juan de Oñate, Velasco received a despatch informing him that he had been named viceroy of Peru, and that his successor Don Gaspar de Zuñiga Acebedo, Conde de Monterey, would soon appear in the colonial metropolis.

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Don Gaspar de Zuñiga Acebedo, Conde de Monterey,
IX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1595–1603.

The Count of Monterey arrived at San Juan de Ulua on the 18th of September, 1595, and on the 5th of the following November, entered the capital as viceroy. At first he exhibited a cold and apathetic temper, and appeared to take but little interest in the affairs of the government; but it is supposed, that being a prudent and cautious man, he was in no haste to undertake the direction of affairs whilst he was altogether unacquainted both with the temper of the people and the nature of their institutions. An early measure, however, of his administration deserves to be recorded and remembered. He found the Indians still suffering and complaining under the odious fowl tax, created by his predecessor for the protection of domestic industry, but which had been perverted for the selfish and avaricious purposes of the receivers. He immediately abolished this impost, and diminished the whole amount of taxation upon the Indians.

In consequence of the loss of the galeon from the Philipines, which we have related, the king ordered an expedition, under the command of General Sebastian Viscaino, to examine and scour the coasts of the Californias, where it was alleged the precious metals, and, especially, the most valuable pearls would be found in abundance. Viscaino recruited a large number of followers in Mexico for this enterprise, and set sail with three vessels, in 1596, from Acapulco. The adventurers coasted the territory for a considerable time without finding a suitable location in which they might settle advantageously, until, at length, they disembarked in the port of La Paz, whence, however, they soon departed for want of provisions and supplies of every kind.

Meanwhile the Count of Monterey examined into the state of the expedition to New Mexico, which he found had been projected and partly prepared by his predecessor. He made some changes in the plan agreed on between Velasco and Oñate, and, in order to exhibit his good will to the latter personage, he joined with him, in the enterprise, his relation Vicente Saldivar, who had gathered a number of emigrants for these remote and northern regions. People were tempted to abandon their homes by the reports of extraordinary mineral wealth which was to be obtained in these unexplored portions of New Spain; and, accordingly, when the standard of the expedition was raised in the great square of the capital, crowds of men with their families flocked around it to enlist for the hazardous and toilsome service.

The first news received from the emigrant colonists, when they reached Caxco, two hundred leagues from the capital, was disastrous. Quarrels had originated among the adventurers, who asserted that the terms of the expedition had not been complied with faithfully. As soon as the viceroy heard of the discontent, he despatched Don Lope de Ulloa as a pacificator, to the inflamed band which was quickly reduced to harmony and persuaded to continue its journey to the promised land. At length the weary emigrants reached the boasted El Dorado; but finding the reports of mineral wealth altogether exaggerated, and doubting the advantage of residing with their families permanently in such distant outposts, many of them retraced their way southward to regions that were more densely populated.

In 1598, another effort was resolved on to gather the dispersed and refractory vagabond Indians who wandered about the territory under the name of Mexicans and Otomies. Whilst they maintained their perfectly nomadic state it was evident that they were useless either as productive laborers for the Spaniards, or as objects of taxation for the sovereign. It was a wise policy, therefore, to attempt what was philanthropically called—their civilization;—but upon this occasion, as upon all the others that preceded it, the failure was signal. Commissioners and notaries were selected and large salaries paid these officials to ensure their faithful services in congregating the dispersed natives. But the government agents, who well knew the difficulty if not the absolute impossibility of achieving the desired object, amused themselves by receiving and spending the liberal salaries disbursed by the government, whilst the Indians still continued as uncontrolled as ever. The Count of Monterey was nevertheless obstinately bent on the prosecution of this favorite policy of the king, and squandered, upon these vile ministerial agents, upwards of two hundred thousand dollars, without producing the least beneficial result. In the following viceroy's reign he was sentenced to pay the government this large sum as having been unwisely spent; but was finally absolved from its discharge by the court to which he appealed from the decision of his successor.

In the beginning of 1599, the news was received in Mexico of the death of Philip II. and of the accession of Philip III. This event was perhaps the most remarkable in the annals of the colony, during the last year of the sixteenth century, except that the town of Monterey in New Leon was founded, and that a change was made by the viceroy of the port of Vera Cruz from its former sickly site at la Antigua, to one which has since become equally unhealthy.

The first three years of the seventeenth century were chiefly characterized by renewed viceroyal efforts among the Indians. The project of congregating the nomadic natives was abandoned, and various attempts were made to break up the system of repartimientos, which had been, as we have seen, the established policy of the colony if not of the king, ever since the conquest. If the Indians were abandoned to their own free will, it was supposed that their habits were naturally so thriftless that they would become burthensome instead of beneficial to the Spanish colonists, and, ultimately, might resolve themselves into mere wanderers like the Otomies and their vagabond companions. Yet, it was acknowledged that their involuntary servitude, and the disastrous train of impositions it entailed, were unchristian and unjust. There was a dilemma, in fact between idleness and tyranny; but the viceroy conceived it his duty to endeavor once more, with an honest zeal, to sustain the humane policy of freedom which was recommended not only by the sovereign but by the religious orders who were supposed to know the natives best. Various projects were adopted to harmonize their freedom with a necessary degree of labor, in order to ensure them wages and support, whilst they were preserved together in organized societies. After the repartimientos were abrogated, the Indians were compelled to assemble, on every Sabbath, in the public squares of the villages and towns, where they made their contracts of service by the day. The viceroy himself, anxious to prevent fraud, assisted personally in the reunions at the plazas or squares of San Juan and Santiago. But it was all in vain. The proprietors, land owners, and agents, were opposed to the scheme. Brokers interposed, and, after hiring the Indians at moderate rates in contracts made with themselves, sub-let them to others on higher terms. And, at last, it is alleged that the unfortunate natives, seeing the bad operation of the viceroy's kind intentions in their behalf, and finding their condition less happy when they had to take care of themselves than when they were taken care of, appealed to the Count of Monterey to restore the old system of repartimientos under which they were at least spared the trouble of seeking for task-masters and support. Indolent by nature; creatures of habit; and living in a country whose bosom afforded them spontaneously most of the luxuries required by such a class, they submitted to what, in fact, was the greatest evil of their lot, because it relieved them of the trouble of individual effort!

In 1602, Philip III. commanded another expedition for the colonization and exploration of the Californias. It departed in three ships and a barque from Acapulco, on the fifth of May, under the command of Viscaino. Torribio Gomez Corban was the admiral of the little fleet, and Antonio Flores, pilot. From the day of its departure, it was driven by severe gales, but, at length, the port of Monterey was reached by the weary crews, who continued along the coast until they arrived at Cape Blanco de San Sabastian, somewhat beyond Cape Mendozino. There the voyagers were sorely attacked with scurvy which thinned their numbers to such an extent, that, of the whole, only six were able to do duty. With this scant equipment of men, the vessels reached Mazatlan, where the crews recruited their health; and, passing thence to Acapulco, the expedition once more landed in the midst of civilization and hastened back to the capital to give a bad report of the country which in our day and generation has become the El Dorado of the world.

The Conde de Monterey, was transferred to the viceroyalty of Peru in 1603, and left the capital amid the general grief of a society whose cordial esteem he seems to have won and retained during his whole administration.

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Don Juan de Mendoza y Luna, Marques de Montesclaros,
X. Viceroy of New Spain.
1603–1607.

The advent of the Marques de Montesclaros to the viceroyalty of New Spain was distinguished by an unusual degree of tranquillity throughout the colony. During the preceding administrations most of the subjects of internal discontent were set at rest, and the aborigines who had been subjected to the yoke were now becoming accustomed to bear it. In 1604, the abundant rains in the valley of Mexico during the month of August, caused an inundation which greatly alarmed the population. The city and adjacent country were laid under water, and such was the general distress that the Marques solicited the opinions of skilful persons in regard to the canal of Huehuetoca, which had heretofore been spoken of as the only means of freeing the capital from destruction by the swollen flood of the lakes. The reports made to him, however, represented the enterprise as one of immense labor and expense, as well as requiring a great length of time for its completion. He therefore abandoned the project for the present, and merely repaired the albarrada or dyke which Velasco had already constructed. In addition to this precautionary measure he caused the calzadas, or raised turnpikes of Guadalupe and San Cristoval to be constructed, which, whilst they led to the open country beyond the city, served, also, as additional barriers against the waters. After the completion of these highways, he next directed his attention to those of San Antonio and Chapultepec, which were quickly finished, and merited the name of "Roman works," for the massive strength and durability of their construction. Various other useful municipal works, such as aqueducts and sewers, engaged the notice of the viceroy until, in 1607; and after the proclamation of the Prince of Asturias (Philip IV.) by order of the king, he was ordered to pass from Mexico to Peru where he was charged with the duties of the viceroyalty.

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CHAPTER VI.
1607–1621.

SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF DON LUIS VELASCO—HIS GREAT WORK FOR THE DRAINAGE OF THE VALLEY.—LAKES IN THE VALLEY—DANGER OF INUNDATION.—HISTORY OF THE DESAGUE OF HUEHUETOCA.—OPERATIONS OF THE ENGINEERS MARTINEZ AND BOOT.—THE FRANCISCANS.—COMPLETION OF THE DESAGUE.—LA OBRA DEL CONSULADO.—NEGRO REVOLT.—EXTENSION OF ORIENTAL TRADE.—GUERRA VICEROY.—DE CORDOVA VICEROY.—INDIAN REVOLT.—CORDOVA FOUNDED.

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Don Luis Velasco,—the Second,—Conde de Santiago and
First Marques de Salinas,
XI. Viceroy of Mexico. His Second Administration.
1607–1611.

Don Luis Velasco had been seven years viceroy of Peru since he left the government of Mexico, when he was summoned once more to rule a country of which he felt himself almost a native. [35] He was tired of public life, and being advanced in years would gladly have devoted the rest of his existence to the care of his family and the management of his valuable estates in the colony. But he could not refuse the nomination of the king, and at the age of seventy, once more found himself at the head of affairs in New Spain.

The government of this excellent nobleman has been signalized in history by the erection of the magnificent public work, designed for the drainage of the valley, of which we spoke during the last viceroyalty. The results of Velasco's labors were permanent, and as his work, or at least a large portion of it remains to the present day, and serves to secure the capital from the floods with which it is constantly menaced, we shall describe the whole of this magnificent enterprise at present, though our description will carry us, chronologically, out of the period under consideration, and lead us from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

The valley of Mexico is a great basin, which although seven thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and of course subject to constant and rapid evaporation, is yet exceedingly humid for so elevated a region. No stream, except the small arroyo, or rivulet of Tequisquiac, issues from the valley, whilst the rivers Papalotla, Tezcoco, Teotihuacan, Guadalupe, Pachuca and Guautitlan pour into it and form the five lakes of Chalco, Xochimilco, Tezcoco, San Cristoval and Zumpango. "These lakes rise by stages as they approach the northern extremity of the valley; the waters of Tezcoco, being, in their ordinary state, four Mexican varas and eight inches lower than the waters of the lake of San Cristoval, which again, are six varas lower than the waters of the lake Zumpango, which forms the northernmost link of this dangerous chain. The level of Mexico in 1803 was exactly one vara, one foot and one inch above that of the lake of Tezcoco, [36] and, consequently, was nine varas and five inches lower than that of the lake of Zumpango; a disproportion, the effects of which have been more severely felt because the lake of Zumpango receives the tributary streams of the river Guautitlan, whose volume is more considerable than that of all the other rivers which enter the valley combined.

"In the inundations to which this peculiarity in the formation of the valley of Mexico has given rise, a similar succession of events has been always observed. The lake of Zumpango, swollen by the rapid increase of the river Guautitlan during the rainy season, forms a junction with that of San Cristoval, and the waters of the two combined burst the dykes which separate them from the lake of Tezcoco. The waters of this last again, raised suddenly more than a vara above their usual level, and prevented from extending themselves to the east and south-east, by the rapid rise of the ground in that direction, rush back towards the capital and fill the streets which approach nearest to their own level. This was the case in the years 1553, 1580, 1604 and 1607, in each of which years the capital was entirely under water, and the dykes which had been constructed for its protection destroyed." [37]

Such is a topographical sketch of the country accurately given by a careful writer; and to protect an important region so constantly menaced with inundation, the viceroy now addressed himself. Accordingly he commissioned the engineer Enrique Martinez, in 1607 to attempt the drainage of the lake of Zumpango, by the stupendous canal now known under the name of the Desague de Huehuetoca.

"The plan of Martinez appears to have embraced two distinct objects, the first of which extended to the lakes of Tezcoco and San Cristoval, while the second was confined to the lake of Zumpango whose superfluous waters were to be carried into the valley of Tula by a subterraneous canal into which the river Guautitlan was likewise compelled to flow. The second of these projects only was approved by the government; and the line of the canal having been traced by Martinez between the Cerro or hill of Sincoque and the hill of Nochistongo to the north-west of Huehuetoca, where the mountains that surrounded the valley are less elevated than in any other spot,—the great subterraneous gallery of Nochistongo was commenced on the 28th of November, 1607. Fifteen thousand Indians were employed in this work, and as a number of air shafts were sunk, in order to enable them to work upon the different points at once, in eleven months a tunnel of six thousand six hundred metres [38] in length, three metres five in breadth and four metres two in height, was concluded.

"From the northern extremity of this tunnel called la boca de San Gregorio, an open cut of eight thousand six hundred metres conducted the waters to the salto or fall of the river Tula, where, quitting the valley of Mexico, they precipitate themselves into that of Tula, from a natural terrace of twenty Mexican varas in height, and take their course towards the bar of Tampico where they enter the gulf of Mexico. An enterprise of such magnitude could hardly be free from defects, and Martinez soon discovered that the unbaked bricks, of which the interior of the tunnel was composed, were unable to resist the action of water, which, being confined within narrow limits, was at times impelled through the tunnel with irresistible violence. A facing of wood proved equally ineffectual, and masonry was at last resorted to; but even this, though successful for a time, did not answer permanently, because the engineer, instead of an elliptical arch, constructed nothing but a sort of vault, the sides of which rested upon a foundation of no solidity. The consequence was that the walls were gradually undermined by the water, and that the vault itself in many parts fell in.

"This accident rendered the government indifferent to the fate of the gallery which was neglected, and finally abandoned in the year 1623, when a Dutch engineer, named Adrian Boot, induced the viceroy to resume the old system of dyke and embankments, and to give orders for closing the tunnel of Nochistongo. A sudden rise in the lake of Tezcoco caused these orders to be revoked, and Martinez was again allowed to proceed with his works which he continued until the 20th of June, 1629, when an event took place, the real causes of which have never been ascertained."

"The rainy season having set in with unusual violence, Martinez, either desirous to convince the inhabitants of the capital of the utility of his gallery, or fearful, as he himself stated, that the fruits of his labor would be destroyed by the entrance of too great a volume of water, closed the mouth of the tunnel, without communicating to any one his intention to do so. The effect was instantaneous; and, in one night, the whole town of Mexico was laid under water, with the exception of the great square, and one of the suburbs. In all the other streets the water rose upwards of three feet, and during five years, from 1629 to 1634, canoes formed the only medium of communication between them. The foundations of many of the principal houses were destroyed; trade was paralyzed; the lower classes reduced to the lowest state of misery; and orders were actually given by the court of Madrid to abandon the town and build a new capital in the elevated plains between Tacuba and Tacubaya, to which the waters of the lakes, even before the conquest, had never been known to extend.

"The necessity of this measure was obviated by a succession of earthquakes in the dry year of 1634, when the valley was cracked and rent in various directions, and the waters gradually disappeared; a miracle for which due credit should be given to the Virgin of Guadalupe, by whose powerful intercession it is said to have been effected.

"Martinez, who had been thrown into confinement in 1629, was released upon the termination of the evils which his imprudence was said to have occasioned; and was again placed by a new viceroy,—the Marques de Cerralvo,—at the head of the works by which similar visitations were to be averted in future. Under his superintendence the great dyke, or Calzada of San Cristoval was put in order, [39] by which the lake of that name is divided from that of Tezcoco. This gigantic work which consists of two distinct masses, the first, one league, and the second, one thousand five hundred varas in length, is ten varas in width or thickness throughout, and from three and a half to four varas in height. It is composed entirely of stone, with buttresses of solid masonry on both sides, and three sluices, by which, in any emergency, a communication between the lakes can be effected and regulated at the same time. The whole was concluded, like the gallery of Nochistongo, in eleven months, although as many years would now be required for such an undertaking. But in those days the sacrifice of life, and particularly of Indian life, in public works, was not regarded. Many thousands of the natives perished before the desague was completed; and to their loss, as well as to the hardships endured by the survivors, may be ascribed the horror with which the name of Huehuetoca is pronounced by their descendants.

"It is not our intention to follow the progress of the canal of Huehuetoca through all the various changes which occurred in the plans pursued with respect to it from 1637, when the direction of the work was again taken from Martinez and confided to the Franciscan monks, until 1767, when, under the viceroyalty of the Marques de Croix, the Consulado or corporate body of Mexican merchants, engaged to complete this great national undertaking. The necessity of converting the tunnel of Martinez into an open cut, had long been acknowledged, it having been found impossible to prevent the tunnel from being continually choked up by the sand and rubbish deposited by the water on its passage; but as the work was only prosecuted with vigor when the danger of an inundation became imminent, and was almost suspended in the dry years, two thousand three hundred and ten varas of the northern gallery remained untouched, after the expiration of one hundred and thirty years when the Consulado was intrusted with the completion of the arduous task. As the old line of the gallery was to be preserved, it became necessary to give the cut which was to be sunk, perpendicularly upon it, an enormous width at the top, in order to prevent the sides from falling in; and in the more elevated parts, between the mountains of Sincoque and the hill of Nochistongo, for the space of two thousand six hundred and twenty-four feet, the width, across, varies from two hundred and seventy-eight to six hundred and thirty feet, while the perpendicular depth is from one hundred and forty-seven to one hundred and ninety-six feet. The whole length of the cut from the sluice called the vertideros to the salto or fall of the river Tula, is sixty-seven thousand five hundred and thirty-seven feet or twenty-four thousand five hundred and thirty Mexican varas. The highest point of the hill of Nochistongo is that called Boveda Real, and it would be difficult when looking down from it, upon the stream below, and, following with the eye the vast opening through which it seeks an issue, to conceive that the whole is, indeed, the work of man, did not the mounds on either side, as yet but imperfectly covered with vegetation, and the regular outline of the terraces, denote both the recentness of its completion, and the impossibility of attributing it to any natural convulsion.

"The Obra del Consulado, as the opening cut is called, was concluded in the year 1789. It cost nearly a million of dollars; and the whole expense of the drainage from 1607 to the beginning of the present century, including the various projects commenced and abandoned when only partially executed,—the dykes connected with the desague,—and the two canals which communicate with the lakes of San Cristoval and Zumpango,—is estimated at six millions two hundred and forty-seven thousand six hundred and seventy dollars, or one million two hundred and forty-nine thousand five hundred and thirty-four pounds. It is supposed that one-third of this sum would have proved sufficient to cover all the expenses, had Martinez been furnished in the first instance with the means of executing his project upon the scale which he had judged necessary; for it is in the reduced dimensions of the gallery of Nochistongo, which was never equal to the volume of water to which at particular seasons it afforded an outlet, that all the subsequent expenditure has originated." [40]

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We have judged it better to group together in this place all the facts relative to this most important national work,—so as to afford the reader a complete picture of the undertaking,—than to relate the slow and tedious history of the work as it advanced to completion during the reigns of many viceroys. The present condition of the desague and its advantages will be treated in another portion of this work; and we shall therefore revert at once to the year 1609, in which a large number of negroes rebelled against the Spaniards. It seems that the blacks in the neighborhood of Cordova, who were in fact slaves on many of the hiciendas or plantations, having been treated, in an inhuman manner by their owners, rose against them in great force, and gathering together in the adjacent mountains menaced their tyrannical task-masters with death, and their property with ruin. Velasco sent one hundred soldiers, one hundred volunteers, one hundred Indian archers, together with two hundred Spaniards and Mestizos, to attack them in their fastnesses. Several skirmishes took place between the slaves and these forces, and at length the negroes yielded to the Spaniards,—craving their pardon, inasmuch as their "insurrection was not against the king,"—and promising that they would no longer afford a refuge to the blacks who absconded from the plantations. Velasco at once granted their request, and permitted them to settle in the town of San Lorenzo.

In 1610 and 1611, there were but few important incidents in the history of New Spain, which was now gradually forming itself into a regularly organized state, free from all those violent internal commotions, which nations, like men, are forced to undergo in their infancy. The viceroy still endeavored to ameliorate the condition of the Indians, and despatched a mission to Japan in order to extend the oriental commerce of Spain. The true policy of Castile would have been, instead of crushing Mexico by colonial restrictions, to have raised her gradually into a gigantic state, which, situated in the centre of America, on the narrowest part of the continent between the two oceans, and holding in her veins the precious metals in exhaustless quantities, would have surely grasped and held the commerce of the east and of Europe. Such would seem the natural destiny of Mexico if we examine her geographical features carefully; nor do we venture too much in predicting that the time will come when that destiny will be fulfilled.

Velasco was now well stricken in years and required repose. His master, appreciating his faithful services and his unquestionable loyalty, added to his already well earned titles that of Marques of Salinas, and creating him president of the Council of the Indies recalled him to Spain where he could pass in quiet the evening of his days, whilst he was also enabled to impart the results of his vast American experience to the king and court.

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Fray Garcia Guerra, Archbishop of Mexico,
XII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1611–1612.

Velasco, as an especial mark of royal favor, was desired to retain his power as viceroy until the moment of embarkation for Spain, and then to depose it in favor of the monk Garcia Guerra, who had been the worthy prior of a Dominican convent at Burgos in Spain, until he was nominated to the Archepiscopal See of Mexico. His government was brief and altogether eventless. He became viceroy on the 17th of June, 1611, and died on the 22d of February in the following year, of a wound he received in falling as he descended from his coach.

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Don Diego Fernandez de Cordova,
Marques de Guadalcazar,
XIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1612–1621.

Upon the death of the last viceroy, the Audiencia, of course, took possession of the government during the interregnum;—and, as it seems that this body of men was always doomed to celebrate its authority by acts of folly or cruelty, we find that soon after its accession to power the city was alarmed by the news of another outbreak among the negroes. The people were panic struck. A terrible noise had been heard in the streets of the metropolis during the night, and, although it was proved that the disturbance was entirely caused by the entrance, during the darkness, of a large drove of hogs, the Audiencia determined, nevertheless, to appease public opinion by the execution of twenty-nine male negroes and four negro women! Their withered and fetid bodies were left to hang on the gallows, tainting the air and shocking the eyes of every passer, until the neighborhood could no longer bear the sickly stench and imperiously demanded their removal.

*****

The Marques de Guadalcazar took possession of the viceroyalty on the 28th of October, 1612, and his government passed in quiet engaged in the mere ordinary discharge of executive duties during the first four years, subsequent to which an Indian insurrection of a formidable character broke out in one of the departments, under a chief who styled himself "Son of the Sun and God of Heaven and Earth." This assault was fatal to every Spaniard within reach of the infuriate natives, who broke into the churches, murdered the whites seeking sanctuary at their altars, and spared not even the ecclesiastics, who, in all times, have so zealously proved themselves to be the defenders of their race. Don Gaspar Alvear, Governor of Durango, assembled a large force as soon as the viceroy informed him of the insurrection, and marched against the savages. After three months of fighting, executions and diplomacy, this functionary succeeded in suffocating the rebellion; but he was probably more indebted, for the final reconciliation of the Indians, to the persuasive talents of the Jesuits who accompanied the expedition, than to the arms of his soldiers.

The remaining years of this viceroyalty are only signalized by the founding of the city of Cordova,—whose neighborhood is renowned for the excellent tobacco it produces,—and for the construction of the beautiful aqueduct of San Cosmé which brings the sweet waters of Santa Fé to the capital. This monument to the intelligence and memory of Guadalcazar was completed in 1620; and, in March, 1621, the viceroy was removed to the government of Peru.

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Footnotes

[ [35] Velasco had been sent to Peru eleven years before, and after governing it seven, had returned to reside in Mexico, when he was unexpectedly reappointed viceroy.

[ [36] The level of Tezcoco is now, according to Mühlenpfordt, five feet seven inches (Spanish) below that of the city of Mexico.

[ [37] Ward's Mexico in 1827, vol. 2, p. 282 et seq.

[ [38] The metre is equal to thirty-nine thousand three hundred and seventy-one English inches.

[ [39] The Calzada of San Cristoval was originally erected, according to good authority, in the year 1605. See Liceo Mexicano, vol. 2, p. 6.

[ [40] Ward, vol. 2, p. 283, et seq.

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CHAPTER VII.
1621–1624.

MARQUES DE GELVES VICEROY—HIS REFORMS—NARRATIVE OF FATHER GAGE.—GELVES FORESTALLS THE MARKET—THE ARCHBISHOP EXCOMMUNICATES MEXIA, HIS AGENT.—QUARREL BETWEEN GELVES AND THE ARCHBISHOP.—VICEROY EXCOMMUNICATED.—ARCHBISHOP AT GUADALUPE—HE IS ARRESTED AT THE ALTAR—SENT TO SPAIN.—MEXIA THREATENED.—MOB ATTACKS THE PALACE—IT IS SACKED.—VICEROY ESCAPES.—RETRIBUTION.

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Don Diego Carillo Mendoza y Pimentel,
Count de Priego and Marques de Gelves,
XIV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1621–1624.

Upon the removal of the Marques of Guadalcazar, and until the 21st of September, 1621, the Audiencia again ruled in Mexico, without any interruption however, upon this occasion, of the public peace. The six months of the interregnum might, indeed, have been altogether forgotten, in the history of the country, had not the Audiencia been obliged to announce the reception of a royal cedula from Philip IV., communicating the news of his father's death, and commanding a national mourning for his memory. In September, the new viceroy arrived in the capital, and immediately caused the royal order to be carried into effect and allegiance to be sworn solemnly to Philip IV. as king and lord of Old and New Spain. [41]

The Marques de Gelves was selected by the sovereign for the reputation he bore in Spain as a lover of justice and order,—qualities which would ensure his utility in a country whose quietness, during several of the last viceroyal reigns, had indicated either a very good or a very bad government, which it was impossible for the king to examine personally. Accordingly Gelves took the reins with a firm hand. He found many of the departments of government in a bad condition, and is said to have reformed certain abuses which were gradually undermining the political and social structure of the colony. In these duties the two first years of his viceroyalty passed away quietly; but Gelves, though an excellent magistrate so far as the internal police of the country is concerned, was, nevertheless, a selfish and avaricious person, and seems to have resolved that his fortune should prosper by his government of New Spain.

The incidents which we are about to relate are stated on the authority of Father Gage, an English friar who visited Mexico in 1625; and whose pictures of the manners of the people correspond so well with our personal knowledge of them, at present, that we are scarcely at liberty to question his fidelity as a historian. [42]

In the year 1624, Mexico was, for a time, in a state of great distraction, and well nigh revolted from the Spanish throne. The passion for acquiring fortune, which had manifested itself somewhat in other viceroys, seems in Gelves unbounded. He resolved to achieve his end by a bold stroke; and, in 1623, having determined to monopolize the staff of life among the Indians and creoles, he despatched one of the wealthiest Mexicans, Don Pedro de Mexia, to buy up corn in all the provinces at the rate of fourteen reales, the sum fixed by law at which the corn was sold in times of famine. The farmers, who, of course, knew nothing of Mexia's plan readily disposed of their corn, with which the artful purveyor filled his store houses all over the country. After the remnant of the crop was brought to market and sold, men began to compare notes, and suddenly discovered that corn was no where to be procured, save from the granaries of Mexia. "The poor began to murmur, the rich began to complain; and the tariff of fourteen reales was demanded from the viceroy." But he, the secret accomplice of Mexia, decided, that as the crops had been plentiful during the year, it could not be regarded as one of scarcity according to the evident intention of the law, so that it would be unfair to reduce the price of grain to that of famine. And thus the people, balked in their effort to obtain justice from their ruler, though suffering from extreme imposition, resolved to bear the oppression, rather than resort to violence for redress.

After awhile, however, the intimacy between Gelves and Mexia became more apparent as the confederates supposed they had less cause for concealment; and the poor, again, besought the viceroy for justice and the legal tariff. But the temptation was too great for the avaricious representative of the king. He again denied their petition; and, then, as a last hope, they resorted to a higher power, which, in such conflicts with their rulers, had usually been successful.

In those days, Don Alonzo de la Serna, a man of lofty character and intrepid spirit, was archbishop of Mexico, and perceiving the avaricious trick of the viceroy and his pimp, threw himself on the popular side and promptly excommunicated Mexia. But the sturdy merchant, protected by viceroyal authority, was not to be conquered by so immaterial a thing as a prelate's curse placarded on the door of a cathedral. He remained quietly ensconced in his house, despatched orders to his agents, and even raised the price of his extravagant bread stuffs. For a moment, perhaps, De la Serna was confounded by this rebellious son of the church, yet the act convinced him, if indeed, he entertained any doubt on the subject, that Mexia was backed by the viceroy, and, consequently, that any further attempts would bring him in direct conflict with the government. Nevertheless, a man like him was not to be easily alarmed or forced to retreat so quickly. The church, supreme in spiritual power, would never yield, especially in a matter of popular and vital concern, and the archbishop, therefore, determined to adopt the severest method at once, and by an order of cessatio divinis, to stop, immediately, all religious worship throughout the colony. This was a direful interdict, the potency of which can only be imagined by those who have lived in Catholic countries whose piety is not periodically regulated upon the principle of a seven day clock, but where worship is celebrated from hour to hour in the churches. The doors of chapels, cathedrals and religious buildings were firmly closed. A death-like silence prevailed over the land. No familiar bells sounded for matins or vespers. The people, usually warned by them of their hours of labor or repose, had now no means of measuring time. The priests went from house to house, lamenting the grievous affliction with which the country was visited and sympathizing cordially with the people. The church mourned for the unnatural pains her rebellious son had brought upon her patient children. But still the contumacious Mexia sold his corn and exacted his price!

At length, however, popular discontent became so clamorous, that even among this orderly and enduring people, the life of the viceroy's agent was no longer safe. He retreated therefore from his own dwelling to the palace, which was strongly guarded, and demanded protection from Gelves. The viceroy admitted him and took issue with the archbishop. He immediately sent orders to the priests and curates of the several parishes, to cause the orders of interdict and excommunication to be torn from the church walls, and all the chapels to be thrown open for service. But the resolute clergy, firm in their adherence to the prelate, would receive no command from the viceroy. Finding the churches still closed, and the people still more clamorous and angry, Gelves commanded De la Serna to revoke his censures; but the archbishop answered, that "what he had done was but an act of divine justice against a cruel oppressor of the poor, whose cries had moved him to compassion, and that the offender's contempt for his excommunication had deserved the rigor of both of his censures, neither of which he would recall until Don Pedro de Mexia submitted himself reverently to the church, received public absolution, and threw up the unconscionable monopoly wherewith he had wronged the commonwealth." "But," says the chronicle of the day, "the viceroy, not brooking the saucy answer of a churchman, nor permitting him to imitate the spirit of the holy Ambrose against the Emperor Theodosius," forthwith sent orders to arrest De la Serna, and to carry him to Vera Cruz, where he was to be confined in the castle of San Juan de Ulua until he could be despatched to Spain. The archbishop, however, followed by a long train of his prebends, priests, and curates, immediately retired from the capital to the neighboring village of Guadalupe, but left a sentence of excommunication on the cathedral door against the viceroy himself! This was too much for the haughty representative of the Spanish king to bear without resentment, and left no means open for conciliation between church and state. Gelves could as little yield now, as De la Serna could before, and of course, nothing remained for him but to lay violent hands on the prelate wherever he might be found. His well paid soldiers were still faithfully devoted to the viceroy, and he forthwith committed the archbishop's arrest to a reckless and unscrupulous officer named Tirol. As soon as he had selected a band of armed men, upon whose courage and obedience he could rely, this person hastened to the village of Guadalupe. In the meantime the archbishop was apprised of his coming and prepared to meet him. He summoned his faithful clergy to attend in the sanctuary of the church, clad in their sacred vestments. For the first time, after many a long and weary day, the ears of the people were saluted by the sound of bells calling them to the house of God. Abandoning their business, some of them immediately filled the square, eagerly demanding by what blessed interposition they had been relieved from the fearful interdict,—while others thronged the doors and crowded the aisles of the long forsaken chapel. The candles on the altar were lighted; the choir struck up a solemn hymn for the church; and, then, advancing along the aisle in gorgeous procession, De la Serna and his priestly train took up their position in front of the tabernacle, where, crowned with his mitre, his crozier in one hand, and the holy sacrament in the other, this brave prelate awaited the forces which had been sent to seize him. It is difficult to say, if De la Serna designed by so imposing a spectacle to strike awe into the mind of the sacrilegious soldier, or whether he thought it his duty to be arrested, if arrested he must be, at that altar he had sworn to serve. It is probable, however, from his exalted character and courage, that the latter was the true motive of his act, and if so, he met his fate nobly in the cause of justice and religion.

Tirol was not long in traversing the distance between Mexico and Guadalupe. As soon as he arrived, he entered the church accompanied by his officers and seemed appalled by the gorgeous and dramatic display round the shrine. Not a whisper was heard in the edifice as the crowd slowly parted to make way for the soldiers, who advanced along the aisle and humbly knelt, for a moment, at the altar in prayer. This done, Tirol approached De la Serna, and with "fair and courteous words" required him to lay down the sacrament, to quit the sanctuary, and to listen to the orders issued in the royal name. The archbishop abruptly refused to comply, and answered, that "As the viceroy was excommunicated he regarded him as beyond the pale of the church and in no way empowered to command in Mexico;" he, therefore, ordered the soldiers, as they valued the peace of their souls, to desist from infringing the privileges of the church by the exercise of secular power within its limits, and, he finally declared "that he would, on no account, depart from the altar unless torn from it with the sacrament." Upon this Tirol arose, and read the order for his arrest, describing him as a "traitor to the king, a disturber of the peace, and a mover of sedition in the commonwealth."

De la Serna smiled contemptuously at the officer as he finished, and taunted him with the viceroy's miserable attempt to cast upon the church the odium of sedition, when his creature Mexia was, in fact, the shameless offender. He conjured Tirol "not to violate the sanctuary to which he had retreated, lest his hand should be withered like that of Jeroboam, who stretched forth an arm against the prophet of the Lord at the altar!"

Tirol seems to have been a man upon whose nerves such appeals had but little effect. He was a blunt soldier, who received the orders of his superiors and performed them to the letter. He had been ordered to arrest the archbishop wherever he found him, and he left the ecclesiastical scandal to be settled by those who sent him. Beckoning to a recreant priest who had been tampered with and brought along for the purpose, he commanded him in the king's name, to wrest the sacrament from the prelate's hand. The clergyman, immediately mounting the steps of the altar, obeyed the orders, and the desecrated bishop at once threw off his pontifical robes and yielded to civil power. The cowardly Mexicans made no attempt to protect their intrepid friend, who, as he left the sanctuary, paused for a moment and stretched his hands in benediction over the recreants. Then bidding an affectionate farewell to his clergy, whom he called to witness how zealously he had striven to preserve the church from outrage, as well as the poor from plunder, he departed as a prisoner for Vera Cruz, whence he was despatched for Spain in a vessel expressly equipped for his conveyance.

*****

For a while the people were panic struck at this high-handed movement against the archbishop, but when the momentary effect had passed away and they began to reflect on the disgrace of the church as well as the loss of their protector, they vented their displeasure openly against Mexia and the viceroy. The temper of the masses was at once noticed by the clergy, who were still faithful to their persecuted bishop, nor did they hesitate to fan the flame of discontent among the suffering Indians, Mestizos and Creoles, who omitted no occasion to express their hatred of the Spaniards, and especially of Tirol, who had been the viceroy's tool in De la Serna's arrest. A fortnight elapsed after the occurrences we have just detailed, and that daring officer had already delivered his prisoner at Vera Cruz, and returned to Mexico. Popular clamor at once became loud against him; whenever he appeared in public he was assailed with curses and stones; until, at last, an enraged mob attacked him in his carriage with such violence that it was alone owing to the swiftness of the mules, lashed by the affrighted postillion, that he escaped into the viceroyal palace, whose gates were immediately barred against his pursuers. Meantime the news had spread over town that this "Judas,"—"this excommunicated dog,"—had taken refuge with Gelves, and the neighboring market place became suddenly filled with an infuriated mob, numbering near seven thousand Indians, negroes and mulattoes, who rushed towards the palace with the evident intention of attacking it. Seeing this outbreak from a window, the viceroy sent a message to the assailants desiring them to retire, and declaring that Tirol had escaped by a postern. But the blood of the people was up, and not to be calmed by excuses. At this juncture several priests entered the crowd, and a certain Salazar was especially zealous in exciting the multitude to summary revenge. The pangs of hunger, were, for a moment, forgotten in the more bitter excitement of religious outrage. By this time the mob obtained whatever arms were nearest at hand. Poles, pikes, pistols, guns, halberds, and stones were brought to the ground, and fierce onsets were made on every accessible point of the palace. Neither the judges nor the police came forward to aid in staying the riot and protecting Gelves:—"Let the youngsters alone," exclaimed the observers, "they will soon find out both Mexia and Tirol, as well as their patron, and the wrongs of the people will be quickly redressed!" A portion of the mob drew off to an adjacent prison, whose doors were soon forced and the convicts released.

At length, things became alarming to the besieged inmates of the palace, for they seemed to be entirely deserted by the respectable citizens and police. Thereupon the viceroy ascended to the azotéa or flat roof of the palace with his guard and retainers, and, displaying the royal standard, caused a trumpet to be sounded calling the people to uphold the king's authority. But the reply to his summons was still in an unrelenting tone—"Viva el Rey! Muera el mal gobierno; mueran los dos comulgados!" "Long live the king! but down with the wicked government, and death to the excommunicated wretches!" These shouts, yelled forth by the dense and surging mob, were followed by volleys, discharged at the persons on the azotéa, who, for three hours, returned the shots and skirmished with the insurgents. Stones, also, were hurled from the parapet upon the crowd, but it is related in the chronicles of the time, that not a single piece of ordnance was discharged upon the people, "for the viceroy, in those days, had none for the defence of his palace or person, neither had that great city any for its strength and security."

So passed the noon and evening of that disastrous day; but, at night fall, the baffled mob that had been unable to make any impression with their feeble weapons upon the massive walls of the palace, brought pitch and inflammable materials, with which they fired the gates of the viceroyal palace. The bright flames of these combustibles sent up their light in the still evening air, and, far and wide over the town spread the news that the beautiful city was about to be destroyed. Frightened from their retreats, the judges and chief citizens who had influence with the people rushed to the plaza, and, by their urgent entreaties, efforts were made to extinguish the fire. But the palace gates had already fallen, and, over their smouldering ruins, the infuriated assailants rushed into the edifice to commence the work of destruction. The magistrates, however, who had never taken part against the people in their quarrels, soon appeared upon the field, and, by loud entreaties, stopped the saqueo. It was soon discovered that Mexia and Tirol had escaped by a postern, whilst the conquered viceroy, disguised as a friar, stole through the crowd to the Franciscan cloister, where, for many a day, he lay concealed in the sanctuary which his rapacious spirit had denied to the venerable De la Serna.

So ended this base attempt of a Spanish nobleman and representative of royalty in America, to enrich himself by plundering the docile Mexicans. The fate of Mexia and Tirol is unknown. But Spanish injustice towards the colonies was strongly marked by the reception of the viceroy and the archbishop on their return from Madrid. Gelves, it is true, was recalled, but, after being graciously welcomed at court, was made "master of the royal horse;" while the noble hearted De la Serna was degraded from his Mexican arch-prelacy; and banished to the petty bishopric of Zamora in Castile!

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Footnotes

[ [41] "Como Rey y Señor de las Españas," says the authority.

[42] "A new survey of the West Indies, or The English American, his Travels by land and sea; by Thomas Gage, London, 1677, see p. 176." It is due to impartial history and to the memory of the Marques de Gelves to state that a different account of these occurrences is given by Ramon J. Alcaraz, a modern Mexican writer in the Liceo Mexicano, vol. 2, p. 120. Alcaraz fortifies his views by some documents, and by a justificatory commentary of the Marques himself. But he, like Gage, does not state his authorities. The story as related by the English friar is very characteristic of the age, and, si non e vero e ben trovato. Those who are anxious to discover the innocence or guilt of the viceroy, with certainty, will have a difficult task in exploring the Spanish manuscripts of the period. The British traveller Gage, was on the spot in the year after the events occurred, and his subsequent abandonment of the Catholic church would not be likely to lead him into the espousal of the archbishop de la Serna's cause against the viceroy.

Cavo in his work entitled—"Tres Siglos de Mexico,"—states that the account he gives of this transaction is taken from five different narratives of it which were published at the time of its occurrence—three in favor of the viceroy and two sustaining the cause of the archbishop. In the last two, he alleges, that all the imputations against the archbishop were disproved, and that all the charges against the viceroy were sustained by solid argument.

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CHAPTER VIII.
1624–1642.

THE AUDIENCIA RULES IN THE INTERREGNUM.—CARILLO VISITADOR.—INQUISITORIAL EXAMINATION.—ACAPULCO TAKEN.—ATTACKS BY THE DUTCH.—REMOVAL OF THE CAPITAL PROPOSED.—ARMENDARIZ VICEROY.—ESCALONA VICEROY.—PALAFOX'S CONDUCT TO THE VICEROY.—PALAFOX VICEROY—HIS GOOD AND EVIL.

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Don Roderigo Pacheco Osorio, Marques de Cerralvo,
XV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1624–1635.

Upon the violent expulsion of the viceroy Gelves by the popular outbreak, narrated in the last chapter, the government of New Spain fell once more into the hands of the Audiencia during the interregnum. This body immediately adopted suitable measures to terminate the disaffection. The people were calmed by the deposition of one they deemed an unjust ruler; but for a long time it was found necessary to keep on foot in the capital, large bands of armed men, in order to restrain those troublesome persons who are always ready to avail themselves of any pretext for tumultuary attacks either against property or upon people who are disposed to maintain the supremacy of law and order.

As soon as Philip IV. was apprised of the disturbances in his transatlantic colony, he trembled for the security of Spanish power in that distant realm, and immediately despatched Don Martin Carillo, Inquisitor of Valladolid, with unlimited power to examine into the riots of the capital and to punish the guilty participants in a signal and summary manner. It is not our purpose, at present, to discuss the propriety of sending from Spain special judges, in the character of Visitadores or Inquisitors, whenever crimes were committed by eminent individuals in the colony, or by large bodies of people, which required the infliction of decided punishment. But it may be regarded as one of the characteristic features of the age, and as demonstrative of the peculiar temper of the king that an Inquisitor was selected upon this occasion for so delicate and dangerous a duty. It is true that the church, through the late archbishop, was concerned in this painful affair; but it little accords with the ideas of our age to believe it necessary that a subject of such public concern as the insurrection against an unjust and odious viceroy should be confined to the walls of an inquisition or conducted by one of its leading functionaries alone. Had the investigation been intrusted exclusively to a civil and not an ecclesiastical judge, it is very questionable whether he should have been sent from Spain for this purpose alone. Being a foreigner, at least so far as the colony was concerned, he could have scarcely any knowledge of or sympathy with the colonists. Extreme impartiality may have been ensured by this fact; yet as the Visitador or Inquisitor departed, as soon as his special function ceased, he was never responsible for his decrees to that wholesome public opinion which visits the conduct of a judge with praise or condemnation during his life time when he permanently resides in a country, and, is always the safest guardian of the liberty of the citizen.

It seems, however, that the Inquisitor administered his office fairly and even leniently in this case, for his judgments fell chiefly on the thieves who stole the personal effects of the viceroy during the sacking of the palace. The principal movers in the insurrection had absented themselves from the capital, and prudently remained in concealment until the Visitador terminated his examinations, inflicted his punishments upon the culprits he convicted, and crossed the sea to report his proceedings at court.

*****

Carillo had been accompanied to New Spain by a new viceroy, Don Roderigo Pacheco Osorio, Marques of Cerralvo, who arrived in the capital on the 3d of November, 1624, and assumed the government. He left the examination of the insurrection entirely in the hands of the Inquisitor and directed his attention to the public affairs of the colony. These he found peaceful, except that a Dutch squadron, under the command of the prince of Nassau attacked Acapulco, and the feeble city and garrison readily surrendered without resistance. The fleet held the city, however, only for a few days, and set sail for other enterprises. This assault upon an important port alarmed the viceroy, who, at once, sent orders to have the town immediately surrounded with a wall, and suitable forts and bastions erected which would guard it in all subsequent attacks. These fortifications were hardly commenced when another Dutch fleet appeared before the town. But this time the visit was not of a hostile nature;—it was an exhausted fleet, demanding water and provisions, after recovering which it resumed its track for the East Indies. Whilst the Spaniards were thus succoring and sustaining their enemies the Dutch, a dreadful famine scourged Sinaloa and neighboring provinces, carrying off upwards of eight thousand Indians.

During the long reign of the present monarch, Philip IV., Spain was frequently at war with England, Holland, and France; and the Dutch, who inflicted dreadful ravages on the American coasts, secured immense spoil from the Spaniards. In 1628, Pedro Hein, a Hollander of great distinction, placed a squadron in the gulf on the coasts of Florida to intercept the fleet of New Spain. The resistance made by the Spaniards was feeble, and, their vessels being captured by the Dutch, the commerce of Mexico experienced a severe blow from which it was long in recovering.

*****

In 1629, there were ecclesiastical troubles in the colony, growing out of an attempt by the higher order of the Spanish clergy to prevent the increase of the regular priesthood from among the natives of the country. They feared that in the course of time the dominion of the establishment would thus be wrested from their hands by the power of the Mexicans. The king, himself was appealed to on this subject and caused it to be examined into carefully. In 1631, in consequence of the repeated danger of the capital from floods, the project of removing the site from its present location, to the loftier levels between Tacuba and Tacubaya, was seriously argued before the people. But the interest of property holders, and inhabitants of the city would have been so seriously affected by this act, that the idea was abandoned.

*****

The remaining years of this viceroyalty were consumed in matters of mere local detail and domestic government, and in fact we know but little of it, save that the severe inundations of 1629 caused the authorities to use their utmost efforts in prosecuting the work of the desague, as we have already seen in the general account given of that gigantic enterprise. In 1635 this viceroy's reign terminated.

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Don Lope Diaz de Armendariz, Marques de Cadereita,
XVI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1635–1640.

The five years of this personage's government were unmarked by any events of consequence in the colony; except that in the last of them,—1640,—he despatched an expedition to the north, where he founded in New Leon, the town of Cadereita, which the emigrants named in honor of their viceroy.

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Don Diego Lopez Pacheco Cabrera y Bobadilla,
Duke of Escalona, Marques of Vilbua and Grandee of
Spain of the first class.
XVII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1640–1642.

The Duke of Escalona succeeded the Marques of Cadereita, and arrived in Mexico on the 28th of June, 1640, together with the venerable Palafox, who came, in the character of Visitador, to inquire into the administration of the last viceroy whose reputation, like that of other chief magistrates in New Spain, had suffered considerably in the hands of his enemies. Whilst this functionary proceeded with his disagreeable task against a man who was no longer in power, the duke, in compliance with the king's command ordered the governor of Sinaloa, Don Luis Cestinos, accompanied by two Jesuits, to visit the Californias and examine their coasts and the neighboring isles in search of the wealth in pearls and precious metals with which they were reputed to be filled. The reports of the explorers were altogether satisfactory both as to the character of the natives and of the riches of the waters as well as of the mines, though they represented the soil as extremely sterile. The gold of California was reserved for another age.

Ever since the conquest the instruction of Indians in christian doctrine had been confided exclusively to the regular clergy of the Roman Catholic church. The secular priests were, thus, entirely deprived of the privilege of mingling their cares with their monastic brethren, who, in the course of time, began to regard this as an absolute, indefeasible right, whose enjoyment they were unwilling to forego, especially as the obvenciones or tributes of the Indian converts, formed no small item of corporate wealth in their respective orders. The Indians were, in fact, lawful tributaries, not only of the whole church, in the estimation of these friars, but of the special sect or brotherhood which happened to obtain the first hold on a tribe or nation by its missionary residence among its people. Palafox requested the Duke of Escalona to deprive the monkish orders of this monopoly; a desire to which the viceroy at once acceded, inasmuch as he was anxious to serve the bishop in all matters pertaining to his religious functions.

The kindly feeling of the viceroy does not appear to have been appreciated, or sincerely responded to by Palafox. This personage was removed in 1642, to the archiepiscopal see of Mexico, and under the pretext of installation in his new office and opening his tribunals, he visited the capital with the actual design of occupying the viceroyal throne to which he had been appointed! This was a sudden and altogether unexpected blow to the worthy duke, who was so unceremoniously supplanted. No one seems to have whispered to him even a suspicion of the approaching calamity, until the crafty Palafox assembled the oidores at midnight on the eve of Pentecost, and read to them the royal despatches containing his commission. His conduct to the jovial hearted duke, who was no match, in all probability, for the wily churchman, was not only insincere but unmannerly, for, immediately after the assumption of his power at dead of night, he commanded a strong guard to surround the palace at dawn, and required the Oidor Lugo, to read the royal cedula to the duke even before he left his bed. The deposed viceroy immediately departed for the convent at Churubusco, outside the city walls on the road to San Agustin de las Cuevas. All his property was sequestrated, and his money and jewels were secured within the treasury.

The reader will naturally seek for an explanation of this political enigma, or base intrigue, and its solution is again eminently characteristic of the reign in which it occurred. It will be remembered that the Duke of Braganza had been declared King of Portugal, which kingdom had separated itself from the Spanish domination, causing no small degree of animosity among the Castilians against the Portuguese and all who favored them. The Duke of Escalona, unfortunately, was related to the house of Braganza, and the credulous Philip having heard that his viceroy exhibited some evidences of attachment to the Portuguese, resolved to supercede him by Palafox. Besides this, the Duke committed the impolitic act of appointing a Portuguese, to the post of Castellan of St. Juan de Ulua; and, upon a certain occasion, when two horses had been presented to him by Don Pedro de Castilla, and Don Cristobal de Portugal, he unluckily, remarked that he liked best the horse that was offered by Portugal! It is difficult to believe that such trifles would affect the destiny of empires, when they were discussed by grave statesmen and monarchs. But such was the miserable reign of Philip IV.;—the most disastrous indeed, in the annals of Spain, except that of Roderic the Goth. Folly like this may justly be attributed to the imbecile king, who witnessed the Catalan insurection, the loss of Rousillon, Conflans, a part of Cordaña, Jamaica, and, above all, of Portugal; and who, moreover, recognized the independence of the Seven United Provinces.

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Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza,
Bishop of Puebla—Chosen Archbishop of Mexico,
Visitador of New Spain, &c. &c.,
XVIII. Viceroy Of New Spain.
1642.

The administration of Palafox as viceroy was of but short duration. He occupied the colonial throne but five months, yet, during that brief space, he did something that signalized his name both honorably and disgracefully. He seems to have been ridiculously bent upon the sacrifice of all the interesting monuments which were still preserved from the period of the conquest as memorials of the art and idolatry of the Aztecs. These he collected from all quarters and destroyed. He was evidently no friend of the friars, but sought to build up and strengthen the secular clergy whose free circulation in the world brought them directly under the eyes of society, and whose order made them dependent upon that society, and not upon a corporation, for maintenance. During his short reign he manifested kindness for the Indians; caused justice to be promptly administered, and even suspended certain worthy oidores who did not work as quickly and decide as promptly as he thought they ought to; he regulated the ordinances of the Audiencia; prepared the statutes of the university; raised a large body of militia to be in readiness in case of an attack from the Portuguese; visited the colleges under his secular jurisdiction; and, finally, in proof of his disinterestedness, refused the salary of viceroy and visitador.

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CHAPTER IX.
1642–1654.

SOTOMAYOR VICEROY.—ESCALONA VINDICATED.—MONASTIC PROPERTY.—BIGOTRY OF PALAFOX.—GUZMAN VICEROY.—INDIAN INSURRECTION.—REVOLT OF THE TARAHUMARES.—SUCCESS OF THE INDIANS—INDIAN WARS.—DUKE DE ALBURQUERQUE VICEROY—ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE HIM.—COUNT DE BANOS VICEROY.—ATTEMPT TO COLONIZE.—ESCOBAR Y LLAMAS AND DE TOLEDO VICEROYS.—DEPREDATIONS OF BRITISH CRUISERS.—NUNO DE PORTUGAL VICEROY.

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Don Garcia Sarmiento de Sotomayor,
Count de Salvatierra, Marques de Sobroso,
XIX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1642–1648.

Philip IV. seems to have been more anxious to use Palafox as an instrument to remove the Duke of Escalona, than to empower him, for any length of time, with viceroyal authority; for, no sooner did he suppose that the duke was displaced quietly without leaving the government in the hands of the Audiencia, than he appointed the Conde de Salvatierra as his representative. This nobleman reached his government on the 23d of November, 1642, and Palafox immediately retired from his office, still preserving, however, the functions of Visitador. At the conclusion of this year the duke departed from Churubusco for San Martin, in order to prepare for his voyage home; and in 1643, this ill used personage left New Spain having previously fortified himself with numerous certificates of his loyalty to the Spanish crown, all of which he used so skilfully in vindication before the vacillating and imbecile king, that he was not only exculpated entirely, but offered once more the viceroyalty from which he had been so rudely thrust. The duke promptly rejected the proposed restoration, but accepted the viceroyalty of Sicily. Before he departed for the seat of government, he gave the king many wise councils as to his American colonies, but, especially advised him to colonize the Californias. Don Pedro Portal de Casañete was commissioned by Philip for this purpose.

In 1644, there were already in Mexico twelve convents of nuns, and nearly an equal number for males, which, either by the unwise but pious zeal of wealthy persons, were becoming rich and aggregating to themselves a large amount of urban and rural property. Besides this the dependants upon these convents, both males and females, were largely increasing;—all of which so greatly prejudiced not only property but population, that the Ayuntamiento or City Council solicited the king not to permit the establishment in future of similar foundations, and to prohibit the acquisition of real estate by monasteries, inasmuch as the time might come when these establishments would be the only proprietors.

Meanwhile Casañete arrived in Mexico on his way to the shores of the Pacific. Salvatierra received him kindly and made proper efforts to equip him for the enterprise. The chiefs and governors of the interior were ordered to aid him in every way; but just as he was about to sail, two of his vessels were burned, whereupon his soldiers dispersed, whilst the families of his colonists withdrew, in hope of being again soon summoned to embark.

The civil government of Salvatierra passed in quietness; but the domineering spirit of Palafox did not allow the church to remain at peace with the state. In 1647, this lordly churchman engaged in warm discussion with the Jesuits and other orders. Most scandalous scenes occurred in the churches of Puebla. Anathemas, excommunications, and all the artillery of the church were used against each other. Palafox persevered in his rancorous controversy as long as he remained in America, and even after his return to Europe, pursued his quarrel at the court of Rome. At the close of this year Salvatierra was removed to the viceroyalty of Peru.

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Don Marcos de Torres y Rueda,
Bishop of Yucatan—Governor of New Spain.
XX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1648–1649.

The rule of Torres y Rueda was brief and eventless. It extended from the 13th of March, 1648, to the 22d of April, 1649, when the bishop-governor died, and was sumptuously interred in the church of San Agustin in the city of Mexico.

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Don Luis Enriquez de Guzman, Count de Alvadeliste.
XXI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1649–1654.

The Audiencia ruled in New Spain until the 3d of July, 1650, the period of the Conde de Alvadeliste's arrival in the capital. This nobleman had been, in fact, appointed by the king immediately upon the transfer of the Conde de Salvatierra to Peru; but inasmuch as he could not immediately cross the Atlantic, the bishop of Yucatan had been directed to assume his functions ad interim. Alvadeliste, a man of amiable character and gentle manners, soon won the good opinion of the Spanish colonists and creoles. But if he was to experience but little trouble from his countrymen and their descendants, he was not to escape a vexatious outbreak among the northern Indians, who had remained quiet for so long that it was supposed they were finally and successfully subjected to the Spanish yoke.

The viceroy had not been long installed when he received news of a rebellion against the Spaniards by the Tarahumares, who inhabited portions of Chihuahua and Sinaloa, and who hitherto yielded implicitly to the gentle and persuasive voice of the evangelical teachers dwelling among them. The portion of this tribe inhabiting Sinaloa, commenced the assault, but the immediate cause of the rebellion is not known. We are not aware whether they experienced a severe local government at the hands of the Spaniards, whether they were tired of the presence of the children of the Peninsula, or whether they feared that the priestly rule was only another means of subjecting them more easily to the crown of Castile. Perhaps all these causes influenced the rebellion. Already in 1648, the chief of the nation had compromised three other tribes in the meditated outbreak; but, lacking the concerted action of the Tepehuanes and other bands, upon whose aid they confidently counted, they resolved to attack, alone, the village of San Francisco de Borja, whose garrison and village they slaughtered and burned. San Francisco was the settlement which supplied the local missions with provisions, and its loss was consequently irreparable to that portion of the country.

As soon as the chief judge of Parral heard of this sanguinary onslaught he hastily gathered the neighboring farmers, herdsmen, and merchants, and hastened into the wilderness against the insurgents, who fled when they had destroyed the great depot of the Spaniards. The troops, hardy as they were on these distant frontiers, were not calculated for the rough warfare of woodsmen, and after some insignificant and unsuccessful skirmishes with the marauders, the new levies retired hastily to their homes.

Fajardo, governor of Nueva Biscaya, soon heard of the rebellion and of the ineffectual efforts to suppress it. He was satisfied that no time was to be lost in crushing the rebellion, and, accordingly marched with Juan Barraza, to the seat of war with an adequate force. The Indians had meanwhile left their villages and betaken themselves to the mountains, woods and fastnesses. Fajardo immediately burned their abandoned habitations and desolated their cultivated fields; and when the Indians, who were now satisfied of their impotence, demanded peace, he granted it on condition that the four insurgent chiefs of the rebellion should be surrendered for punishment. The natives, in reply, brought him the head of one of their leaders, together with his wife and child; soon after another head was delivered to him, and, in a few days, the other two leaders surrendered.

This, for a while, calmed the country; but in order to confirm the peace and friendship which seemed to be now tolerably well established, a mission was founded in the valley of Papigochi, in which the chief population of the Tarahumares resided. The reverend Jesuit, Father Bendin, was charged with the duty of establishing this benignant government of the church, and in a short time it appeared that he had succeeded in civilizing the Indians and in converting them to the Christian faith. There were, nevertheless, discontented men among the tribes, whose incautious acts occasionally gave warning of the animosity which still lingered in the breasts of the Indians. The most prudent of the Spaniards warned the governor of Nueva Biscaya to beware a sudden or personal attack. But this personage treated the advice with contempt, and felt certain that the country was substantially pacified. Nevertheless, whilst things wore this aspect of seeming calm, three chiefs or caciques, who had embraced the Catholic faith, prepared the elements for a new rebellion, and, on the 5th of June, 1649, at daybreak, they attacked the dwelling of the missionaries, set fire to its combustible materials, and surrounding the blazing house in numbers, awaited the moment when the unsuspecting inmates attempted to escape. The venerable Bendin and his companions were quickly aroused, but no sooner did they rush from the flames than they were cruelly slain by the Indians. The church was then sacked. The valuables were secured and carried off by the murderous robbers, but all the images and religious emblems were sacrilegiously destroyed before the Indians fled to the country.

*****

Fajardo once more despatched Juan Barraza, with three hundred Spanish soldiers and some Indians against the rebel Tarahumares. But the tribe had, in its intercourse with the foreigners, acquired some little knowledge of the art of war and consequently did not await the expected attack in the open or level fields, where the Spanish cavalry could act powerfully against them. They retired, accordingly, to a rocky pass, flanked by two streams, which they fortified, at all points, with stone walls and other formidable impediments. Here they rested in security until the Spanish forces approached them; nor did they, even then abandon their defensive warfare. Barraza, finding the Indians thus skilfully entrenched behind barriers and ready to repel his attack, was unable, after numerous efforts, to dislodge them from their position. Indeed, he appears to have suffered serious losses in his vain assaults; so that, instead of routing the natives entirely, he found it necessary to withdraw his troops who were greatly weakened by losses, whilst the daring insurgents continually received auxiliary reinforcements. In this untoward state of affairs, Barraza resolved to make his escape, during the night, from such dangerous quarters, and, ordering his Indian allies to light the usual watch-fires, and keep up the ordinary bustle of a camp, he silently but gradually withdrew all his Spanish and native forces, so that at daybreak the Tarahumares found the country cleared of their foes.

As soon as Fajardo heard of the forced retreat of Barraza he determined to take the management of the campaign in his own hands. But his military efforts were as unsuccessful as those of his unfortunate captain. The rainy season came on before he could make a successful lodgement in the heart of the enemy's country, and his march was impeded by floods which destroyed the roads and rendered the streams impassable. Accordingly he retired to Parral, where he received orders from the viceroy to establish a garrison in Papigochi.

The Spaniards found that their cruelty in the first campaign against these untamed savages had inflamed their minds against the viceroyal troops. They attempted, therefore, to use, once more, the language of persuasion, and, offering the insurgents a perfect amnesty for the past, prevailed upon the old inhabitants of the vale of Papigochi to return to their former residences , where, however, they did not long remain faithful to their promised allegiance. The new garrison was established, as had been commanded by the viceroy; but, in 1652, the relentless tribes, again seizing an unguarded moment, burned the barracks, and destroyed in the flames a number of Spaniards, two Franciscan monks, and a Jesuit priest. The soldiery of Barraza and the governor retired from the doomed spot, amid showers of Indian arrows.

*****

In 1653, the war was resumed. The whole country was aroused and armed against these hitherto invincible bands. Other Indian tribes were subdued by the Spanish forces, and their arms were then, once more, turned upon the Tarahumares, at a moment when the Indian chiefs were distant from the field. But the absence of the leaders neither dismayed nor disconcerted these relentless warriors. The Spaniards were again forced to retire; and the viceroy caused an extensive enlistment to be undertaken, and large sums appropriated to crush or pacify the audacious bands. Before the final issue and subjugation, however, the Conde de Alvadeliste, received the king's command to pass from Mexico to the government of Peru, and, awaiting only the arrival of his successor, he sailed from Acapulco for his new viceroyalty.

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Don Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva,
Duke de Alburquerque,
XXII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1654–1660.

The Duke of Alburquerque, who had married the Doña Juana, daughter of the former viceroy, Don Lope Diaz de Armendariz, arrived in Mexico on the 16th of August, 1654, as successor of Alvadeliste. His accession was signalized by unusually splendid ceremonies in the capital, and the new viceroy immediately devoted himself to the improvement of Mexico, as well as to the internal administration of affairs. He zealously promoted the public works of the country; labored diligently to finish the cathedral; devoted himself, in hours of leisure, to the promotion of literature and the fine arts; regulated the studies in the university; and caused the country to be scoured for the apprehension of robbers and vagabonds who infested and rendered insecure all the highways of the colony. Great numbers of these wretches were soon seized and hanged after summary trials.

In 1656, the British forces having been successful against Jamaica, the Mexicans were apprehensive that their arms would next be turned against New Spain; and accordingly Alburquerque fitted out an armada to operate against the enemy among the islands before they could reach the coast of his viceroyalty. This well designed expedition failed, and most of the soldiers who engaged in it, perished. The duke, unsuccessful in war, next turned his attention to the gradual and peaceful extension, northward, of the colonial emigration; and, distributing a large portion of the territory of New Mexico among a hundred families, he founded the city of Alburquerque, and established in it several Franciscan missions as the nucleus of future population.

*****

The year 1659 was signalized in Mexico by one of those horrid dramas which occasionally took place in all countries into which the monstrous institution of the Inquisition was unfortunately naturalized, and fifty human victims were burned alive by order of the Audiencia. For the credit of the country it must be remembered that this was the first occurrence of the kind, but, either from curiosity or from a superior sense of duty, the dreadful pageant was not only witnessed by an immense crowd of eager spectators, but was even presided over by the viceroy himself. In 1660 the duke narrowly escaped death by the hands of an assassin. Whilst on his knees at prayer in a chapel of the cathedral, the murderer,—a youthful soldier seventeen years old,—stole behind him, and was in the act of striking the fatal blow when he was arrested. In less than twelve hours he had gone to account for the meditated crime.

Alburquerque appears to have been popular, useful and intelligent, though, from his portrait which is preserved in the gallery of the viceroys in Mexico, we would have imagined him to be a gross sensualist, resembling more the usual pictorial representations of Sancho Panza than one who was calculated to wield the destinies of an empire. Nevertheless the expression of public sorrow was unfeigned and loud among all classes when he departed for Spain in the year 1660.

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Don Juan de Leyva y de la Cerda,
Marques de Leyva y de la Cerda, Count de Baños
XXIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1660–1664.

The successor of the Duke of Alburquerque entered Mexico on the 16th of September, 1660. Don Juan de Leyva y de la Cerda approached the colony with the best wishes and resolutions to advance its prosperity and glory. His earliest efforts were directed to the pacification of the Tarahumares, whose insurrection was still entirely unquelled, and whose successes were alarmingly disastrous in New Mexico, whither they advanced in the course of their savage warfare. With the same liberal spirit that characterized his predecessor, he continued to be the zealous friend of those remote, frontier colonists, and, in a short time, formed twenty-four villages. It was, doubtless, his plan to subdue and pacify the north by an armed occupation.

In 1661 and 1662, the despotic conduct of the Spaniards to the Indians stirred up sedition in the south as well as at the north. The natives of Tehuantepec were, at this period, moved to rebellion, with the hope of securing their personal liberty, even if they could not reconquer their national independence. Spanish forces were immediately marched to crush the insurrection; but the soft children of the south were not as firmly pertinacious in resistance as their sturdier brothers of the northern frontier. More accessible to the gentle voices of an insinuating clergy, they yielded to the persuasive eloquence of the bishop Ildefonzo Davalos, who, animated by honest and humane zeal for the children of the forest, went among the incensed tribes, and, by kindness, secured the submission which arms could not compel at the north. For this voluntary and valuable service the sovereign conferred on him the mitre of Mexico, which, in the year 1664, was renounced by Osorio Escobar.

The only other event of note, during this viceroyalty, was an attempt at colonization and pearl fishing on the coasts of California by Bernal Piñaredo, who seems rather to have disturbed than to have benefitted the sparse settlers on those distant shores. He was coldly received on his return by the viceroy, who formally accused him to the court for misconduct during the expedition.

Don Juan de Leyva sailed for Spain in 1664, and soon after died, afflicted by severe family distresses, and, especially by the misconduct of his son and heir.

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Don Diego Osorio Escobar y Llamas, Bishop of Puebla.
XXIV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1664.

The reign of this ecclesiastic was remarkable for nothing except its extraordinarily brief duration. The bishop entered upon his duties on the 29th of June, and resigned them in favor of his successor on the 15th of the next October.

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Don Sebastian de Toledo, Marques de Mancera;
XXV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1664–1673.

New Spain enjoyed profound internal peace when Don Sebastian arrived in the capital on the 15th of October, 1664. But the calm of the political world does not seem to have extended to the terrestrial, for, about this period, occurred one of the few eruptions of the famous mountain of Popocatepetl,—the majestic volcano which lies on the eastern edge of the valley, and is the most conspicuous object from all parts of the upper table lands of Mexico. For four days it poured forth showers of stones from its crater and then, suddenly, subsided into quietness.

*****

In the beginning of 1666 a royal cedula was received from the queen apprising her faithful subjects of her husband's death, and that during the minority of Charles II. the government would be carried on by her. The loss of Jamaica, during the last reign was irreparable for Spain. The possession of so important an island by the British, enabled the enemies of Castile to find a lurking place in the neighborhood of her richest colonies from which the pirates and privateers could readily issue for the capture of Spanish commerce or wealth. The armada of the Marques of Cadareita, was useless against the small armed craft which not only possessed great advantages in swiftness of sailing, but was able, also, to escape from the enemies' pursuit or guns in the shallows along the coast into which the larger vessels dared not follow them. But the general war in Europe which had troubled the peace of the old world for so many years, had now drawn to a close, and a peace was once more, for a while re-established. The ambitious desires of the Europeans, were now, however, turned towards America, and, with eager and envious glances at the possessions of the Spaniards. The narrow, protective system of Spain, had, as we have related in our introductory chapter, closed the colonial ports against all vessels and cargoes that were not Spanish. This, of course, was the origin of an extensive system of contraband, which had doubtless done much to corrupt the character of the masses, whilst it created a class of bold, daring and reckless men, whose representatives may still be found, even at this day, in the ports of Mexico and South America. This contraband trade not only affected the personal character of the people, but naturally injured the commerce and impaired the revenues of New Spain. Accordingly the ministers in Madrid negotiated a treaty with Charles II. of England, by which the sovereigns of the two nations pledged themselves not to permit their subjects to trade in their colonies. Notwithstanding the treaty, however, Governor Lynch, of Jamaica, still allowed the equipment of privateers and smugglers, in his island, where they were furnished with the necessary papers; but the king removed him as soon as he was apprised of the fact, and replaced the conniving official by a more discreet and conscientious governor. Nevertheless the privateers and pirates still continued their voyages, believing that this act of the British government was not intended in good faith to suppress their adventures, but simply to show Spain that in England treaties were regarded as religiously binding upon the state and the people. They did not imagine that the new governor would, finally, enforce the stringent laws against them. But this personage permitted the outlaws to finish their voyages without interference on the high seas, and the moment some of them landed, they were hanged, as an example to all who were still willing to set laws and treaties at defiance.

*****

In 1670, the prolonged Tarahumaric war was brought to a close, by Nicolas Barraza. An Indian girl pointed out the place in which the majority of the warriors might be surprised; and, all the passes being speedily seized and guarded, three hundred captives fell into the victors' hands. In 1673, the viceroy departed for Spain, after an unusually long and quiet reign of eight years.

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Don Pedro Nuño Colon de Portugal,
Duke of Veraguas and Knight of the Golden Fleece,
XXVI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1673.

The nomination of this distinguished nobleman and descendant of the discoverer of America, was unquestionably designed merely as a compliment to the memory of a man, whose genius had given a new world to Castile. [43] He was so far advanced in life, that it was scarcely presumed he would be able to withstand the hardships of the voyage or reach the Mexican metropolis. And such, indeed, was the result of his toilsome journey. His baton of office,—assumed on the 8th of December, 1673,—fell from his decrepit hand on the 13th of the same month. So sure was the Spanish court that the viceroy would not long survive his arrival, that it had already appointed his successor, and sent a sealed despatch with the commission, which was to be opened in the event of Don Pedro's death. It thus happened that the funeral of one viceroy, was presided over by his successor; and the august ceremonial was doubtless more solemn from the fact that this successor was Rivera, who, at that time, was the archbishop of Mexico.

The Duke of Veraguas of course neither originated any thing nor completed any public work that had been already commenced; but the companions of his voyage to America, long remembered and spoke of the good will and wise measures which he constantly manifested in conversation relative to the government of New Spain.

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Footnote

[43]

"A Castilla y a Leon,
"Mundo nuebo dio Colon,"

is the motto attached to the arms of this house.

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CHAPTER X.
1674–1696.

RIVERA VICEROY.—LA CERDA VICEROY.—REVOLT IN NEW MEXICO.—SUCCESS OF THE INDIANS.—COLONY DESTROYED.—EFFORTS OF THE SPANIARDS TO RECONQUER.—VERA CRUZ SACKED.—COUNT MONCLOVA VICEROY.—COUNT GALVE VICEROY.—TARRAHUMARIC REVOLT.—INDIANS PACIFIED.—TEXAS.—HISPANIOLA ATTACKED.—INSURRECTION—BURNING OF THE PALACE.—FAMINE—EARTHQUAKE.

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Fray Payo Enriquez de Rivera, Archbishop of Mexico,
XXVII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1674–1680.

The Duke of Veraguas, as we have seen, enjoyed none of his viceroyal honors save those which crowned his entrance into the capital; and as soon as his remains were temporarily interred in the cathedral, Fray Payo Enriquez de Rivera assumed the reins of government.

This excellent prelate had fulfilled the functions of his bishopric, for nine years, in Guatemala, so satisfactorily to the masses, that his elevation to supreme power in Mexico was hailed as a national blessing. He devoted himself from the first, diligently, to the adornment of the capital and the just and impartial administration of public affairs. He improved the roads and entrances into the city; and, by his moderation, justice and mildness, united with liberality and economy, raised the reputation of his government to such a degree of popular favor that, in the annals of New Spain, it is referred to as a model public administration.

In 1677, by the orders of the queen regent, Rivera, despatched a colony to California; and in the following year, Charles II., who had attained his majority, signified his gratitude to the viceroy for his paternal government of New Spain, as well as for the care he had shown not only for the social, artistical and political improvement of the nation committed to his charge, but for the honest collection of the royal income, which, in those days, was a matter of no small moment or interest to the Spanish kings. But in 1680, the viceroy's health began to fail, and Charles the Second, who still desired to preserve and secure the invaluable services of so excellent a personage to his country, nominated him bishop of Cuenca, and created him president of the Council of the Indies.

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Don Tomas Antonio Manrique de la Cerda,
Marques de la Laguna,
XXVIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1680–1686.

The archbishop Rivera, when he left the viceroyal chair handed to his successor in 1680, on the 30th of November, the letter he had just received from the north, imparting the sad news of a general rising of the Indians in New Mexico against the Spaniards. The aborigines of that region, who then amounted to about twenty-five thousand, residing in twenty-four villages, had entered into combination with the wilder tribes thronging the broad plains of the north and the recesses of the neighboring mountains, and had suddenly descended, in great force, upon the unfortunate Spaniards scattered through the country. The secret of the conspiracy was well kept until the final moment of rupture. The spirit of discontent, and the bond of Indian union were fostered and strengthened, silently, steadily and gradually, throughout a territory of one hundred and twenty-five leagues in extent, without the revelation of the fact to any of the foreigners in the region. Nor did the strangers dream of impending danger until the 10th of August, when, at the same moment, the various villages of Indians, took arms against the Spaniards, and, slaughtering all who were not under the immediate protection of garrisons, even wreaked their vengeance upon twenty-one Franciscan monks who had labored for the improvement of their social condition as well as for their conversion to Christianity.

Having successfully assaulted all the outposts of this remote government of New Spain, the Indians next directed their arms against the capital, Santa Fé, which was the seat of government and the residence of the wealthiest and most distinguished inhabitants of the north. But the garrison was warned in time by a few natives who still remained faithful to their foreign task-masters, and was thus enabled to muster its forces and to put its arms in order, so as to receive the meditated assault. The Spanish soldiers allowed the rebellious conspirators to approach their defences, until they were sure of their aim, and, then, discharging their pieces upon the impetuous masses, covered the fields with dead and wounded. But the brave Indians were too excited, resolved and numerous to be stayed or repulsed by the feeble garrison. New auxiliaries took the places of the slaughtered ranks. On all sides, the country was dark with crowds of dusky warriors whose shouts and warwhoops continually rent the air. Clouds of arrows, and showers of stones were discharged on the heads of the beleagured townsmen. No man dared show himself beyond the covering of houses and parapets; and thus, for ten days, the Indian siege was unintermitted for a single moment around the walls of Santa Fé. At the expiration of this period the provisions as well as the munitions of the Spaniards were expended, and the wretched inhabitants, who could no longer endure the stench from the carcasses of the slain which lay in putrefying heaps around their town, resolved to evacuate the untenable place. Accordingly, under cover of the night, they contrived to elude the besiegers' vigilance, and quitting the town by secret and lonely paths, they fled to Paso del Norte, whence they despatched messengers to the viceroy with the news of their misfortune. The day after this precipitate retreat, the Indians, who were altogether unaware of the Spaniards' departure, expected a renewal of the combat. But the town was silent. Advancing cautiously from house to house and street to street, they saw that Santa Fé was, in reality deserted; and, content with having driven their oppressors from the country, they expended their wrath upon the town by destroying and burning the buildings. The cause of this rising was the bad conduct of the Spaniards to the Indians and the desire of these wilder northern tribes to regain their natural rights.

In the commencement of 1681, the viceroy began to fear that this rebellion, which seemed so deeply rooted and so well organized, would spread throughout the neighboring provinces, and, accordingly, despatched various squadrons of soldiers to New Mexico, and ordered levies to join them as they marched to the north towards El Paso del Norte, which was the present refuge of the expelled and flying government. In this place all the requisite preparations for a campaign were diligently prepared, and thence the troops departed in quest of the headstrong rebels. But all their pains and efforts were fruitless. The object of the Indians seems to have been accomplished in driving off the Spaniards and destroying their settlements. The wild children of the soil and of the forest neither desired the possession of their goods, nor waged war in order to enjoy the estates they had been forced to till. It was a simple effort to recover once more the wild liberty of which they had been deprived, and to overthrow the masked slavery to which the more ennervated races of the south submitted tamely, under the controlling presence of ampler forces. They contented themselves, therefore, with destroying towns, plantations, farms, and villages, and, flying to the fastnesses of the mountain forests, either kept out of reach of the military bands that traversed the country or descended in force upon detached parties. The Spaniards were thus denied all opportunity to make a successful military demonstration against the Indians; and, after waiting a season in fruitless efforts to subdue the natives, they retired to El Paso, leaving the country still in the possession of their foes who would neither fight nor come to terms, although an unconditional pardon and a future security of rights were freely promised.

The unsuccessful expedition of the previous year, induced the viceroy, in 1682, to adopt other means for the reduction of the refractory Indians to obedience. That vast region was not to be lost, nor were the few inhabitants who still continued to reside on its frontiers, to be abandoned to the mercy of savages. The Marques de la Laguna, therefore resolved to re-colonize Santa Fé, and, accordingly, despatched three hundred families of Spaniards and mulattoes, among whom he divided the land by caballerias. Besides this, he augmented the garrison in all the forts and strongholds scattered throughout the territory, so that agriculture and trade, grouped under the guns of his soldiery, might once more lift up their heads in that remote region in spite of Indian hostility. This measure was of great service in controlling the natives elsewhere. The Indians in the neighboring provinces had begun to exhibit a strong desire to imitate the example of the New Mexican bands, and, in all probability, were only prevented by this stringent measure of the viceroy from freeing themselves from the Spanish yoke.

*****

The administration of the Marques de la Laguna was an unfortunate one for his peace if not for his fame. The expedition which he despatched in 1683 to California, under Don Isidro Otondo, and in which were Jesuits among whom was the celebrated Father Kino, returned from that country three years afterwards after a fruitless voyage and exploration of the coasts. Nor was the eastern coast of New Spain more grateful for the cares of the viceroy. Vera Cruz, the chief port of the realm, was, at this time, warmly besieged and finally sacked by the English pirate Nicholas Agramont, who was drawn thither by a mulatto, Lorencellio, after taking refuge in Jamaica for a crime that he had committed in New Spain. On the 17th of May, Vera Cruz, surrendered to the robbers, who possessed themselves of property to the amount of seven millions of dollars, which was awaiting the arrival in the harbor of the fleet that was to carry it to Spain. The chief portion of the inhabitants took sanctuary in the churches, where they remained pent up for a length of time; but the pirates contrived to seize a large number of clergymen, monks and women, whom they forced to bear the spoils of the city to their vessels, and afterwards treated with the greatest inhumanity.

The coasts of Mexico were, at this period, sorely harassed with the piratical vessels of France and England. The wealth of the New World, inadequately protected by Spanish cruisers, in its transit to Europe, was a tempting prize to the bold nautical adventurers of the north of Europe; and the advantages of the Spanish colonies were thus reaped by nations who were freed from the expenses of colonial possessions. There are perhaps still many families in these countries whose fortunes were founded upon the robbery of Castilian galeons.

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Don Melchor Portocarrero Laso de la Vega,
Count de la Monclova.
XXIX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1686–1688.

The Conde de Monclova, surnamed "Brazo de Plata" from the fact that he supplied with a silver arm the member he had lost in battle, arrived in Mexico on the 30th of November, 1686, and immediately devoted himself to the improvement of the capital, the completion of the canal which was to free the city from inundations, and the protection of the northern provinces and the coasts of the gulf against the menaced settlements of the French. He despatched several Spanish men of war and launches to scour the harbors and inlets of the eastern shores, as far as Florida, in order to dislodge the intruders; and, having obtained control over the Indians of Coahuila he established a strong garrison, and founded a colonial settlement, called the town of Monclova, with a hundred and fifty families, in which there were two hundred and seventy men capable of bearing arms against the French whom he expected to encounter in that quarter.

The Conde de Monclova contemplated various plans for the consolidation and advancement of New Spain, but before two years had expired he was relieved from the government and transferred to the viceroyalty of Peru.

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Don Gaspar de Sandoval Silva y Mendoza,
Count de Galve.
XXX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1688.

The Conde de Galve entered upon his government on the 17th of September, 1688; and even before the departure of his predecessor for Peru, he learned that the fears of that functionary had been realized by the discovery of attempts by the French to found settlements in New Spain. The governor of Coahuila in the course of his explorations in the wilderness found a fort which had been commenced, and the remains of a large number of dead Frenchmen, who had no doubt been engaged in the erection of the stronghold when they fell under the blows and arrows of the savages.

Besides this intrusion in the north, from which the Spaniards were, nevertheless, somewhat protected by the Indians who hated the French quite as much as they did the subjects of Spain,—the viceroy heard, moreover, that the Tarrahumare and Tepehuane tribes had united with other wild bands of the north-west, and were in open rebellion. Forces were immediately despatched against the insurgents, but they fared no better than the Spanish troops had done in previous years in New Mexico. The love of liberty, or the desire of entire freedom from labor, was in this case, as in the former, the sole cause of the insurrection. When the blow was struck, the Indians fled to their fastnesses, and when the regular soldiery arrived on the field to fight them according to the regular laws of war, the children of the forest were, as usual, no where to be found! Nor is it likely that the rebellion would have been easily suppressed, or improbable that those provinces would have been lost, had not the Jesuits, who enjoyed considerable influence over the insurgent tribes, devoted themselves, forthwith, to calming the excited bands. Among the foremost of these clerical benefactors of Spain was the noble Milanese Jesuit, Salvatierra, whose authority over the Indians was perhaps paramount to all others, and whose successful zeal was acknowledged by a grateful letter from the viceroy. This worthy priest had been one of the ablest missionaries among these warlike tribes. He won their love and confidence whilst endeavoring to diffuse christianity among them, and the power he obtained through his humanity and unvarying goodness, was now the means of once more subjecting the revolted Indians to the Spaniards. The cross achieved a victory which they refused to the sword.

In 1690, another effort was made to populate California, in virtue of new orders received from Charles; and, whilst the preparations were making to carry the royal will into effect, the viceroy commanded the governor of Coahuila to place a garrison at San Bernardo, where the French attempted to build their fort. Orders were also sent about the same time by Galve to extend the Spanish power northward, and, in 1691, the province of Asinais, or Texas, as it was called by the Spaniards, was settled by some emigrants, and visited by fourteen Franciscan monks, who were anxious to devote themselves to the conversion of the Indians. A garrison and a mission were established, at that time, in Texas; but in consequence, not only of an extraordinary drought which occurred two or three years after, destroying the crops and the cattle, but also of a sudden rebellion among the natives against the Spaniards who desired to subject them to the same ignoble toils that were patiently endured by the southern tribes, nearly all the posts and missions were immediately abandoned.

The year 1690 was signalized in the annals of New Spain by an attack and successful onslaught made by the orders of the viceroy with Creole troops upon the island of Hispaniola, which was occupied by the French. Six ships of the line and a frigate, with two thousand seven hundred soldiers, sailed from the port of Vera Cruz, upon this warlike mission; and after fighting a decisive battle and destroying the settlements upon parts of the island, but without attacking the more thickly peopled and better defended districts of the west, they returned to New Spain with a multitude of prisoners and some booty.

But the rejoicings to which these victories gave rise were of short duration. The early frosts of 1691 had injured the crops, and the country was menaced with famine. On the 9th of June, in this year, the rain fell in torrents, and, accompanied as it was by hail, destroyed the grain that was cultivated not only around the capital, but also in many of the best agricultural districts. The roads became impassable, and many parts of the city of Mexico were inundated by floods from the lake, which continued to lie in the low level streets until the end of the year. Every effort was made by the authorities to supply the people with corn,—the staff of life among the lower classes,—and commissaries were even despatched to the provinces to purchase grain which might be stored and sold to the masses at reasonable prices. But the suspicious multitude did not justly regard this provident and humane act. They imagined that the viceroy and his friends designed to profit by the scarcity of food, and to enrich themselves by the misery of the country. Accordingly, loud murmurs of discontent arose among the lower classes in the capital, and on the 8th of June, 1692, the excited mob rushed suddenly to the palace of the viceroy, and setting fire not only to it but to the Casa de Cabildo and the adjacent buildings, destroyed that splendid edifice together with most of the archives, records and historical documents which had been preserved since the settlement of the country. A diligent search was made for the authors of this atrocious calamity, and eight persons were tried, convicted and executed for the crime. The wretched incendiaries were found among the dregs of the people. Many of their accomplices were also found guilty and punished with stripes; and the viceroy took measures to drive the hordes of skulking Indians who had been chiefly active in the mob, from their haunts in the city, as well as to deprive them of the intoxicating drinks, and especially their favorite pulque, in which they were habituated to indulge. The crop of 1693, in some degree, repaired the losses of previous years, and in the ensuing calm the Conde de Galve commenced the rebuilding of the viceroyal palace. The property destroyed in the conflagration in June, 1692, amounted in value to at least three millions of dollars.

*****

In this year, the viceroy, who was anxious for the protection of the northern shores of the gulf, and desirous to guard the territory of Florida, from the invasion or settlement of the northern nations of Europe, fitted out an expedition of expert engineers to Pensacola, who designed and laid the foundations of the fortifications of this important port. Three years afterwards, before the termination of his command in New Spain, Galve had the satisfaction to despatch from Vera Cruz the colony and garrison which were to occupy and defend this stronghold.

In 1694, the capital and the adjacent province were once more afflicted with scarcity, and to this was added the scourge of an epidemic that carried thousands to the grave. In the following year a dreadful earthquake shook the city of Mexico, on the night of the 24th of August, and at seven o'clock of the following morning. But amid all these afflictions, which were regarded by multitudes as specially sent by the hand of God to punish the people for their sins, the authorities managed to preserve order throughout the country, and in 1695, sent large reinforcements for the expedition which the English and Spaniards united in fitting out against the French who still maintained their hold on the island of Hispaniola. This adventure was perfectly successful. The combined forces assaulted the Gauls with extraordinary energy, and bore off eighty-one cannons as trophies of their victorious descent. The checquered administration of the Conde de Galve was thus satisfactorily terminated, and he returned to Spain after eight years of government, renowned for the equity and prudence of his administration during a period of unusual peril.

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CHAPTER XI.
1696–1734.

MONTAÑEZ VICEROY.—SPIRITUAL CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA.—VALLADARES VICEROY.—FAIR AT ACAPULCO.—SPANISH MONARCHY—AUSTRIA—BOURBON.—MONTAÑEZ VICEROY.—JESUITS IN CALIFORNIA.—LA CUEVA VICEROY.—DUKE DE LINARES VICEROY.—BRITISH SLAVERY TREATY.—COLONIZATION. NUEVO LEON.—TEXAS.—OPERATIONS IN TEXAS—ALARCON—AGUAYO.—CASA-FUERTE'S VIRTUOUS ADMINISTRATION—LOUIS I.—ORIENTAL TRADE—SPANISH JEALOUSY.—THE KING'S OPINION OF CASA-FUERTE—HIS ACTS.

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Don Juan de Ortega Montañez, Bishop of Michoacan,
XXXI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1696–1702.

Scarcely had Galve departed, and the new episcopal viceroy Montañez assumed the reins of government, on the 27th of February, 1696, when news reached Mexico that a French squadron was laying in wait near Havana, to seize the galeons which were to leave Vera Cruz in the spring for Spain. The fleet was accordingly ordered to delay its departure until the summer, whilst masses were said and prayers addressed to the miraculous image of the Virgin of Remedios to protect the vessels and their treasure from disaster. The failure of the fleet to sail at the appointed day seems to have caused the French squadron to depart for Europe, after waiting a considerable time to effect their piratical enterprise; and, in the end, all the galeons, save one, reached the harbor of Cadiz, where the duties alone on their precious freights amounted to four hundred and twelve thousand dollars!

At this period the settlement of the Californias, which was always a favorite project among the Mexicans, began again to be agitated. The coasts had been constantly visited by adventurers engaged in the pearl fishery; but these persons, whose manners were not conciliatory, and whose purposes were altogether selfish, did not contribute to strengthen the ties between the Spaniards and the natives. Indeed, the Indians continually complained of the fishermen's ill usage, and were unwilling to enter either into trade or friendship with so wild a class of unsettled visitors. The colonial efforts, previously made, had failed in consequence of the scarcity of supplies, nor could sufficient forces be spared to compel the submission of the large and savage tribes that dwelt in those remote regions. Accordingly, when the worthy Father Salvatierra, moved by the descriptions of Father Kino, prayed the Audiencia to intrust the reduction of the Californias to the care of the Jesuits, who would undertake it without supplies from the royal treasury, that body and the episcopal viceroy, consented to the proposed spiritual conquest, and imposed on the holy father no other conditions except that the effort should be made without cost to Spain, and that the territory subdued should be taken possession of in the name of Charles II. Besides this concession to the Jesuits, the viceroy and Audiencia granted to Salvatierra and Kino the right to levy troops and name commanders for their protection in the wilderness. A few days after the conclusion of this contract with the zealous missionaries, the government of Montañez was terminated by the arrival of his successor, the Conde de Montezuma.

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Don José Sarmiento Valladares,
Count de Montezuma y Tula
XXXII. Viceroy of Mexico.
1696–1702.

The Conde de Montezuma arrived in Mexico on the 18th of December, 1696. Early in the ensuing January the annual galeon from the Philipine islands reached the port of Acapulco, and this year the advent of the vessel, laden with oriental products seems to have been the motive for the assemblage of people not only from all parts of Mexico, but even from Peru, at a fair, at which nearly two millions of dollars were spent by inhabitants of the latter viceroyalty in merchandise from China. Hardly had the festivities of this universal concourse ended when a violent earthquake shook the soil of New Spain, and extended from the west coast to the interior beyond the capital, in which the inhabitants were suffering from scarcity, and beginning already to exhibit symptoms of discontent, as they had done five years before, against the supreme authorities, who they always accused of criminally withholding grain or maintaining its exorbitant price whenever the seasons were inauspicious. But the Conde de Montezuma was on his guard, and immediately took means to control the Indians and lower classes who inhabited the suburbs of the capital. In the meanwhile he caused large quantities of corn to be sent to Mexico from the provinces, and, as long as the scarcity continued and until it was ascertained that the new crop would be abundant, he ordered grain to be served out carefully to those who were really in want or unable to supply themselves at the prices of the day. [44]

*****

In 1698 the joyful news of the peace concluded in the preceding year between France, Spain, Holland and England, reached Mexico, and gave rise to unusual rejoicings among the people. Commerce, which had suffered greatly from the war, recovered its wonted activity. The two following years passed over New Spain uneventfully; but the beginning of the eighteenth century was signalized by a matter which not only affected the politics of Europe, but might have interfered essentially with the loyalty and prosperity of the New World.

*****

In 1701, the monarchy of Spain passed from the house of Austria to that of Bourbon. The history of this transition of the crown, and of the conflicts to which it gave rise not only in Spain but throughout Europe, is well known at the present day. Yet America does not appear to have been shaken in its fidelity, amid all the convulsions of the parent state. Patient, submissive and obedient to the authorities sent them from across the sea, the people of Mexico were as willing to receive a sovereign of a new race, as to hail the advent in their capital of a new viceroy. Accordingly the inhabitants immediately manifested their fealty to the successor named by Charles II., a fact which afforded no small degree of consolation to Philip V. during all the vicissitudes of his fortune. It is even related that this monarch thought at one period of taking refuge among his American subjects, and thus relieving himself of the quarrels and conflicts by which he was surrounded and assailed in Europe.

*****

The public mourning and funeral obsequies for the late sovereign were celebrated in Mexico with great pomp according to a precise ritual which was sent from the Spanish court, and, whilst the people were thinking of the festivities which were to signalize Philip's accession to the throne, the Conde de Montezuma returned to Spain after four years of uneventful rule.

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Don Juan de Ortega Montañez,
Archbishop of Mexico,
His Second Viceroyalty.
XXXIII. Viceroy of Mexico.
1701–1702.

The brief period during which the archiepiscopal viceroy exercised his functions in Mexico for the second time, is chiefly, and perhaps, only, memorable, for the additional efforts made by the worthy Jesuits in California to subdue and settle that distant province. The colonists and clergymen who had already gone thither complained incessantly of their sufferings in consequence of the sterility of the coasts. But Salvatierra remained firm in his resolution to spread the power of Spain and of his church among the wild tribes at the feet of the western sierra along the Pacific coast. His labors and those of his diligent coadjutors were slow but incessant. Trusting confidently in Providence, they maintained their post at the Presidio of Loreto, and gathered around them, by their persuasive eloquence and gentle demeanor, large numbers of natives, until the success of their teachings threatened them with starvation in consequence of the abundance of their converts, all of whom relied upon the fathers for maintenance as soon as they abandoned their savage life. Yet there was no other means of attaching the Indians to the Spanish government. The authorities in Mexico had refused and continued obstinate in their denial of men or money to conquer or hold the country; so that, after various efforts to obtain the aid of the government, the pious mendicants resolved to return again to their remote missions with no other reliance than honest zeal and the support of God. At this juncture Philip V., and a number of influential people in the capital, volunteered to aid the cause of christianity and Spain, by supplies which would ensure the final success of the Jesuits.

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Don Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva,
Duque de Alburquerque.
XXXIV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1702–1709.

As soon as the Duke of Alburquerque assumed the government of Mexico, he perceived that more than ordinary care was necessary to consolidate a loyal alliance between the throne and its American possessions, during the dangerous period in which portions of Spain, in the old world, were armed and aroused against the lawful authorities of the land. Accordingly the new viceroy immediately strengthened the military arm of the colony, and extended the government of provinces and the custody of his strongholds and fastnesses to Spaniards upon whose fidelity he could implicitly rely. Without these precautions, he, perhaps, justly feared that notwithstanding the loyalty manifested in New Spain upon the accession of Philip, the insubordination of certain parts of the Spanish monarchy, at home, might serve as a bad example to the American colonists, and, finally, result in a civil war that would drench the land with blood. Besides this, the foreign fleets and pirates were again beginning to swarm along the coasts, lying in wait for the treasure which was annually despatched to Spain; but to meet and control these adventurers, the careful duke increased the squadron of Barlovento, who was instructed to watch the coast incessantly, and to lose no opportunity to make prizes of the enemy's vessels.

Peace was thus preserved in New Spain both on land and water, whilst the Jesuits of California still continued their efforts, unaided by the government, whose resources were drained for the wars of the old world. Thus, after eight years of a strong but pacific reign, during which he saved New Spain from imitating the disgraceful dissensions of the parent state, the Duke of Alburquerque resigned his government into the hands of the Duke of Linares.

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Don Fernando Alcencastre Noroña y Silva,
Duke de Linares,
XXXV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1710–1716.

The Duke of Linares entered Mexico in 1710. The first years of his administration were uneventful, nor was his whole government distinguished, in fact, by any matter which will make it particularly memorable in the history of New Spain.

In 1712, Philip V. found himself master of nearly the whole of Spain, and being naturally anxious to end the war with honor, his emmissaries improved every opportunity to withdraw members of the combined powers from a contest which threatened to be interminable. Accordingly, he approached the English with the temptations of trade, and through his ambassadors who were assisting at the congress of Utrecht, he proposed that the British Queen Anne should withdraw from the contest, if he granted her subjects the right to establish trading houses in his ports on the main and in the islands, for the purpose of supplying the colonies with African slaves. A similar contract had been made ten years before with the French, and was about to expire on the 1st of May.

Anne, who was wearied of the war and was glad to escape from its expense and danger, was not loath to accept the proffered terms; and the treaty, known by the name of El Asiento, which was put in force in Vera Cruz and other Spanish ports, resulted most beneficially to the English. They filled the markets with negroes, and, at the same time, continued to reap profit from the goods they smuggled into the colonies, notwithstanding the treaty forbade the introduction of British merchandise to the detriment of Spanish manufactures. This combined inhumane and illicit trade continued for a considerable time, until the authorities were obliged to menace the officers of customs with death if they connived any longer at the secret and scandalous introduction of British wares.

In 1714, a brief famine and severe epidemic again ravaged the colony. In this year, too, the Indians of Texas once more manifested a desire to submit themselves to Spain and to embrace the christian faith. Orders were, therefore, given to garrison that northern province, and the Franciscan monks were again commanded to return to their missions among the Ansinais. At the same time, a new colony was founded in Nuevo Leon, forty leagues south-east from Monterey, which, in honor of the viceroy received the name of San Felipe de Linares. At the close of this year, 1715, the garrisons of Texas were already completed, and the Franciscan friars busy in their mission of inducing the savages to abandon their nomadic habits for the quieter life of villagers. This was always the most successful effort of the Spaniards in controlling the restless wanderers and hunters of the wilderness. It was the first step in the modified civilization that usually ended in a mere knowledge of the formula of prayers which was called christianity, and in the more substantial labor of the Indians which was in reality nothing but slavery.

Note.—The year 1711, is remarkable in the annals of the valley of Mexico for a snow storm, which is only known to have occurred again on the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin in 1767. In August of 1711, there was an awful earthquake, which shattered the city and destroyed many of its strongest houses.

The year 1716 was the last of the reign of the Duke of Linares, who in the month of August resigned his post to the Duke of Arion.

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Don Baltazar de Zuñiga Guzman, Sotomayor y Mendoza,
Duke de Arion and Marques de Valero.
XXXVI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1716–1722.

Scarcely had the Duke de Arion taken charge of the viceroyal government, when he received an express from Texas, despatched by Domingo Ramon, who was captain of the Spaniards in the province, informing the authorities of the famine which prevailed throughout his command, and demanding supplies, without which, he would be obliged to abandon his post and take refuge with his soldiers in Coahuila. The new viceroy saw at once the importance of preserving this province as an outpost and frontier against the French who had already begun their settlements in Louisiana, and accordingly he commanded the governor of Coahuila to send provisions and troops to Texas, together with mechanics who should teach the useful arts to the Indians.

While these occurrences took place in the north of Mexico, war was once more declared between Spain and France without any apparent motive save the hatred which the Duke of Orleans, the regent during the minority of Louis XV., entertained for the Cardinal Alberoni who was prime minister of Spain and had intrigued to dispossess him of his regency. The news of this war reached New Spain, and on the 19th of May, 1719, the French attacked Pensacola and received the capitulation of the governor, who was unprepared, either with men or provisions to resist the invaders. In the following month the garrison and missionaries of Texas returned hastily to Coahuila, and apprised the viceroy of their flight for safety. But that functionary saw at once the necessity of strengthening the frontier. Levies were, therefore, immediately made. Munitions were despatched to the north. And five hundred men, divided into eight companies, marched forthwith to re-establish the garrisons and missions under the command of the Marques San Miguel de Aguayo, the new governor of Florida and Texas. [45]

Notwithstanding the hostilities between France and Spain, and the eager watchfulness of the fleets and privateers of the former nations, the galeons of New Spain, reached Cadiz in 1721, with a freight of eleven millions of dollars! The years 1722 and 1723 were signalized by some outbreaks among the Indians which were successfully quelled by the colonial troops; and, in October, the Duke of Arion, who had controlled New Spain for six years, was succeeded by the Marques of Casa-Fuerte, a general of artillery. He entered Mexico amid the applauses of the people not only because he was a creole or native of America, but for the love that was borne him by Philip the Fifth, who well knew the services for which the crown was indebted to so brave a warrior.

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Don Juan de Acuña, Marques de Casa-Fuerte,
XXXVII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1722–1734.

In recording these brief memorials of the viceroys of Mexico it has been our purpose rather to mention the principal public events that signalized their reigns, and developed or protected the nation committed to their charge, than to trace the intrigues or exhibit the misconduct of those functionaries and their courtiers. We have abstained, therefore, from noticing many of the corrupt practices which crept into the administration of Mexico, leaving such matters to be studied in the summary view we have presented of the colonial government of Spain. But, in sketching the viceroyalty of the Marques de Casa-Fuerte, we cannot justly avoid observing the marked and moral change he wrought in the government of the country, and the diligence with which this brave and trusty soldier labored to purify the corrupt court of New Spain. Other viceroys had endeavored zealously to aid the progress of the colony. They had planted towns, villages, and garrisons throughout the interior. They had sought to develope the mining districts and to foster agricultural interests. But almost all of them were more or less tainted with avarice, and willingly fell into the habits of the age, which countenanced the traffic in office, or permitted the reception of liberal "gratifications" whenever an advantage was to be derived by an individual from his transactions with the government.

In the time of Casa-Fuerte, there was no path to the palace but that which was open to all. Merit was the test of employment and reward. He forbade the members of his family to receive gifts or to become intercessors for office seekers; and, in all branches of public affairs, he introduced wholesome reforms which were carefully maintained during the whole of his long and virtuous administration.

In 1724, Philip V. suddenly and unexpectedly for his American subjects, resolved to abdicate the crown of Spain and raise his son Louis I. to the throne. Scarcely had the news reached Mexico, and while the inhabitants were about to celebrate the accession of the prince, when they learned that he was already dead, and that his father, fearing to seat the minor Ferdinand in the place of his lost son, had again resumed the sceptre. The Marques de Casa-Fuerte, instantly proclaimed the fact to the people, whose loyalty to the old sovereign continued unabated; and during the unusually long and successful government of this viceroy, the greatest cordiality and confidence was maintained between himself and his royal master.

Casa-Fuerte despatched a colony of emigrants from the Canary Isles to Texas, and establishing a town for their occupation, he modestly refused the proffered honor of bestowing upon it his name, but caused it to be called San Fernando, in honor of the heir of the Spanish crown. Nor did he neglect commerce whilst he attended to a discreet colonization in the north which might encounter and stay the southern progress of the English and the French. In 1731, the oriental trade of New Spain had become exceedingly important. The galeons that regularly passed across the Pacific, from the East Indies, and arrived every year in America about Christmas, had enjoyed almost a monopoly of the Indian trade in consequence of the wars which continually existed during that century and filled the northern and southern Atlantic with pirates and vessels of war. The Pacific, however, was comparatively free from these dangers, and the galeons were allowed to go and come with but little interruption. The American creoles, in reality, preferred the manufactures of China to those of Europe; for the fabrics of silk and cotton, especially, which were sent to Mexico from Asia, had been sold at half the price demanded for similar articles produced in Spain. The galeon of 1731, which discharged its cargo in Acapulco, bore a freight of unusual value, whence we may estimate the Mexican commerce of that age. The duties collected upon this oriental merchandise exceeded one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, exhibiting an extraordinary increase of eastern trade with Mexico, compared with thirty-five years before, when the impost collected on similar commerce in 1697, amounted to but eighty thousand dollars. The anxiety to preserve the mercantile importance of Cadiz and to prevent the ruin of the old world's commerce, interposed many difficulties in the trade between the East Indies and New Spain; but the influence of Spanish houses in Manilla still secured the annual galeon, and the thrifty merchants stowed the vessels with nearly double the freight that was carried by similar ships on ordinary voyages. Acapulco thus became the emporium of an important trade, and its streets were crowded with merchants and strangers from all parts of Mexico in spite of the dangerous diseases with which they were almost sure to be attacked whilst visiting the western coast.

The year 1734 was a sad one for New Spain. The Marques de Casa-Fuerte, who governed the country for twelve years most successfully, and had served the crown for fifty-nine, departed this life, at the age of seventy-seven. He was a native of Lima, and like a true creole seems to have had the good of America constantly at heart. Philip V. fully appreciated his meritorious services, and, had the viceroy lived, would doubtless have continued him longer in the government of Mexico. The counsellors of the king often hinted to their sovereign that it was time to remove the Mexican viceroy; but the only reply they received from Philip was "Long live Casa-Fuerte!" The courtiers answered that they hoped he might, indeed, live long, but, that oppressed with years and toils, he was no longer able to endure the burdens of so arduous a government. "As long as Casa-Fuerte lives," answered the king, "his talents and virtues, will give him all the vigor required for a good minister."

Impartial posterity has confirmed the sensibility and judgment of the king. During the reign of Casa-Fuerte the capital of New Spain was adorned with many of its most sumptuous and elegant edifices. The royal mint and custom house were built under his orders. All the garrisons throughout the viceroyalty were visited, examined, and reported. He was liberal with alms for the poor, and even left a sum to be distributed twice a year for food among the prisoners. He endowed an asylum for orphans; expended a large part of his fortune in charitable works, and is still known in the traditionary history of the country as the "Great Governor of New Spain." His cherished remains were interred with great pomp, and are still preserved in the church of the Franciscans of San Cosmé and Damian.

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Footnotes

[ [44] In 1697 there was an eruption of the volcano of Popocatepetl, on the 29th of October.

[ [45] It may not be uninteresting or unprofitable to state in this place some of the efforts at positive settlement in Texas which were made by the Spaniards during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Alarcon, the governor, early in 1718, crossed the Medina, with a large number of soldiers, settlers and mechanics, and founded the town of Bejar, with the fortress of San Antonio, and the mission of San Antonio Valero. Thence he pushed on to the country of the Cenis Indians, where, having strengthened the missionary force, he crossed the river Adayes, which he called the Rio de San Francisco de Sabinas, or the Sabine, and began the foundation of a fortress, within a short distance of the French fort, at Natchitoches, named by him the Presido de San Miguel Arcangel de Linares de Adayes. These establishments were reinforced during the next year, and another stronghold was erected on the Oreoquisas, probably the San Jacinto, emptying into Galveston bay, west of the mouth of the Trinity.

The French, who were not unobservant of these Spanish acts of occupation in a country they claimed by virtue of La Salle's discovery and possession in 1684, immediately began to establish counter-settlements, on the Mississippi, and in the valley of the Red river. When Alarcon was removed from the government of Texas he was succeeded by the Marques de Aguayo, who made expeditions through the country in 1721 and 1722, during which he considerably increased the Spanish establishments, and, after this period, no attempt was ever made by the French to occupy any spot south-west of Natchitoches. See History of Florida, Louisiana and Texas, by Robert Greenhow.

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CHAPTER XII.
1734–1760.

VIZARRON AND EGUIARRETA VICEROY—EVENTLESS GOVERNMENT.—SALAZAR VICEROY—COLONIAL FEARS.—FUEN-CLARA VICEROY—GALEON LOST.—MEXICO UNDER REVILLA-GIGEDO I.—FERDINAND VI.—INDIANS—TAXES—COLONIES IN THE NORTH.—FAMINE—MINES AT BOLAÑOS—HORCASITAS.—CHARACTER OF REVILLA-GIGEDO.—VILLALON VICEROY.—CHARLES III.—CAGIGAL VICEROY.

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Don Juan Antonio de Vizarron y Eguiarreta,
Archbishop of Mexico.
XXXVIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1734–1740.

This viceroy who governed New Spain from the year 1734 to 1740, passed an uneventful reign, so far as the internal peace and order of the colony were concerned. War was declared, during this period, between France and Spain, but Mexico escaped from all its desolating consequences, and nothing appears to have disturbed the quiet of colonial life but a severe epidemic, which is said to have resembled the yellow fever, and carried off many thousands of the inhabitants, especially in the north-eastern section of the territory. The viceroy was naturally solicitous to follow the example of his predecessors, in preventing the encroachments of the French on the northern indefinite boundaries of New Spain, and took measures to support the feeble garrisons and colonies which were the only representatives of Spanish rights and power in that remote quarter.

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Don Pedro Castro Figueroa Salazar,
Duke de la Conquista and Marques de Garcia-Real,
XXXIX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1740–1741.

On the 17th of August the new viceroy reached the capital, and learned from the governor of New Mexico that the French had actually visited that region of the colonial possessions, yet, finding the soil and country unsuited to their purposes, had returned again to their own villages and settlements. At the same time the English, under the command of Oglethrope, bombarded the town and fort of San Agustin in Florida, but the brave defence made by the Spaniards, obliged them to raise the siege and depart.

In 1741 the sky of New Spain was obscured by the approaching clouds of war, for Admiral Vernon, who had inflicted great damages upon the commerce of the Indies, captured Porto Bello, and occupied the forts of Cartagena. New Spain, was thus in constant dread of the arrival of a formidable enemy upon her own coasts; and the Duke de la Conquista, anxious for the fate of Vera Cruz, hastily levied an adequate force for the protection of the shore along the gulf, and resolved to visit it personally in order to hasten the works which were requisite to resist the English. He departed for the eastern districts of New Spain upon the warlike mission, but, in the midst of his labors, was suddenly seized by a severe illness which obliged him to return to the capital, where he died on the 22d of August. His body was interred with great pomp, amid the lamentations of the Mexicans, for in the brief period of his government he had manifested talents of the highest order, and exhibited the deepest interest in the welfare and progress of the country committed to his charge. His noble title of "Duke of Conquest," was bravely won on the battle field of Bitonto; and although it is said that Philip slighted him during the year of his viceroyalty, yet it is certain that he was repaid by the admiration of the Mexican people for the lost favor of his king. Upon his death the Audiencia took charge of the government, and continued in power until the following November, without any serious disturbance from the enemy. Anson, with his vessels, was in the Pacific, and waited anxiously in the neighborhood of Acapulco to make a prize of the galeon which was to sail for the East Indies, laden with a rich cargo of silver to purchase oriental fabrics. But the inhabitants of Acapulco and the Audiencia were on their guard, and the vessel and treasure of New Spain escaped the grasp of the English adventurer.

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Don Pedro Cebrian y Agustin, Count de Fuen-Clara.
XL. Viceroy of New Spain.
1742–1746.

The Count de Fuen-Clara assumed the viceroyal baton on the 3d of November, 1742. His term of four years was passed without any events of remarkable importance for New Spain save the capture, by Anson, of one of the East Indian galeons with a freight of one million three hundred and thirteen thousand dollars in coined silver, and four thousand four hundred and seventy marks of the same precious metal, besides a quantity of the most valuable products of Mexico. This period of the viceroyalty must necessarily be uninteresting and eventless. The wars of the old world were confined to the continent and to the sea. Mexico, locked up amid her mountains, was not easily assailed by enemies who could spare no large armies from the contests at home for enterprises in so distant a country. Besides, it was easier to grasp the harvest on the ocean that had been gathered on the land. England contented herself, therefore, with harassing and pilfering the commerce of Castile, while Mexico devoted all her energies to the development of her internal resources of mineral and agricultural wealth. Emigrants poured into the country. The waste lands were filling up. North, south, east and west, the country was occupied by industrious settlers and zealous curates, who were engaged in the cultivation of the soil and the spiritual subjection of the Indians. The spirit as well as the dangers of the conquest were past, and Mexico, assumed, in the history of the age, the position of a quiet, growing nation, equally distant from the romantic or adventurous era of early settlement when danger and difficulty surrounded the Spaniards, and from the lethean stagnation into which she fell in future years under Spanish misrule.

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Don Juan Francisco Guemes y Horcasitas,
Count de Revilla-Gigedo—the first.
XLI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1746–1755.

The Conde de Revilla-Gigedo, the first of that name who was viceroy of Mexico, reached the capital on the 9th of July, 1746, and on the 12th of the same month, his master, Philip V. died, leaving Ferdinand VI. as his successor. Under the reign of this enlightened nobleman the colony prospered rapidly, and his services in increasing the royal revenues were so signally successful that he was retained in power for nine years. Mexico had become a large and beautiful city. The mining districts were extraordinarily prolific, and no year of his government yielded less than eleven millions of dollars;—the whole sum that passed through the national mint during his term being one hundred and fourteen millions, two hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars of the precious metals! The population of the capital amounted to fifty thousand families composed of Spaniards, Europeans and creoles,—forty thousand mestizos, mulattoes, negroes,—and eight thousand Indians, who inhabited the suburbs. This population annually consumed at least two millions arobas of flour, about a hundred and sixty thousand fanegas of corn, three hundred thousand sheep, fifteen thousand five hundred beeves, and about twenty-five thousand swine. In this account, the consumption of many religious establishments is not included, as they were privately supplied from their estates, nor can we count the numerous and valuable presents which were sent by residents of the country to their friends in the capital.

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It has been already said that this viceroy augmented largely the income of Spain. The taxes of the capital, accounted for by the Consulado, were collected yearly, and amounted to three hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three dollars, whilst those of the whole viceroyalty reached seven hundred and eighteen thousand, three hundred and seventy-five. The income from pulque alone,—the favorite drink of the masses,—was one hundred and seventy-two thousand dollars, while other imposts swelled the gross income in proportion.

The collection of tributes was not effected invariably in the same manner throughout the territory of New Spain. In Mexico the Administrador-General imposed this task on the justices whose duty it was to watch over the Indians. The aborigines in the capital were divided into two sections, one comprising the Tenochas of San Juan, and the other the Tlaltelolcos of Santiago, both of which had their governors and other police officers, according to Spanish custom. The first of these bands, dwelling on the north and east of the capital, was, in the olden time, the most powerful and noble, and at that period numbered five thousand nine hundred families. The other division, existing on the west and south, was reduced to two thousand five hundred families. In the several provinces of the viceroyalty the Indian tributes were collected through the intervention of one hundred and forty-nine chief alcaldes who governed them, and who, before they took possession of their offices, were required to give security for the tribute taxed within their jurisdiction. The frontier provinces of this vast territory, inhabited only by garrisons, and a few scattered colonists, were exempt from this odious charge. In all the various sections of the nation, however, the Indians were accurately enumerated. Two natives were taxed together, in order to facilitate the collection by making both responsible, and, every four months, from this united pair, six reales were collected, making in all eighteen in the course of the year. This gross tax of two dollars and twenty-five cents was divided as follows: eight reales were taxed as tribute;—four for the royal service;—four and a half as commutation for a half fanega of corn which was due to the royal granary;—half a real for the royal hospital, in which the Indians were lodged when ill; another half real for the costs of their law suits; and, finally, the remaining half real for the construction of cathedrals.

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In 1748, the Count Revilla-Gigedo, in conformity to the orders of the king, and after consultation in general meeting with the officers of various tribunals, determined to lay the foundation of a grand colony in the north, under the guidance of Colonel José Escandon, who was forthwith appointed governor. This decree, together with an account of the privileges and lands which would be granted to colonists, was extensively published, and, in a few years, a multitude of families and single emigrants founded eleven villages of Spaniards and mulattoes between Alta-Mira and Camargo. The Indians who were gathered in this neighborhood composed four missions; and, although it was found impossible to clear the harbor of Santander, or to render it capable of receiving vessels of deep draft, the government was nevertheless enabled to found several flourishing villages which were vigilant in the protection of the coast against pirates.

In 1749 the crops were lost in many of the provinces where the early frost blighted the fields of corn and fruit. The crowded capital and its neighborhood, fortunately, did not experience the want of food, which in other regions of the tierra adentro amounted to absolute famine. The people believed that the frown of Heaven was upon the land,—for, to this calamity, repeated earthquakes were added, and the whole region, from the volcano of Colima to far beyond Gaudalajara, was violently shaken and rent, causing the death of many persons and the ruin of large and valuable villages.

In 1750, Mexico was still free from scarcity, and even able, not only to support its own population, but to feed the numerous strangers who fled to it from the unfruitful districts. Yet, in the cities and villages of the north and west, where the crops had been again lost, want and famine prevailed as in the previous year. From Guanajuato, a city rich in mines, to Zacatecas, the scarcity of food was excessive, and the enormous sum of twenty-five dollars was demanded and paid for a fanega of corn. Neither man nor beast had wherewith to support life, and, for a while, the labors in the mines of this rich region were suspended. The unfortunate people left their towns in crowds to subsist on roots and berries which they found in the forests. Many of them removed to other parts of the country, and, as it was at this period that the rich veins of silver at Bolaños were discovered, some of the poor emigrants found work and food in a district whose sudden mineral importance induced the merchants to supply it liberally with provisions. The end of the year, however, was fortunately crowned with abundant crops.

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In 1755,—after founding the Presidio of Horcasitas, in Sonora, designed to restrain the incursions of the Apaches into that province,—the Count Revilla-Gigedo, was recalled, at his own request, from the Mexican viceroyalty in order that he might devote himself to the management of his private property, which had increased enormously, during his government. In the history of Mexican viceroys, this nobleman is celebrated as a speculative and industrious trader. There was no kind of commercial enterprise or profitable traffic in which he did not personally engage. His palace degenerated into an exchange, frequented by all kinds of adventurers, while gaming tables were openly spread out to catch the doubloons of the viceroyal courtiers. The speculations and profits of Revilla-Gigedo enabled him to found Mayorazgos for his sons in Spain, and he was regarded, throughout Europe, as the richest vassal of Ferdinand the VI. His son, who subsequently became a Mexican viceroy, and was the second bearing the family title, labored to blot out the stain which the trading propensities of his father had cast upon his name. He was a model of propriety in every respect; but, whilst he made no open display of anxiety to enrich himself corruptly through official influence or position, he, nevertheless, exhibited the avaricious traits of his father in requiring from his butler, each night an exact account of every cent that was spent during the day, and every dish that was prepared in his kitchen.

Notwithstanding the notorious and corrupting habits of the first count, that personage contrived to exercise an extraordinary influence or control over the masses in Mexico. The people feared and respected him; and, upon a certain occasion, when they were roused in the capital and gathered in menacing mobs, this resolute viceroy, whose wild and savage aspect aided the authority of his determined address, rode into the midst of the turbulent assemblage without a soldier in attendance, and immediately dispersed the revolutionists by the mere authority of his presence and command.

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Don Agustin de Ahumada y Villalon,
Marques de las Amarillas,
XLII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1755–1760.

The government of the Marques de las Amarillas commenced on the 10th of November, 1755; and he immediately devoted himself to the task of reforming many of the abuses which had doubtless crept into the administration of public affairs during the reign of his trafficing predecessor. Valuable mineral deposits were discovered in New Leon, whose veins were found so rich and tempting that crowds of miners from Zacatecas and Guanajuato flocked to the prolific region. Great works were commenced to facilitate the working of the drifts, but the wealth which had so suddenly appeared on the scene as if by magic, vanished amid the interminable quarrels and law suits of the parties. Many of the foremost adventurers who imagined themselves masters of incalculable riches were finally forced to quit their discoveries, on foot, without a dollar to supply themselves with food.

In 1759 a general mourning was proclaimed in Mexico for the queen of Spain, Maria Barbara of Portugal, who was speedily followed to the tomb by her husband Ferdinand VI. His brother Charles III. ascended the throne, and whilst the mingled ceremonies of sorrow and festivity for the dead and living were being performed in Mexico, the worthy viceroy was suddenly struck with apoplexy which his physicians thought might be alleviated by his residence in the healthful and lower regions of Cuernavaca. But neither the change of level nor temperature improved the condition of the viceroy, who died of this malady on the 5th of January, 1760, in the beautiful city to which he had retreated. He was a remarkable contrast to his predecessor in many respects, and although he had been viceroy for five years, it is stated, as a singular fact in the annals of Mexico, that he left his widow poor and altogether unprovided for. But his virtuous conduct as an efficient minister of the crown had won the confidence and respect of the Mexicans who were anxious to succor those whom he left dependant upon the favor of the crown. The liberality of the archbishop Rubio y Salinas, however supplied all the wants of the gentle Marquesa, who was thus enabled to maintain a suitable state until her return to the court of Spain, where the merits of her husband, as a Spanish soldier in the Italian wars, doubtless procured her a proper pension for life.

As the death of the Marques de las Amarillas was sudden and unexpected, the king of Spain had not supplied the government with the usual pliego de mortaja, or mortuary despatch, which was generally sent from Madrid whenever the health of a viceroy was feeble, so as to supply his place by an immediate successor in the event of death. The Audiencia, of course, became the depository of executive power during the interregnum, and its dean Don Francisco Echavarri, directed public affairs, under its sanction, until the arrival of the viceroy, ad interim, from Havana.

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Don Francisco de Cagigal,
XLIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1760—April to October.

The government of this personage was so brief, and his tenure so completely nominal, that he employed himself merely in the adornment of the capital and the general police of the colony. He was engaged in some improvements in the great square of Mexico, when his successor arrived; but he left the capital with the hearty regrets of the townsmen, for his intelligence and affability had won their confidence and induced them to expect the best results from his prolonged reign.

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CHAPTER XIII.
1760–1771.

MARQUES DE CRUILLAS VICEROY.—CHARLES III. PROCLAIMED. HAVANA TAKEN BY THE BRITISH.—MILITARY PREPARATIONS—PEACE—PESTILENCE.—GALVEZ VISITADOR—REFORMS—TOBACCO MONOPOLY.—DE CROIX VICEROY.—THE JESUITS—THEIR EXPULSION FROM SPANISH DOMINIONS—THEIR ARRIVAL IN EUROPE—BANISHED.—CAUSES OF THIS CONDUCT TO THE ORDER.—ORIGIN OF THE MILITARY CHARACTER OF MEXICO.

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Don Joaquim de Monserrat, Marques de Cruillas,
XLIV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1760–1766.

In 1761, soon after the entrance of the Marques de Cruillas into Mexico, the ceremony of proclaiming the accession of Charles III. to the throne, was performed with great pomp, by the viceroy, the nobles, and the municipality. But the period of rejoicing was short, for news soon reached Mexico, that war was again declared between Spain and England; a fact which was previously concealed, in consequence of the interception of despatches that had been sent to Havana. Don Juan de Prado was the governor of that important point, and he, as well as the viceroy of Mexico, had consequently been unable to make suitable preparations for the attacks of the British on the West Indian and American possessions of Spain.

In the meantime an English squadron, which had recruited its forces and supplied itself with provisions in Jamaica, disembarked its troops without resistance, on the 6th of June, two leagues east of the Moro Castle. The Havanese fought bravely with various success against the invaders until the 30th of July, when the Spaniards, satisfied that all further defence was vain and rash, surrendered the Moro Castle to the foe. On the 13th of August the town also capitulated; private property and the rights of religion being preserved intact. By this conquest the English obtained nine ships of the line, four frigates, and all the smaller vessels belonging to the sovereign and his subjects, which were in the port; while four millions, six hundred thousand dollars, belonging to the king and found in the city, swelled the booty of the fortunate invaders.

Whilst this was passing in Havana it was falsely reported in Mexico that the British, being unsuccessful in their attacks on Cuba, had raised the siege, and were about to leave the islands for the Spanish main. The important port of Vera Cruz and its defences were of course not to be neglected under such circumstances. This incorrect rumor was, however, soon rectified by the authentic news of the capture of the Moro Castle and of the city of Havana. The Marques de Cruillas immediately ordered all the militia to be raised in the provinces, even six hundred miles from the eastern coast, and to march forthwith to Vera Cruz. That city and its castle were at once placed in the best possible condition of defence; but the unacclimated troops from the high and healthy regions of the interior who had been brought suddenly to the sickly sea shore of the tierra caliente, suffered so much from malaria, that the viceroy was obliged to withdraw them to Jalapa and Peroté.

Whilst Mexico was thus in a state of alarm in 1763, and whilst the government was troubled in consequence of the arrest of a clergyman who had been seized as a British spy, the joyful news arrived that peace had again been negotiated between France and England.

Pestilence, as well as war, appears to have menaced Mexico at this epoch. The small pox broke out in the capital and carried off ten thousand persons. Besides this, another malady, which is described by the writers of the period as similar to that which had ravaged the country a hundred and seven years before, and which terminated by an unceasing flow of blood from the nostrils, filled the hospitals of the capital with its victims. From Mexico this frightful and contagious malady passed to the interior, where immense numbers, unable to obtain medical advice, medicine, or attendance, were carried to the grave.

The general administration of the viceroyalty by the Marques de Cruillas was unsatisfactory both to the crown and the people of New Spain. The best historians of the period are not definite in their charges of misconduct against this nobleman, but his demeanor as an executive officer required the appointment of a visitador, in order to examine and remedy his abuse of power. The person charged with this important task,—Don José Galvez,—was endowed with unlimited authority entirely independent of the viceroy, and he executed his office with severity. He arrested high officers of the government, and deprived them of their employments. His extraordinary talents and remarkable industry enabled him to comprehend at once, and search into, all the tribunals and governmental posts of this vast kingdom. In Vera Cruz he removed the royal accountants from their offices. In Puebla, and in Mexico, he turned out the superintendents of customs, and throughout the country, all who were employed in public civil stations, feared, from day to day, that they would either be suspended or deposed. Whilst Galvez attended, thus, to the faithful discharge of duty by the officers of the crown, he labored, also, to increase the royal revenue. Until that period the cultivation of tobacco had been free, but Galvez determined to control it, as in Spain, and made its preparation and sale a monopoly for the government. Gladly as his other alterations and reforms were received by the people, this interference with one of their cherished luxuries was well nigh the cause of serious difficulties. In the city of Cordova, and in many neighboring places, some of the wealthiest and most influential colonists depended for their fortunes and income upon the unrestrained production and manufacture of this article. Thousands of the poorer classes were engaged in its preparation for market, while in all the cities, towns, and villages, there were multitudes who lived by selling it to the people. Every man, and perhaps every woman, in Mexico, used tobacco, and consequently this project of the visitador gave reasonable cause for dissatisfaction to the whole of New Spain. Nevertheless, the firmness of Galvez, the good temper of the Mexicans, and their habitual submission to authority, overcame all difficulties. The inhabitants of Cordova were not deprived of all control over the cultivation of tobacco, and were simply obliged to sell it to the officers of the king at a definite price, whilst these personages were ordered to continue supplying the families of the poor, with materials for the manufacture of cigars; and by this device the public treasury was enabled to derive an important revenue from an article of universal consumption. Thus the visitador appears to have employed his authority in the reform of the colony and the augmentation of the royal revenue, without much attention to the actual viceroy, who was displaced in 1766. The fiscal or attorney general of the Audiencia of Manilla, Don José Aréché, was ordered officially to examine into the executive conduct of the Marques de Cruillas who had retired from the city of Mexico to Cholula, and although it had been universally the custom to permit other viceroys to answer the charges made against them by attorney, this favor was denied to the Marques, who was subjected to much inconvenience and suffering during the long trial that ensued.

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Don Carlos Francisco de Croix, Marques de Croix,
XLV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1766–1771.

The Marques de Croix was a native of the city of Lille in Flanders, and, born of an illustrious family, had obtained his military renown by a service of fifty years in the command of Ceuta, Santa-Maria, and the Captaincy General of Galicia. He entered Mexico as viceroy on the 25th of August, 1766.

For many years past, in the old world and in the new, there had been a silent but increasing fear of the Jesuits. It was known that in America their missionary zeal among the Indians in the remotest provinces was unequalled. The winning manners of the cultivated gentlemen who composed this powerful order in the Catholic church, gave them a proper and natural influence with the children of the forest, whom they had withdrawn from idolatry and partially civilized. But the worthy Jesuits, did not confine their zealous labors to the wilderness. Members of the order, all of whom were responsible and implicitly obedient to their great central power, were spread throughout the world, and were found in courts and camps as well as in the lonely mission house of the frontier or in the wigwam of the Indian. They had become rich as well as powerful, for, whilst they taught christianity, they did not despise the wealth of the world. Whatever may have been their personal humility, their love for the progressive power and dignity of the order, was never permitted for a moment to sleep. A body, stimulated by such a combined political and ecclesiastical passion, all of whose movements, might be controlled by a single, central, despotic will, may now be kept in subjection in the old world, where the civil and military police is ever alert in support of the national authorities. But, at that epoch of transition in America whose vast regions were filled with credulous and ignorant aborigines, and thinly sprinkled with intelligent, educated and loyal Europeans, it was deemed dangerous to leave the superstitious Indians to become the prey, rather than the flock,—the instruments, rather than the acolytes of such insidious shepherds. These fears had seized the mind of Charles III. who dreaded a divided dominion in America, with the venerable fathers. We do not believe that there was just cause for the royal alarm. We do not suppose that the Jesuits whose members, it is true, were composed of the subjects of all the Catholic powers of Europe, ever meditated political supremacy in Spanish America, or designed to interfere with the rights of Charles or his successors. But the various orders of the Roman church,—the various congregations, and convents of priests and friars,—are unfortunately, not free from that jealous rivalry which distinguishes the career of laymen in all the other walks of life.

It may be that some of the pious brethren, whose education, manners, position, wealth or power, was not equal to the influence, social rank and control, of the Jesuits, had, perhaps, been anxious to drive this respectable order from America. It may be, that the king and his council were willing to embrace any pretext to rid his colonial possessions of the Jesuits. But certain it is, that on the 25th of June, before the dawn of day, at the same hour, throughout the whole of New Spain the decree for their expulsion was promulgated by order of Charles. The king was so anxious upon this subject, that he wrote, with his own hand, to the viceroy of Mexico, soliciting his best services in the fulfilment of the royal will. When the question was discussed in the privy council of the sovereign, a chart of both Americas was spread upon the table,—the distances between the colleges of the Jesuits accurately calculated,—and the time required for the passage of couriers, carefully estimated, so that the blow might fall simultaneously upon the order. The invasion of Havana by the English and its successful capture, induced the king to supply his American possessions with better troops, and more skilful commanders than had been, hitherto, sent to the colonies. Thus there were various, veteran Spanish regiments in Mexico capable of restraining any outbreaks of the people in favor of the outraged fathers who had won their respect and loyal obedience.

At the appointed hour, the order of Charles, was enforced. The Jesuits were shut up in their colleges, and all avenues to these retreats of learning and piety were filled with troops. The fathers were despatched from Mexico for Vera Cruz on the 28th of June, surrounded by soldiers. They halted awhile in the town of Guadalupe, where the Visitador Galvez, who governed the expedition, permitted them to enter, once more, into the national sanctuary, where amid the weeping crowds of Mexicans, they poured forth their last, and fervent vows, for the happiness of a people, who idolized them. Their entrance into Jalapa was a triumph. Windows, balconies, streets, and house tops were filled with people, whose demeanor manifested what was passing in their hearts, but who were restrained by massive ranks of surrounding soldiery from all demonstration in behalf of the banished priests. In Vera Cruz some silent but respectful tokens of veneration were bestowed upon the fathers, several of whom died in that pestilential city before the vessels were ready to transport them beyond the sea. Nor did their sufferings cease with their departure from New Spain. Their voyage was long, tempestuous and disastrous, and after their arrival in Spain, under strict guardianship, they were again embarked for Italy, where they were finally settled with a slender support in Rome, Bologna, Ferrara and other cities, in which they honored the country whence they had been driven by literary labors and charitable works. The names of Abade, Alegre, Clavigero, Landibares, Maneyro, Cavo, Lacunza and Marques, sufficiently attest the historical merit of these Mexican Jesuits, who were victims of the suspicious Charles. For a long time the Mexican mind was sorely vexed by the oppressive act against this favorite order. But the Visitador Galvez imposed absolute silence upon the people,—telling them in insulting language that it was their "sole duty to obey," and that they must "speak neither for nor against the royal order, which had been passed for motives reserved alone for the sovereign's conscience!"

Thus, all expression of public sentiment, as well as of amiable feeling, at this daring act against the worthiest and most benevolent clergymen of Mexico was effectually stifled. It had been well for New Spain if Charles had banished the Friars, and spared the Jesuits. The church of Mexico, in our age, would then have resembled the church of the United States, whose foundation and renown are owing chiefly to the labors of enlightened Sulpicians and Jesuits, as well as to the exclusion of monks and of all the orders that dwell in the idle seclusion of cloisters instead of passing useful lives amid secular occupations and temporal interests. If the act of Henry VIII. in England was unjust and cruel, it was matched both in boldness and wickedness by the despotic decree of the unrelenting Charles of Spain. Nor can the latter sovereign claim the merit of having substituted virtue for vice as the British king pretended he had done in the suppression of the monasteries. Henry swept priest and friar from his kingdom with the same blow; but the trimming Charles banished the intellectual Jesuit whilst he saved and screened the lazy monk.

The pretext of Charles III. for his outrageous conduct was found in an insurrection which occurred on the evening of Palm Sunday, 1766, and gave up the capital of Spain, for forty-eight hours, to a lawless mob. It was doubtless the result of a preconcerted plan to get rid of an obnoxious minister; and, as soon as it was known that this personage had been exiled, the rioters instantly surrendered their arms, made friends with the soldiers, and departed to their homes. In fact, it was a political intrigue, which the king and his minister charged on some of the Spanish grandees and on the Jesuits. But as the former were too powerful to be assailed by the king, his wrath was vented on the Fathers of the Order of Jesus, whose lives, at this time, were not only innocent but meritorious.

"Some years preceding, on a charge as destitute of foundation, they had been expelled from Portugal. In 1764, their inveterate foe, the Duke de Choiseul, minister of Louis XV., had driven them from France; and, in Spain, their possessions were regarded with an avaricious eye by some of the needy courtiers. To effect their downfall, the French minister eagerly joined with the advocates of plunder; and intrigues were adopted which must cover their authors with everlasting infamy. Not only was the public alarm carefully excited by a report of pretended plots, and the public indignation, by slanderous representations of their persons and principles; but, in the name of the chiefs of the order, letters were forged, which involved the most monstrous doctrines and the most criminal designs. A pretended circular from the general of the order, at Rome, to the provincial, calling on him to join with the insurgents; the deposition of perjured witnesses to prove that the recent commotion was chiefly the work of the body, deeply alarmed Charles, and drew him into the views of the French cabinet." [46]

Spain was thus made a tool of France in an act of gross injustice, not only to the reverend sufferers, but to the people over whose spiritual and intellectual wants they had so beneficially watched.

From this digression to the mingled politics of Mexico and Europe we shall now return to the appropriate scene of our brief annals. The captain of so important a port as Havana, and the inadequate protection of the coast along the main, obliged the government to think seriously about the increase and discipline of domestic troops, and especially, to improve the condition of the coast defence. These fears were, surely, not groundless. The possessions of Great Britain, north of Mexico, on the continent, were growing rapidly in size and importance; and from the provinces which now form the United States, the viceroy imagined England might easily despatch sufficient troops, without being obliged to transport reinforcements from Europe. Accordingly suitable preparations were made to receive the enemy should he venture to descend suddenly on the Spanish main. The veteran regiments of Savoy and Flanders were sent to the colony in June, 1768, and the Marshal de Rubi was charged with the disposition of the army. From that period, it may be said, that Mexico assumed the military aspect, which it has continuously worn to the present time.

Besides the increase and improvement of the troops of the line, the government's attention was directed towards the fortification of the ports and interior passes. The Castle of San Juan de Ulua was repaired at a cost of a million and a half of dollars. The small island of Anton Lizardo was protected by military works at an expense of a million two hundred thousand dollars. A splendid battery was sent from Spain for the castle, and the inefficient guns of Acapulco were despatched to the Fillipine islands to be recast and sent back to America. In the interior of the country, in the midst of the plain of Peroté, the Castle of San Carlos was built in the most substantial and scientific manner; and although this fortress seems useless, placed as it is in the centre of a broad and easily traversed prairie, yet, at the time of its construction, it was designed as an entre depot between the capital and the coast, in which the royal property might always be safely kept until the moment of exportation, instead of being exposed to the danger of a sudden seizure by the enemy in the port of Vera Cruz. Many other points along the road from Vera Cruz are better calculated to defend the interior passes of the country from invasion; but as the attacks of the enemy were not expected to be made beyond the coast upon which they naturally supposed they would find the treasure they desired to plunder, it was deemed best to establish and arm the fortress of San Carlos de Peroté.

Such were some of the leading acts and occurrences in New Spain during the viceroyalty of the Marques de Croix. His general administration of affairs is characterized by justice. He lived in harmony with the rigid Visitador Galvez, and although the gossips of the day declared he was too fond of wine, yet, on his return to Spain he was named Captain General of the army, and treated most kindly by the king.

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Footnote

[ [46] Dr. Dunham's History of Spain and Portugal, vol. 5, p. 175.

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CHAPTER XIV.
1771–1784.

BUCARELI Y URSUA VICEROY.—PROGRESS OF NEW SPAIN.—GOLD PLACERES IN SONORA.—MINERAL WEALTH AT THAT PERIOD.—INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.—LINE OF PRESIDIOS.—MAYORGA VICEROY.—POLICY OF SPAIN TO ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES.—OPERATIONS ON THE SPANISH MAIN ETC.—MATIAS GALVEZ VICEROY—HIS ACTS.

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Don Antonio Maria de Bucareli y Ursua,
Lieutenant General of the Spanish Army,
XLVI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1771–1779.

Bucareli reached Vera Cruz from Havana on the 23d of August, 1771, and took possession of the viceroyalty on the 2d of the following month. During his administration the military character of the colony was still carefully fostered, whilst the domestic interests of the people were studied, and every effort made to establish the public works and national institutions upon a firm basis. The new mint and the Monte de Piadad are monuments of this epoch. Commerce flourished in those days in Mexico. The fleet under the command of Don Luis de Cordova departed for Cadiz on the 30th of November, 1773, with twenty-six millions two hundred and fifty-five dollars, exclusive of a quantity of cacao, cochineal and twenty-two marks of fine gold, and the fleet of 1774 was freighted with twenty-six millions four hundred and fifty-seven thousand dollars.

Nor was the accumulation of wealth derived at that time from the golden placeres of Cieneguilla in Sonora less remarkable. From the 1st of January, 1773, to the 17th of November of the year following, there were accounted for, in the royal office at Alamos, four thousand, eight hundred and thirty-two marks of gold, the royal duties on which, of tithe and senorage, amounted to seventy-two thousand, three hundred and forty-eight dollars. The custom house of Mexico, according to the accounts of the consulado, produced, in 1772, six hundred and eighty-seven thousand and forty-one dollars, the duty on pulque alone, being two hundred and forty-four thousand, five hundred and thirty.

In 1776, Bucareli endeavored to liberate trade from many of the odious restrictions which had been cast around it by old commercial usages, and by the restrictive policy of Spain. The consulado of Mexico complained to Bucareli of the suffering it endured by the monopoly which had hitherto been enjoyed by the merchants of Cadiz, and through the viceroy solicited the court to be permitted to remit its funds to Spain, and to bring back the return freights in vessels on its own account, Bucareli supported this demand with his influence, and may be said to have given the first impulse to free-trade. Meanwhile, the mineral resources of Mexico were not neglected. During the seven years of Bucareli's reign, the yield of the mines had every year been greater than at any period since the conquest. One hundred and twenty-seven millions, three hundred and ninety-six thousand dollars, in gold and silver, were coined during his viceroyalty. Laborde, in Zacatecas, and Terreros in Pachuca, had undertaken extensive works at the great and rich mine of Quebradilla and in the splendid vein of Vizcayna. Other mines were most successfully wrought by their proprietors. From 1770 to the end of 1778, Don Antonio Obregon presented to the royal officers, in order to be taxed, four thousand six hundred and ninety-nine bars of silver, the royal income from which amounted to six hundred and forty-eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-two dollars. The same individual had, moreover, presented to the same personage, fifty-three thousand and eighty-eight castellanos of gold, which paid thirteen thousand eight hundred and seventy-one dollars in duties. In order to work his metals, Obregon had been furnished, to that date, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine quintals of quicksilver, for which he paid a hundred and fifty-nine thousand two hundred and forty-one dollars.

In June, 1778, the mineral deposits of Hostotipaquillo, in the province of Guadalajara, now Jalisco, were discovered, and promised the most extraordinary returns of wealth. In the following year, the valuable mines of Catorce, were accidentally found by a soldier whilst searching for a lost horse. All these discoveries and beneficial labors induced Bucareli to recommend the mineral interests of New Spain particularly to the sovereign, and various persons were charged to explore the country, for the discovery of quicksilver mines, which it was alleged existed in Mexico. The extraction of quicksilver from American mines had hitherto been prohibited by Spain, but the fear of wars, which might prevent its importation from abroad, and consequently, destroy the increasing mineral industry of the nation, induced the court to send Don Raphael Heling and Don Antonio Posada, with several subordinates, who formerly wrought in the mines of Almaden, to examine the deposits at Talchapa and others in the neighborhood of Ajuchitlan, in October, 1778, under the direction of padre Alzate. But this reconnoisance proved unavailing at that time, inasmuch as the explorers found no veins or deposits which repaid the cost and labor of working.

At this epoch the Spanish government began to manifest a desire to propagate information in its American possessions. There is a gleam of intellectual dawn seen in a royal order of Charles, in 1776, commanding educated ecclesiastics to devote themselves to the study of Mexican antiquities, mineralogy, metallurgy, geology, and fossils. This decree was directed to the clergy because his majesty, perhaps justly supposed, that they were the only persons who possessed any knowledge of natural sciences, whilst the rest of his American subjects were in the most profound ignorance. Archbishop Lorenzano published in Mexico in 1770 his annotated edition of the letters of Cortéz, which is a well printed work, adorned with coarse engravings, a few maps, and the curious fac-simile pictures of the tributes paid to the Emperor Montezuma. But the jealous monks of the inquisition kept a vigilant watch over the issues of the press, and we find that, in those days, the commercial house of Prado and Freyre was forced to crave a license from the court empowering them to ship two boxes of types to be used in the printing of the calendar!

The administration of Bucareli was not disturbed by insurrections among the creoles and Spaniards, for he was a just ruler and the people respected his orders, even when they were apparently injurious to their interests. The viceroy adorned their capital built aqueducts, improved roads, and facilitated intercourse between the various parts of the country; but the Indians of the north in the province of Chihuahua harassed the colonists dwelling near the outposts during nearly all the period of his government. These warlike, nomadic tribes have been the scourge of the frontier provinces since the foundation of the first outpost settlement. They are wild hunters, and appear to have no feeling in common with those southern bands who were subdued by the mingled influences of the sword and of the cross into tame agriculturists. Bucareli attacked and conquered parties of these wandering warriors, but every year fresh numbers descended upon the scattered pioneers along the frontier, so that the labor of recolonization and fighting was annually repeated. Towards the close of his administration, De Croix, who succeeded Hugo Oconor in the command along the northern line, established a chain of well appointed presidios, which in some degree restrained the inroads of these barbarians.

Bucareli died, after a short illness, on the 9th of April, 1779, and his remains were deposited in the church of Guadalupe in front of the sacred and protecting image of the virgin who watches according to the legend, over the destinies of Mexico.

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Don Martin de Mayorga,
XLVII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1779–1783.

In consequence of the death of Bucareli the Audiencia assumed the government of New Spain until the appointment of his successor, and in the meanwhile, on the 18th of May, 1779, Charles III. solemnly declared war against England. The misunderstanding which gave rise to the revolutionary outbreak in the English colonies of North America was beginning to attract the notice of Europe. France saw in the quarrel between the Americans and the British an opportunity to humiliate her dangerous foe; and although Spain had no interest in such a contest, the minister of Charles, Florida Blanca, persuaded his master to unite with France in behalf of the revolted colonies. Spain, in this instance, as in the expulsion of the Jesuits, was, doubtless, submissive to the will of the French court, and willingly embraced an occasion to humble the pride or destroy the power of a haughty nation whose fleets and piratical cruisers had so long preyed upon the wealthy commerce of her American possessions. The Spanish minister did not probably dream of the dangerous neighbor whose creation he was aiding, north of the Gulf of Mexico. It is not likely that he imagined republicanism would be soon and firmly established in the British united colonies of America, and that the infectious love of freedom would spread beyond the wastes of Texas and the deserts of California to the plateaus and plains of Mexico and Peru. The policy was at once blind and revengeful. If it was produced by the intrigue of France, the old hereditary foe and rival of England, it was still less pardonable, for a fault or a crime when perpetrated originally and boldly by a nation sometimes rises almost into glory, if successful; but a second-hand iniquity, conceived in jealousy and vindictiveness, is as mean as it is short sighted. England had no friends at that epoch. Her previous conduct had been so selfishly grasping, that all Europe rejoiced when her colonial power was broken by the American revolution. Portugal, Holland, Russia, Morocco and Austria, all, secretly favored the course of Spain and France, and the most discreet politicians of Europe believed that the condition of Great Britain was hopeless.

The declaration of this impolitic war was finally made in Mexico on the 12th of August, 1779, before the arrival of Mayorga, the new viceroy, who did not reach the capital till the 23d of the same month. The Mexicans were not as well acquainted with the politics of the world as the Spanish cabinet, and did not appreciate all the delicate and diplomatic motives which actuated Charles III. They regarded a war with England as a direct invitation to the British to ravage their coasts and harass their trade; and, accordingly as soon as the direful news was announced, prayers were solemnly uttered in all the churches for the successful issue of the contest. Nor did war alone strike the Mexicans with panic; for in this same period the small pox broke out in the capital; and in the ensuing months in the space of sixty-seven days, no less than eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-one persons were hurried by it to the grave. It was a sad season of pestilence and anxiety. The streets were filled with dead bodies, while the temples were crowded with the diseased and the healthy who rushed promiscuously to the holy images, in order to implore divine aid and compassion. This indiscriminate mixture of all classes and conditions,—this stupid reunion of the sound and the sick, whose superstitions led them to the altar instead of the hospital, soon spread the contagion far and wide, until all New Spain suffered from its desolating ravages and scarcely a person was found unmarked by its frightful ravages.

An expedition had been ordered during the viceroyalty of Bucareli to explore portions of the Pacific adjacent to the Mexican coast, and in February of 1799, it reached a point 55° 17 minutes north. It continued its voyage, until on the 1st of July, when it took possession of the land at 60° 13 minutes, in the name of Charles III. It then proceeded onwards, in sight of the coast, and on the 1st of August, arrived at a group of islands, at 59° 8' upon one of which the explorers landed and named the spot, "Nuestra Señora de Regla."

The expected assaults of the English in the Atlantic were not long withheld, for in this year, on the 20th of October, they seized Omoa in Guatemala, for the recovery of which the president, Don Matias Galvez, quitted the capital immediately and demanded succor from Mexico. The Indians, it is related, aided the British in this attack, but the assailants abandoned the captured port, after stripping it of its cannon and munitions of war, in consequence of the insalubrity of the climate. The British had established a post at a place then called Wallis, the centre of a region rich in dye-woods, and aptly situated so as to aid in the contraband trade which they carried on with Yucatan, Guatemala and Chiapas; and, accordingly Don Roberto Rivas Vetancourt attacked the settlement successfully, making prisoners of all the inhabitants, more than three hundred slaves, and capturing a number of small vessels. But just as hostilities ceased, two English frigates and another armed vessel, arrived to succor the settlement, and forced the Spanish governor to abandon his enterprise and depart with his flotilla. Nevertheless Vetancourt, burned more than forty different foreign establishments, and succeeded in capturing an English brigantine of forty-four guns. The commander believed that this signal devastation of the enemy's settlement and property would result in freeing the land from such dangerous neighbors.

About this period the Spanish government detached General Solano and a part of his squadron, with orders for America, to aid in the military enterprises designed against Florida, in which Mexico was to take a significant part. This commander was to co-operate with Don Bernardo de Galvez, and both these personages, in the years 1779, 1780 and 1781, making common cause with the French against the English, carried the war actively up the Mississippi and into various portions of Florida. The remaining period of Mayorga's viceroyalty was chiefly occupied with preparations in the neighborhood of Vera Cruz against an assault from the British, and in suppressing, by the aid of the alcalde Urizar, a trifling revolt among the Indians of Izucar. An unfortunate disagreement arose between Mayorga and the Spanish minister Galvez, and he was finally, after many insults from the count, displaced, in order to make room for Don Matias Galvez. The unfortunate viceroy departed for Spain but never reached his native land. He died in sight of Cadiz, and his wife was indemnified for the ill treatment of her husband by the contemptible gift of twenty thousand dollars.

Mayorga was the victim apparently of an ill disposed minister, who controlled the pliant mind of Charles. The viceroy in reality had discharged his duties as lieutenant of the king, with singular fidelity. All branches of art and industry in Mexico received his fostering care; but he had enemies who sought his disgrace at court, and they were finally successful in their shameful efforts. [47]

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Don Matias de Galvez,
XLVIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1783–1784.

Don Matias Galvez, hastened rapidly from Guatemala to take possession of the viceroyalty, and soon exhibited his generous character and his ardent desire to improve and embellish the beautiful capital. The academy of fine arts was one of his especial favorites, and he insisted that Charles should not only endow it with nine thousand dollars, but should render it an effective establishment, by the introduction of the best models for the students. These evidences of his munificence and taste, still exist in the fine but untenanted halls of the neglected academy. Galvez directed his attention, also, to the police of Mexico and its prisons;—he required the streets to be leveled and paved; prohibited the raising of recruits for Manilla, and solicited from the king authority to reconstruct the magnificent palace of Chapultepec on the well known and beautiful hill of that name which lies about two miles west of the capital, still girt with its ancient cypresses.

It was during the brief reign of this personage that the political Gazette of Mexico was established, and the exclusive privilege of its publication granted to Manuel Valdez. On the 3d of November Don Matias died, after a brief illness, unusually lamented by the people, from amidst whose masses he had risen to supreme power in the most important colony of Spain. Mexico had regarded his appointment as a singular good fortune, and it was fondly but vainly hoped that his reign might have been long, and that he would have been enabled to carry out the beneficent projects he designed for the country.

As the death of this officer was sudden and unexpected, no carta de mortaja, or mortuary despatch, had been sent from Spain announcing his successor, and, accordingly the Audiencia assumed the reins of government until the arrival of the new viceroy.

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Footnote

[ [47] See Bustamante's continuation of Cavo, vol. 3, pp. 45, 46.

CHAPULTEPEC.

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CHAPTER XV.
1785–1794.

BERNARDO DE GALVEZ VICEROY.—CHAPULTEPEC.—GALVEZ DIES—HIS DAUGHTER.—HARO VICEROY—CORRUPTION OF ALCALDES.—FLORES VICEROY—HIS SYSTEM OF RULING THE NORTHERN FRONTIER—MINING INTERESTS.—II. REVILLA-GIGEDO VICEROY—CHARLES IV.—REVILLA-GIGEDO'S COLONIAL IMPROVEMENTS—HIS ADVICE AS TO CALIFORNIA—ANECDOTES OF HIS POLICE REGULATIONS.—THE STREET OF REVILLA-GIGEDO.—ARREST OF FUGITIVE LOVERS—PUNISHES THE CULPRITS.

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Don Bernardo de Galvez, Count de Galvez,
XLIX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1785–1786.

The Count Galvez, son of the last viceroy, Don Matias, took charge of the government on the 17th of June, 1785, but enjoyed as brief a reign as his respected father. Hardly had he attained power when a great scarcity of food was experienced among the people of New Spain in consequence of an extraordinarily unfavorable season. The excellent disposition of the new officer was shown in his incessant and liberal efforts to relieve the public distress in all parts of the country afflicted by misery. Meetings were held and committees appointed under his auspices, composed of the most distinguished Spanish and native subjects to aid in this beneficent labor; and over four hundred thousand dollars were given by the Archbishop of Mexico, and the bishops of Puebla and Michoacan, to encourage agriculture, as well as to relieve the most pressing wants of the people. In order to afford employment to the indigent, at the same time that he permanently improved and beautified the capital and the country generally, the viceroy either commenced or continued a number of important public works, among which were the national roads and the magnificent palace of Chapultepec, the favorite retreat of his father. This splendid architectural combination of fortress and palace, was a costly luxury to the Spanish government, for the documents of the period declare that, up to the month of January, 1787, one hundred and twenty-three thousand and seventy-seven dollars had been expended in its construction. Nor was the ministry well pleased with so lavish an outlay upon this royal domain. Placed on a solitary hill, at a short distance from the capital, and built evidently for the double purpose of defence and dwelling, it created a fear, in the minds of some sensitive persons, that its design might not be altogether so peaceful as was pretended. An ambitious viceroy, surrounded by troops whose attachment and firmness could be relied on, might easily convert the palace into a citadel; and it was noted that Galvez, had upon various occasions played the demagogue among the military men who surrounded him in the capital. All these fears were, however, idle. If the count, in reality, entertained any ambitious projects, or desired to put himself at the head of an American kingdom independent of Spain, these hopes were soon and sadly blighted by his early death. He expired on the 30th of November, 1786, in the archiepiscopal palace of Tacubaya.

His funeral ceremonies were conducted by the archbishop, and his honored remains interred in the church of San Fernando. At the period of the viceroy's decease his wife was pregnant; and it is stated, in the chronicles of the day,—and we mention it as a singular illustration of Spanish habits,—that the daughter, of which she was delivered in the following month of December, received the names of, Maria de Guadalupe Bernarda Isabel Felipa de Jesus Juana Nepomucena Felicitas, to which was joined at the period of the lady's confirmation, the additional one of Fernanda! The Ayuntamiento of Mexico, in order to show its appreciation of the viceroy's memory, offered to become god-father of the infant, and the ceremony of its baptism was performed with all the splendor of the Catholic church, in the presence of the court and of a portion of the army. The defunct viceroy had become popular with the masses, and the people strove to manifest their love for the dead by their affectionate courtesy to his orphan, daughter and desolate widow.

The Audiencia Real assumed the government of Mexico, inasmuch as the Spanish ministry had provided no successor in the event of the count's death. Its power continued until the following February, during which period no event of note occurred in New Spain, save the destruction by fire of valuable mining property at Bolaños, and a violent hurricane at Acapulco, accompanied by earthquakes, which swept the sea over the coast, and caused great losses to the farmers and herdsmen who dwelt on the neighboring lowlands.

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Nuñez de Haro, Archbishop of Mexico,
L. Viceroy, ad Interim, of New Spain.
1787.

The appointment of this eminent prelate to the viceroyalty ad interim by a royal order of 25th February, 1787, was perhaps one of those strokes of policy by which the Spanish ministry strove to reconcile and connect the ecclesiastical and civil unity of the American empire. The sway of the archbishop, complimentary as it was to himself and to the church, was exceedingly brief, for he entered upon the government on the 8th of May and was superceded by Flores on the 17th of August of the same year. New Spain was undisturbed during his government; and no event is worthy of historical record in these brief annals of the country, save the effort that was made to prohibit the repartimiento or subdivision of the Indians among the agriculturists and miners by the sub-delegados, who had succeeded the alcaldes mayores, in the performance of this odious task. The conduct of the latter personages had been extremely cruel to the natives. They either used their power to oppress the Indians, or had trafficked in the dispensation of justice by allowing the sufferers to purchase exemption from punishment; and it is related that in certain alcaldias mayores in Oaxaca, the alcaldes had enriched themselves to the extent of more than two hundred thousand dollars by these brutal exactions. Inhumanity like this, was severely denounced to the king by the bishop Ortigoza,—who merited, according to Revilla-Gigedo, the title of the Saint Paul of his day,—and the eloquent prelate complained in behalf of his beloved Indians as vehemently as Las Casas at an earlier period of this loathsome oppression. But interest overcome the appeals of mercy in almost all instances since the foundation of the American empire. The Spaniards required laborers. The ignorant and unarmed Indians of the south and of the table lands, were docile or unorganized, and, although the Spanish court and Council of the Indies seconded the viceroy's zeal in attempting to suppress the cruelty of the planters and miners, the unfortunate aborigines only experienced occasional brief intervals of respite in the system of forced labor to which they were devoted by their legal task-masters.

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Don Manuel Flores,
LI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1787–1789.

Don Manuel Flores assumed the government of New Spain on the 16th of May, 1787, but his power over the finances of the nation was taken from him and given to Fernando Mangino, with the title of Superintendente sub-delegado de Hacienda. Flores was thus left in possession solely of the civil administration generally, and of the military organization of the viceroyalty. Being satisfied that the ordinary militia system of New Spain was inadequate for national protection during war, he immediately devoted himself to the forced levy and equipment of three regiments of infantry, named "Puebla," "Mexico" and "New Spain." The command of these forces was given to the most distinguished and noble young men of Mexico;—and as the minister Galvez died, and Mangino was, about this period, transferred to the Council of the Indies, the superintendence of the finances of Mexico, was appropriately restored again to the viceroyal government.

The northern part of Mexico, in 1788 and for many previous years had been constantly ravaged by the wild Indian tribes that ranged across the whole frontier from the western limits of Sonora to the Gulf of Mexico. Immense sums were squandered in the support of garrisons or the maintenance of numerous officers, whose duty it was to hold these barbarians in check. But their efforts had been vain. The fine agricultural districts of Chihuahua, New Leon, New Mexico and even in parts of Texas, had attracted large numbers of adventurous pioneers into that remote region; yet no sooner did their fields begin to flourish and their flocks or herds to increase, than these savages descended upon the scattered settlers and carried off their produce and their families. Whenever the arms of New Spain obtained a signal victory over one of these marauding bands, the Indians would talk of peace and even consent to bind themselves by treaties. But these compacts were immediately broken, as soon as they found the country beginning to flourish again, or the military power in the least degree relaxed.

Flores appears to have understood the condition of the northern frontier and the temper of the Indians. He did not believe that treaties, concessions or kindness would suffice to protect the Spanish pioneers, and yet he was satisfied that it was necessary to sustain the settlements, in that quarter, in order to prevent the southern progress of European adventurers who were eager to seize the wild and debatable lands lying on both sides of the Rio Grande. Accordingly he proposed to the Spanish court to carry on a war of most inexorable character against the Apaches, Lipans and Mesclaros. He characterized, in his despatches, all the Indian tribes dwelling or wandering between the Presidio of the Bay of Espiritu Santo, in the province of Texas, to beyond Santa Gertrudis del Altar, in Sonora,—the two opposite points of the dangerous frontier line,—as Apaches or their hostile colleagues; and he resolved to fight them, without quarter, truce, or mercy, until they surrendered unconditionally to the power of Spain.

The subsequent history of these provinces, and the experience of our own government, have shown the wisdom of this advice in regard to a band of savages whose habits are peculiarly warlike and whose robber traits have made them equally dangerous to all classes of settlers in the lonely districts of the Rio Grande or of the Gila and Colorado of the west. His secretary, Bonilla,—who had fought bravely in the northern provinces, and was practically acquainted with warfare among these barbarians,—seconded the mature opinion of the viceroy. The plan was successful for the time, and the frontier enjoyed a degree of peace, whilst the military power was sustained throughout the line of Presidios, which it has not known since the revolution in Mexico attracted the attention of all towards the central parts of the nation and left the north comparatively exposed. Flores enforced his system rigidly, during his viceroyalty. He equipped the expeditions liberally; promoted the officers who distinguished themselves; rewarded the bravest soldiers; and despatched a choice regiment of dragoons to Durango, whose officers, formed, in that city, the nucleus of its future civilization.

Nor was this viceroy stinted in his efforts to improve the capital and protect the growing arts and sciences of the colony. He labored to establish a botanical garden, under the auspices of Don Martin Sesé; but the perfect realization of this beneficial and useful project was reserved for his successor the Count Revilla-Gigedo.

The mining interests, too, were prospering, and improvements on the ancient Spanish system were sought to be introduced, through the instrumentality of eleven German miners whose services had been engaged by the home government in Dresden, through its envoy Don Luis Orcis. These personages presented themselves in New Spain with the pompous title of practical professors of mineralogy, but they were altogether unskilled in the actual working of mines, and unable to render those of Mexico more productive. The only benefit derived from this mineralogical mission was the establishment of a course of chemical lectures in the seminary of mines, under the direction of Lewis Leinder, who set up the first laboratory in Mexico.

*****

On the 23d of December, 1788, the minister of the Indies apprised the viceroy of the death of Charles III., which had occurred in the middle of that month. Funeral ceremonies were celebrated, with great pomp, in Mexico, in honor of the defunct monarch; and, on the 22d of February, 1789, the resignation of the viceroyalty by Flores,—who desired heartily to retire from public life—was graciously accepted by the Spanish court, and his successor named, in the person of the second Count Revilla-Gigedo.

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The Count de Revilla-Gigedo—the second,
LII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1789–1794.

This distinguished nobleman, whose name figures so favorably in the annals of Mexico, reached Guadalupe on the 16th of October 1789, and on the following day entered the capital with all the pompous ceremonies usual in New Spain upon the advent of a new ruler. In the following month—the new sovereign Charles IV. was proclaimed; and the viceroy, at once set about the regulation of the municipal police of his capital which seems to have been somewhat relaxed since the days of his dreaded and avaricious father. Assassinations of the most scandalous and daring character, had recently warned the viceroy of the insecurity of life and property even in the midst of his guards. But Revilla-Gigedo possessed some of the sterner qualities that distinguished his parent, and never rested until the guilty parties were discovered and brought to prompt and signal justice. The capital soon exhibited a different aspect under his just and rigorous government. He did not trust alone to the reports of his agents in order to satisfy his mind in regard to the wants of Mexico; for he visited every quarter of the city personally, and often descended unexpectedly upon his officers when they least expected a visit from such a personage. The poor as well as the rich received his paternal notice. He enquired into their wants and studied their interests. One of his most beneficent schemes was the erection of a Monte Pio, for their relief, yet the sum he destined for this object was withheld by the court and used for the payment of royal debts. Agriculture, horticulture and botany were especially fostered by this enlightened nobleman. He carried out the project of his predecessor by founding the botanical garden, and liberally rewarded and encouraged the pupils of this establishment, for he deemed the rich vegetable resources of Mexico quite as worthy of national attention as the mines which had hitherto absorbed the public interest. Literature, too, did not escape his fostering care, as far as the jealous rules of the Inquisition and of royal policy permitted its liberal encouragement by a viceroy. He found the streets of the capital and its suburbs badly paved and kept, and he rigidly enforced all the police regulations which were necessary for their purity and safety. As he knew that one of the best means of developing and binding together the provinces of the empire, was the construction of substantial and secure roads,—he proposed that the highways to Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Meztitlan de la Sierra, and Toluca, should be reconstructed in the most enduring manner. But the Junta Superior de Hacienda opposed the measure, and the count was obliged to expend, from his own purse, the requisite sums for the most important repairs. He established weekly posts between the capitals of the Intendencies;—regulated and restricted the cutting of timber in the adjacent mountains;—established a professorship of anatomy in the Hospital de Naturales; destroyed the provincial militia system and formed regular corps out of the best veterans found in the ranks. Knowing the difficulty with which the poor or uninfluential reached the ear of their Mexican governors, he placed a locked case in one of the halls of his palace into which all persons were at liberty to throw their memorials designed for the viceroy's scrutiny. It was, in reality, a secret mode of espionage, but it brought to the count's knowledge many an important fact which he would never have learned through the ordinary channels of the court. Without this secret chest, whose key was never out of his possession, Revilla-Gigedo, with all his personal industry, might never have comprehended the actual condition of Mexico, or, have adopted the numerous measures for its improvement which distinguished his reign.

Besides this provident measure for the internal safety and progressive comfort of New Spain, the count directed his attention to the western coast of America, upon which, he believed, the future interests of Spain would materially rely. The settlement of the Californias had engaged the attention of many preceding viceroys, as we have already related, and their coasts had been explored and missionary settlements made wherever the indentures of the sea shore indicated the utility of such enterprises. But the count foresaw that the day would come when the commercial enterprises of European nations, and, especially of the English, would render this portion of the Mexican realm an invaluable acquisition. Accordingly he despatched an expedition to the Californias to secure the possessions of Spain in that quarter; and has left, for posterity, an invaluable summary or recopilacion of all the enterprises of discovery made by the Spaniards in that portion of the west coast of America. This document,—more useful to the antiquarian than the politician, now that the boundaries between the possessions of Mexico, England and the United States have been definitely settled by treaties,—may be found in the third volume of "Los Tres Siglos de Mejico," a work which was commenced by the Jesuit Father Cavo, and continued to the year 1821, by Don Carlos Maria Bustamante. Revilla-Gigedo recommended the Spanish court to avoid all useless parade or expense, but resolutely to prevent the approach of the English or of any other foreign power to their possessions in California, and to occupy, promptly, the port of Bodega, and even the shores of the Columbia river, if it was deemed necessary. He advised the minister, moreover, to fortify these two points; to garrison strongly San Francisco, Monterey, San Diego and Loreto; to change the department of San Blas to Acapulco; and to guard the fondos piadosos of the missions, as well as the salt works of Zapotillo, by which the treasury would be partly relieved of the ecclesiastical expenses of California, while the needful marine force was suitably supported. These safeguards were believed by the viceroy sufficient to confine the enterprising English to the regions in which they might traffic for peltries without being tempted into the dominions of Spain, at the same time that they served as safeguards against all illicit or contraband commerce. [48]

*****

We have, thus endeavored to describe rather than to narrate historically, the principal events that occurred in the reign of the second Count Revilla-Gigedo, all of which have characterized him as a just, liberal and far-seeing ruler. In the account of his father's reign, we have already noticed some of this viceroy's meritorious qualities; but we shall now break the ordinary tenor of these brief annals by inserting a few anecdotes which are still traditionally current in the country whose administration he so honestly conducted.

The Conde was accustomed to make nightly rounds in the city, in order to assure himself that its regulations for quiet and security were carried into effect. On one occasion, it is related, that in passing through a street which he had ordered to be paved, he suddenly stopped and despatched a messenger to the director of the work, requiring his instant presence. The usual phrase with which he wound up such commands was "lo espero aqui,"—"I await him here,"—which had the effect of producing an extraordinary degree of celerity in those who received the command. On this occasion the officer, who was enjoying his midnight repose, sprang from his bed on receiving the startling summons, and rushed, half dressed, to learn the purport of what he presumed to be an important business. He found the viceroy standing stiff and composed on the side walk. When the panting officer had paid his obeisance to his master:—"I regret to have disturbed you, Señor," said the latter, "in order to call your attention to the state of your pavement. You will observe that this flag stone is not perfectly even," touching with his toe one which rose about half an inch above the rest of the side walk, "I had the misfortune to strike my foot against it this evening, and I fear that some others may be as unlucky as myself, unless the fault be immediately remedied. You will attend to it, sir, and report to me to-morrow morning!" With these words he continued his round, leaving the officer in a state of stupefaction; but it is asserted that the pavements of Mexico for the rest of his excellency's government were unexceptionable.

Another anecdote, of this kind, places his peculiarity of temper in a still stronger light. In perambulating the city one pleasant evening about sunset, he found that the street in which he was walking terminated abruptly against a mass of wretched tenements, apparently the lurking places of vice and beggary. He inquired how it happened that the highway was carried no farther, or why these hovels were allowed to exist; but the only information he could gain was that such had always been the case, and that none of the authorities considered themselves bound to remedy the evil. Revilla-Gigedo sent immediately to the corregidor:—"tell him that I await him here," he concluded, in a tone that had the effect of bringing that functionary at once to the spot, and he received orders to open, without delay, a broad and straight avenue through the quarter as far as the barrier of the city. It must be finished,—was the imperious command,—that very night, so as to allow the viceroy to drive through it on his way to mass the next morning. With this the count turned on his heel, and the corregidor was left to reflect upon his disagreeable predicament.

The fear of losing his office, or perhaps worse consequences, stimulated his energy. No time was to be wasted. All his subordinate officers were instantly summoned, and laborers were collected from all parts of the city. The very buildings that were to be removed sent forth crowds of leperos willing for a few reales to aid in destroying the walls which had once harbored them. A hundred torches shed their radiance over the scene. All night long the shouts of the workmen, the noise of pick-axe and crowbar, the crash of falling roofs, and the rumbling of carts, kept the city in a fever of excitement. Precisely at sunrise the state carriage, with the viceroy, his family and suite, left the palace, and rattled over the pavements in the direction from which the noise had proceeded. At length the new street opened before them, a thousand workmen, in double file, fell back on either side and made the air resound with vivas, as they passed. Through clouds of dust and dirt,—over the unpaved earth, strewn with fragments of stone and plaster,—the coach and train swept onward, till at the junction of the new street with the road leading to the suburbs, the corregidor, hat in hand, with a smile of conscious desert, stepped forward to receive his excellency, and to listen to the commendation bestowed on the prompt and skilful execution of his commands!

Should any one doubt the truth of this story, let him be aware that the Calle de Revilla-Gigedo still remains in Mexico to attest its verity.

These anecdotes impart some idea of the authority exercised by the viceroys, which was certainly far more arbitrary and personal than that of their sovereign in his Spanish dominions.

There is another adventure told to display the excellence of Revilla-Gigedo's police, in which the count figures rather melodramatically. It seems that among the creole nobles, who, with the high officers of government, made up the viceroy's court, there was a certain marques, whom fortune had endowed with great estates and two remarkably pretty daughters, and it was doubted by some whether the care of his cash or his heiresses gave him most anxiety. The eldest, who bore her father's title, was celebrated for beauty of an uncommon kind in those regions. She had blue eyes, brilliant complexion, and golden hair, and was every where known as the fair haired marquesa. Her sister who, on the contrary, was very dark, with eyes like the gazelle and raven hair, was called the pretty brunette. But, different as they were in looks and perhaps in character, there was one trait in which they perfectly agreed, for they were remarkable coquettes! It is unknown how many offers of the wealthiest grandees and most gallant cavaliers about court they had refused; and the poor marques, who was by no means a domestic tyrant and desired to govern his family only by kindness, was quite worn out in persuading them to know there own minds. One night he was roused from his sleep by a message from the viceroy, who awaited him in the palace. Not for his best estate would the loyal marques have kept the representative of his sovereign waiting a moment longer than necessary. Wondering what reason of state could require his presence at that unusual hour, he dressed himself hastily, and hurried to the palace. The viceroy was in his cabinet, surrounded by several of his household, and all in a state of painful curiosity. "Marques," said the viceroy, as soon as the nobleman entered, "my lieutenant of police here, complains that you did not take proper care to secure the doors of your mansion last evening." "I assure your highness," replied the marques in great surprise, "that my steward locked both the great gate and the outer door, according to the invariable custom of my mansion, before retiring for the night." "But have you not a postern opening into the next street?" returned the count, "and are you equally heedful in regard to it? But, in short," he continued, "you must know, that this watchful lieutenant of mine has saved you to-night from robbery." "Robbery! your excellency, is it possible?" ejaculated the marques, startled for a moment out of his habitual composure. "Yes,—and of the worst kind" replied the viceroy, "the felons were in the act of carrying off your most exquisite treasures which are now restored to you." At these words, a door at the side of the cabinet flew open, and the astonished marques beheld his two daughters, dressed for travelling, and locked in each other's arms. They seemed overwhelmed with confusion; the fair hair all dishevelled and the black eyes drowned in tears. "And these are the robbers," added the viceroy pointing to a door on the opposite side, which also flew open. The marques turned mechanically, and saw two of the gayest, handsomest, and most dissipated youths of the court, whom he recollected as occasional visitors at his house. They appeared no less confused, and, with their embarrassment, there was an evident mixture of alarm. The truth now began to break on the mind of the nobleman. "You see, marques," said the count, "that but for the vigilance of my police, you would have had the honor of being father-in-law to two of the greatest scamps in my viceroyalty. See what a dilemma your carelessness has brought me into, my dear sir! I am obliged to wound the feelings of two of the most lovely ladies in my court, to save them from the machinations of scoundrels unworthy of their charms, and I fear they will never forgive me! Farewell, señor marques; take my advice, and brick up your postern. Calderon [49] was a wise man, and he tells us that a house with two doors is hard to keep. As for these young scape-graces, they sail in the next galeon, for Manilla, where they can exercise their fascinating powers on the chinas and mulatas of the Philipines!"

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Footnotes

[ [48] During the administration of the second Count Revilla-Gigedo the sum of one hundred and nine millions, seven hundred and four thousand, four hundred and seventeen dollars, was coined in gold and silver in Mexico.

[ [49] One of Calderon's comedies is named "Casa con dos puertas mala es de guardar." See Lady's Magazine for 1844.

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CHAPTER XVI.
1794–1808.

BRANCIFORTE VICEROY—HIS GRASPING AND AVARICIOUS CHARACTER—CORRUPTION TOLERATED.—PERSECUTION OF FRENCHMEN—ENCAMPMENTS.—BRANCIFORTE'S CHARACTER.—AZANZA VICEROY.—EFFECT OF EUROPEAN WARS ON COLONIAL TRADE AND MANUFACTURES.—THREATENED REVOLT.—MARQUINA VICEROY—REVOLT IN JALISCO.—ITURRIGARAY VICEROY.—GODOY'S CORRUPTION—WAR.—DEFENCES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES—MIRANDA—HUMBOLDT.—MEXICO TAXED FOR EUROPEAN WARS—FERDINAND VII.—NAPOLEON IN SPAIN—KING JOSEPH BONAPARTE.—ITURRIGARAY ARRESTED.—GARIBAY VICEROY.

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The Marques de Branciforte,
LIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
1794–1798.

The Marques Branciforte, who reached Mexico on the 11th of July, 1794, contrasts unfavorably, in history, with his illustrious predecessor Revilla-Gigedo. Partaking of the avaricious qualities of this personage's father, he seems to have possessed but few of his virtues, and probably accepted the viceroyalty of New Spain with no purpose but that of plunder.

Scarcely had he begun to reign, when his rapacity was signally exhibited. It is said that his first essay in extortion, was the sale of the sub-delegation of Villa-Alta to a certain Don Francisco Ruiz de Conejares, for the sum of forty thousand dollars, and the bestowal of the office of apoderado on the Count de Contramina, the offices of whose subordinates were bought and sold in the political market like ordinary merchandise.

At this epoch the warlike hostility to France was excessive, and orders had been received to exercise the strictest vigilance over the subjects of that nation who resided in Mexico. Their number, however, was small, for Spanish America was almost as closely sealed as China against the entrance of strangers. Nevertheless Branciforte encouraged a most disgraceful persecution against these unfortunate persons, by arresting them on the slightest pretexts, throwing them into prison, and seizing their possessions. He found, in his assessor general, Don Pedro Jacinto Valenzuela, and in his criminal prosecutor, Francisco Xavier de Borbon, fitting instruments to carry out his inexorable determinations. Upon one occasion he even demanded of the Sala de Audiencia that certain Frenchmen, after execution, should have their tongues impaled upon iron spikes at the city gates, because they had spoken slightingly of the virtue of the queen Maria Louisa! Fortunately, however, for the wretched culprits, the Sala was composed of virtuous magistrates who refused to sanction the cruel demand, and the victims were alone despoiled of their valuable property. These acts, it may well be supposed, covered the name of Branciforte with infamy even in Mexico.

In 1796, on the 7th of October, war was declared by Spain against England, in consequence of which the viceroy immediately distributed the colonial army, consisting of not less than eight thousand men, in Orizaba, Cordova, Jalapa, and Peroté; and, in the beginning of the following year, he left the capital to command the forces from his headquarters near the eastern coast. This circumstance enabled him to leave, with an air of triumph, a city in which he was profoundly hated. The people manifested their contempt of so despicable an extortioner and flatterer of royalty, not only by words, but by caricatures. When the sovereign sent him the order of the golden fleece, they depicted Branciforte with a collar of the noble order, but in lieu of the lamb, which terminates the insignia, they placed the figure of a cat! At his departure, the civil and financial government of the capital was entrusted to the regency of the audiencia, while its military affairs were conducted by the Brigadier Davalos. In Orizaba the conduct of Branciforte was that of an absolute monarch. All his troops were placed under the best discipline, but none of them were permitted to descend to Vera Cruz; yet, scarcely had he been established in this new military command, when it was known that Don Miguel José de Azanza was named as his viceroyal successor. Nevertheless Branciforte continued in control, with the same domineering demeanor, as in the first days of his government, relying for justification and defence in Spain upon the support of his relative, the Prince of Peace. In Orizaba he was surrounded by flatterers and his court was a scene of disgraceful orgies; yet the day of his fall was at hand. The ship Monarch anchored at Vera Cruz, on the 17th of May, 1798, and, on the 31st of the same month, Azanza, the new viceroy who reached America in her, received the viceroyal baton from Branciforte. This supercilious peculator departed from New Spain with five millions of dollars, a large portion of which was his private property, in the vessel that had brought his successor, and arrived at Ferol, after a narrow escape from the English in the waters of Cadiz. But he returned to Spain loaded with wealth and curses, for never had the Mexicans complained so bitterly against any Spaniard who was commissioned to rule them. The respectable and wealthy inhabitants of the colony were loudest in their denunciations of an "Italian adventurer," who enriched himself at the expense of their unfortunate country, nor was his conduct less hateful because he had been the immediate successor of so just and upright a viceroy as Revilla-Gigedo.

The character of Branciforte was keen and hypocritical. He tried, at times, but vainly, to conceal his avarice, while his pretended love for the "Virgin of Guadalupe" and for the royal family, was incessantly reiterated in familiar conversation. Every Saturday during his government, and on the twelfth of every month, he made pious pilgrimages to the sanctuary of the Mexican protectress. He placed a large image of the virgin on the balcony of the palace, and ordered a salute to be fired at daybreak in honor of the saint on the twelfth of every December. With these cheap ceremonials, however, he satisfied his hypocritical piety and absorbing avarice, but he never bestowed a farthing upon the collegiate church of the Virgin. Whenever he spoke in his court of the sovereign of Spain it was with an humble mien, a reverential voice, and all the external manifestations of subserviency for the royal personages who conferred such unmerited honors upon him. Such is the picture which has been left by Mexican annalists of one of their worst rulers.

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Don Miguel José de Azanza,
LIV. Viceroy of New Spain.—1798–1800.

Azanza, who, as we have related, assumed the viceroyalty in May, 1798, was exceedingly well received in Mexico. His worthy character was already known to the people, and almost any new viceroy would have been hailed as a deliverer from the odious administration of Branciforte. Azanza was urbane towards all classes, and his discreet conversation, at once, secured the respect and confidence of the colonists. Besides this, the early measures of his administration were exceedingly wise. He dissolved the various military encampments, established and maintained at enormous cost, by his predecessor in the neighborhood of the eastern coasts. This heavy charge on the treasury was distasteful to the people, while so large an assemblage of colonial troops necessarily withdrew multitudes from agricultural and commercial pursuits, and greatly interfered with the business of New Spain. Anxious, however, to protect the important post of Vera Cruz, the viceroy formed a less numerous encampment in its neighborhood; but the greater portion of its officers and men perished in that unhealthy climate.

The war with England was not altogether disadvantageous to Mexico, for although the royal order of the 18th of November, 1797, was repeated on the 20th of April, 1799, by which a commerce in neutral vessels had been permitted with the colony's ports, yet, as the seas were filled with enemy's cruisers, the Spanish trade in national vessels was narrowed chiefly to exports from the mother country. This course of commerce resulted in retaining the specie of Mexico within her territory, for the precious metals had hitherto been the principal article of export to Spain in return for merchandise despatched from Cadiz. The internal trade of Mexico was, accordingly, fostered and beneficially sustained by the continuance of its large annual metallic products within the viceroyalty until peace permitted their safe transmission abroad. The beneficial retention of silver and gold in the country was not only manifested in the activity of domestic trade, but in the improvement of its towns and cities, and in the encouragement of manufactures of silk, cotton and wool. In Oaxaca, Guadalaxara, Valladolid, Puebla, Cuautitlan, San Juan Teotihuacan, Zempoala, Metepec, Ixtlahuaca, Tulancingo, the number of looms increased rapidly between 1796 and 1800. In Oaxaca thirty were added; in San Juan Teotihuacan thirty-three; in Querétaro, three thousand four hundred persons were employed; while, in the town of Cadereita, there existed more than two hundred looms, giving employment to more than five hundred individuals.

In attending wisely and justly to the civil administration of New Spain, and in fostering the internal trade and industry, Azanza bestirred himself whilst the war continued. There were but few actions between the combatants, but as the contest between the nations sealed the ports in a great degree, Mexico was made chiefly dependent on herself for the first time since her national existence. The politics and intrigues of the old world thus acquainted the colony with her resources and taught her the value of independence.

Azanza's administration was, for a while, disturbed by a threatened outbreak among the lower classes, whose chief conspirators assembled in an obscure house in the capital, and designed, at a suitable moment, rising in great numbers and murdering, without discrimination, all the wealthiest or most distinguished Spaniards. This treasonable project was discovered to the viceroy, who went in person, with a guard, to the quarters of the leaguers, and arrested them on the spot. They were speedily brought to trial; but the cause hung in the courts until after the departure of Azanza, when powerful and touching intercessions were made with his successor to save the lives of the culprits. The project of a pardon was maturely considered by the proper authorities, and it was resolved not to execute the guilty chiefs, inasmuch as it was believed that their appearance upon a scaffold would be the signal for a general revolt of the people against the dominion of the parent country. The sounds of the approaching storm were already heard in the distance, and justice yielded to policy.

Azanza, with all his excellent qualities as a Governor in America, did not give satisfaction to the court at home. There is no doubt of the value of his administration in Mexico, and it is, therefore, difficult to account for his loss of favor, except upon the ground of intrigue and corruption which were rife in Madrid. The reign of Charles IV. and the administration of the Prince of Peace, are celebrated in history as the least respectable in modern Spanish annals. Whilst the royal favorite controlled the king's councils, favoritism and intrigue ruled the day. Among other legends of the time, it is asserted by Bustamante, in his continuation of Cavo's "Tres Siglos de Mejico," that the Mexican viceroyalty was almost put up at auction in Madrid, and offered for eighty thousand dollars to the secretary Bonilla. In consequence of this personage's inability to procure the requisite sum, it was conferred, through another bargain and sale, upon Don Felix Berenguer de Marquina, an obscure officer, who was unknown to the king either personally or as a meritorious servant of the crown and people.

The Mexican author to whom we have just referred, characterizes Azanza as the wisest, most politic and amiable viceroy, ever sent by Spain to rule over his beautiful country. [50]

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Don Felix Berenguer de Marquina,
LV. Viceroy of New Spain.
1800–1802.

Marquina took charge of the viceroyalty on the 30th of April 1800, after a sudden and mysterious arrival in New Spain, having passed through the enemy's squadron and been taken prisoner. It was inconceivable to the Mexicans why the vice-admiral of Jamaica deemed it proper to release a Spanish officer who came to America on a warlike mission; yet it is now known that in November, of 1800, the king ordered forty thousand dollars to be paid the viceroy to reimburse the extraordinary expenses of his voyage!

The government of this personage was not remarkable in the development of the colony. The war with England still continued, but it was of a mild character, and vessels constantly passed between the belligerants with flags of truce, through whose intervention the Mexicans were permitted to purchase in Jamaica the paper, quicksilver, and European stuffs, which the British crusiers had captured from Spanish ships in the Gulf.

In 1801, an Indian named Mariano, of Tepic in Jalisco, son of the governor of the village of Tlascala in that department, attempted to excite a revolution among the people of his class, by means of an anonymous circular which proclaimed him king. Measures were immediately taken to suppress this outbreak, and numbers of the natives were apprehended and carried to Guadalajara. The fears of Marquina were greatly excited by this paltry rebellion, which he imagined, or feigned to believe, a wide spread conspiracy excited by the North Americans and designed to overthrow the Spanish power. The viceroy, accordingly, detailed his services in exaggerated terms to the home government, and it is probably owing to the eulogium passed by him upon the conduct of Abascal, president of Guadalaxara, that this personage was made viceroy of Buenos Ayres, and afterwards honored with the government of Peru and created Marques de la Concordia.

A definitive treaty of peace was concluded between the principal European and American belligerants in 1802, and soon after, Marquina, who was offended by some slights received from the Spanish ministry, resigned an office for the performance of whose manifold duties and intricate labors he manifested no ability save that of a good disposition. He was probably better fitted to govern a village of fifty inhabitants than the vast and important empire of New Spain.

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Don José Iturrigaray,
Lieutenant General of the Spanish Army,
LVI. Viceroy of New Spain.—1803–1808.

On the morning of the 4th of January, 1803, Don José Iturrigaray reached Guadalupe near Mexico, where he received the staff of office from his predecessor and was welcomed by the Audiencia, tribunals, and nobility of the capital.

The revolution in the British provinces of North America had been successful, and they had consolidated themselves into nationality under the title of United States. France followed in the footsteps of liberty, and, overthrowing the rotten throne of the Bourbons, was the first European state to give an impulse to freedom in the old world. The whole western part of that continent was more or less agitated by the throes of the moral and political volcano whose fiery eruption was soon to cover Europe with destruction. In the midst of this epoch of convulsive change, Spain alone exhibited the aspect of passive insignificance, for the king, queen, and Prince of Peace, still conducted the government of that great nation, and their corrupt rule has become a proverb of imbecility and contempt. Godoy, the misnamed "Prince of Peace," was the virtual ruler of the nation. His administration was, at once, selfish, depraved and silly. The favorite of the king, and the alleged paramour of the queen, he controlled both whenever it was necessary, while the colonies, as well as the parent state, naturally experienced all the evil consequences of his debauched government. Bad as had been the management of affairs in America during the reign of the long series of viceroys who commanded on our continent, it became even worse whilst Godoy swayed Charles IV. through the influence of his dissolute queen. Most of the serious and exciting annoyances which afterwards festered and broke out in the Mexican revolution, owe their origin to this epoch of Spanish misrule.

Iturrigaray was exceedingly well received in Mexico, where his reputation as an eminent servant of the crown preceded him. Shortly after his arrival he undertook a journey to the interior, in order to examine personally into the condition of the mining districts; and, after his return to the capital, he devoted himself to the ordinary routine of colonial administration until it became necessary, in consequence of the breaking out of the war, between Spain and England, to adopt measures for the protection of his viceroyalty. In consequence of this rupture Iturrigaray received orders from the court to put the country in a state of complete defence, and accordingly, he gathered, in haste the troops of Mexico, Puebla, Peroté, Jalapa and Vera Cruz, and, descending several times to the latter place, personally inspected all the encampments and garrisons along the route. Besides this, he made a rapid military reconnoissance of the country along the coast and the chief highways to the interior. The road from Vera Cruz to Mexico was constructed in the best manner under his orders, and the celebrated bridge called El Puente del rey, now known as El Puente Nacional, was finally completed.

These preparations were designed not only to guard New Spain from the invasions of the English, but also, from a dreaded attack by the people of the United States. This fear seems to have been fostered by the Marques de Casa Irujo who was Spanish envoy in Washington at this epoch, and informed the government that the menaced expedition against Mexico, would throw twenty thousand men upon her shores. Nor was the attention of Iturrigaray diverted from the enterprise which was projected by Don Francisco Miranda to secure the independence of Caraccas; and although the scheme failed, it appears to have aroused the whole of Spanish America to assert and maintain its rights.

It was during the government of this viceroy, that the celebrated Baron Humboldt, visited Mexico,—by permission of the patriotic minister D'Urquijo,—authorized, by the home government, to examine its dominions and their archives, and to receive from the colonial authorities all the information they possessed in regard to America. He was the first writer who developed the resources or described the condition of the Spanish portion of our continent, which, until that time, had been studiously veiled from the examination of all strangers who were likely to reveal their knowledge to the world.

In 1806, the news of the destruction of the combined fleets in the waters of Cadiz became known in Mexico, and the resident Spaniards, exhibiting a lively sympathy with the mother country in this sad affliction, collected upwards of thirty thousand dollars for the widows of their brave companions who had fallen in action. Meanwhile, the war in Europe was not only destroying the subjects of the desperate belligerants, but was rapidly consuming their national substance. In this state of things America was called upon to contribute for the maintenance of a bloody struggle in which she had no interest save that of loyal dependence. Taxes, duties, and exactions of all sorts were laid upon the Mexicans, and, under this dread infliction, the domestic and foreign trade languished notwithstanding the extraordinary yield of the mines, which, in 1805, sent upwards of twenty millions into circulation. Of all the royal interferences with Mexican interests and capital, none seems to have been more vexatiously unpopular, than the decree for the consolidation of the capitals of obras pias, or, charitable and pious revenues, which was issued by the court; and Iturrigaray, as the executive officer employed in this consolidation, drew upon himself the general odium of all the best classes in the colony.

Charles IV. fell before the revolutionary storm in Europe, and signed his abdication on the 9th of August, 1808, in favor of his son Ferdinand VII. But the weak and irresolute monarch soon protested against this abdication, alleging that the act had been extorted from him by threats against his life; and, whilst the Supreme council of Spain was examining into the validity of Charles's renunciation, and Ferdinand was treating his father's protest with contempt, Napoleon, who had steadily advanced to supreme power after the success of the French revolution, took prompt advantage of the dissentions in the peninsula, and, making himself master of it, seated his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. As soon as Joseph was firmly placed in power, Ferdinand congratulated him upon his elevation, and ordered all his Spanish and colonial subjects to recognize the upstart king. But the servility of Ferdinand to the ascending star of European power did not meet with obedience from the people of Mexico, who, resolving to continue loyal to their legitimate sovereign, forthwith proclaimed Ferdinand VII. throughout New Spain. The conduct of the colonists was secretly approved by the dissembling monarch, although he ratified a decree of the Council of the Indies, commanding the Mexicans to obey Joseph. The natives of the Peninsula, dwelling in New Spain, were nearly all opposed to the Bourbons and faithful to the French propagandists, whilst the creoles, or American natives denounced the adherents of Joseph and burned the proclamation which declared him to be their king. The orders received at this period by Iturrigaray from Ferdinand, Joseph, and the Council of the Indies, were, of course, all in conflict with each other; and, in order to relieve himself from the political dilemma in which he was placed by these mixed commands, Iturrigaray determined to summon a Junta of Notable Persons, similar to that of Seville, which was to be composed of the viceroy, the archbishop of Mexico and representatives from the army, the nobility, the principal citizens and the ayuntamiento of the capital. But inasmuch as this plan of concord leaned in favor of the people, by proposing to place the creoles of America upon an equality with the natives of Spain, the old hatred or jealousy between the races was at once aroused. The Europeans, who composed the partisans of France, headed by Don Gabriel Yermo, a rich Spaniard and proprietor of some of the finest sugar estates in the valley of Cuernavaca, at once resolved to frustrate the viceroy's design. Arming themselves hastily, they proceeded, on the night of the 15th of September, 1808, to his palace, where they arrested Iturrigaray, and accusing him of heresy and treason, sent him as prisoner to Spain. This revolutionary act was openly countenanced by the Audiencia, the Oidores Aguirre and Bataller, and the body of Spanish traders. For three years, until released by an act of amnesty in 1811, Iturrigaray continued in close confinement; and, although he was not regarded favorably by all classes of Mexicans, this outrage against his person by the Spanish emigrants seems to have produced a partial reaction in his favor among the loyal natives.

The administration of Iturrigaray was not only defective, but corrupt in many executive acts, for offices were scandalously sold at his court,—a fact which was proved in the judicial inquiry subsequently made into his conduct. The Council of the Indies, in 1819, sentenced him to pay upwards of three hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars, in consequence of the maladministration that was charged and maintained against him.

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Field Marshal Don Pedro Garibay,
LVII. Viceroy of New Spain.—1808.

This chief was more than eighty years of age when honored with the viceroyalty of New Spain. He had passed the greater portion of his life in Mexico, and rose from the humble grade of lieutenant of provincial militia to the highest post in the colony. He was familiar with the habits and feelings of the people; was generally esteemed for the moderation with which he conducted himself in office, and was altogether the most endurable viceroy who could have been imposed upon the Mexicans at that revolutionary period.

During the government of the preceding viceroy the troubles which began, as we have seen, in the old world, had extended to the new, and we shall therefore group the history of the war that resulted in Mexican independence, under the titles of the last viceroys who were empowered by Peninsular authorities to stay, if they could not entirely control, the progress of American liberty.

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Footnote

[ [50] Cavo y Bustamante: Tres Siglos de Mejico, tomo 3^o, 190.

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