Although a removal was favored by a majority of the prominent persons, subsequent events showed that it was not the free expression of the popular will. Many of the citizens were not in a condition to reason calmly. The apprehension of fresh calamities was kept alive by the continued shocks, which on the 7th of September and 13th of December were unusually severe. Those of the latter date were said by some to have equalled in violence that of the 29th of July, and caused further damage to the remaining buildings. As time went on, however, the fears of the people disappeared, and the opposition to a removal grew stronger among all classes; but still the audiencia objected. This body, together with the royal officials and the troops, had been established in the Hermita since September; but few if any of the citizens appear to have joined them, and not even a petechial fever, which appeared and raged until May 1774 could induce them to abandon the ruined city.[XXXVII‑64]
The president would fain have compelled the removal, but the royal decree which arrived in the latter part of 1774, made the selection of the site subject to the approval of the viceroy of Mexico, and ordered that until such approval was obtained the erection of permanent buildings should not be made. The viceroy was duly informed of the choice of site, but instead of approving it he reported the matter to the crown.
The removal of the city to the plain of the virgin was confirmed by royal decree of November 1775, and immediately following its receipt President Mayorga issued decrees inviting the citizens to select their lots in the new locality. But few responded to this invitation, and none began the construction of houses, believing that this site would be ultimately abandoned.
Toward the end of December a second royal decree arrived with instructions as to the manner of removal, but forbidding the total abandonment of the old city. Suppressing such portions of these instructions as suited his design, the president continued his measures of coercion, but apparently with little success, for on the 29th of July, 1777, he found it necessary to decree that within a year the old city must be abandoned and all buildings pulled down. The ayuntamiento had been ordered to take up their permanent residence in La Hermita at the end of 1775, and their protests, first to the president and subsequently to the crown, appear to have availed nothing.[XXXVII‑65] The archbishop, however, and the ecclesiastics still remained in the ruined city.
MORE QUARRELS.
The archbishop had opposed the removal from the beginning, and in his numerous representations to the crown had occasion to complain of the minister Galvez. One of these letters fell into the hands of Galvez, who determined on revenge. Through his influence secret and stringent orders were issued for the total abandonment of the ruined city, and a former resignation of the archbishop, made in 1769, and rejected by the crown, was reconsidered and accepted. The orders issued by the president became more and more stringent, but as he refused to show the royal decrees to the archbishop the latter paid no heed to them.
Thus affairs continued until August 1778, when Don Matías Galvez, a brother of minister Galvez, arrived in Guatemala with the rank of inspector-general and acting president of the audiencia in the absence or sickness of Mayorga. In the beginning of 1779 the entry to the ruined city of all kinds of merchandise was forbidden; repairs on houses, grounds, or streets were prohibited; music, bull-fighting, and all other public diversions were interdicted; the temporary huts in the streets and squares were ordered removed, and all artisans, militia, and others of this class were ordered to transfer their residence to the new site within a limited period.
On the 5th of April Galvez took temporary possession of the presidency, Mayorga being promoted to the viceroyalty of New Spain, for which place he set out toward the end of the month. The appointment of Galvez arrived the 14th of May when he took formal possession of the office. Through his subordinates he at once issued peremptory orders to all seculars for the immediate abandonment of the old city under severe penalties. This tyrannical measure could not be fully carried out, and such was the suffering it caused among the poorer classes that many were allowed to remain among the ruins. The principal cause of all these troubles, however, was the archbishop. The civil authorities could not compel him to leave the old city, and it was hoped that a systematic course of annoyance would induce him to repair to Spain, and that during his absence the new archbishop who had already been appointed would quietly take possession. Having set out on a pastoral visit, August 21, 1778, it was supposed that he had departed for Spain; but in September 1779 he was again in Guatemala City, whence he issued an edict disputing the validity of his successor's claims, this latter, Cayetano Francos y Monroy, having arrived in Guatemala during the preceding month. From the 9th to the 30th the struggle between the archbishop and the audiencia continued. To the former's threats of excommunication the latter replied with demands for the recognition of the new archbishop, and this proving ineffectual he was ordered to depart for Spain, and the recognition of Monroy by the people enjoined under heavy penalties. It is uncertain to what extremes the president might have proceeded had not Archbishop Cortés secretly left for Spain at the end of the month. Monroy at once took possession, and thus ended this scandalous affair.[XXXVII‑66]
Notwithstanding its want of resources the new city, aided by the cession of the revenues for ten years made by the royal decree of 1774, was soon rebuilt, and in 1800 had its paved streets, fine squares, public buildings, and churches. The cathedral, of smaller proportions than that of the old city, and the Jesuit college, were still unfinished.
Alarms and disaster still followed the people of Guatemala. On the 11th of July 1775 a violent though harmless eruption of the volcano of Pacaya occurred; in 1776 the eruption of the volcano De Tormentos, near Amatitlan, destroyed the village of Tres Rios, three leagues distant, and filled with lava the rivers from which it took its name.[XXXVII‑67]