EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS.
Having become blind from old age, being now in his eightieth year, Archbishop Figueredo petitioned the crown to appoint a coadjutor. Accordingly, Doctor Miguel de Cilieza y Velasco, a native of Guatemala and chancellor of the cathedral, was selected; but the archbishop died before he was consecrated, and he was nominated for the see of Chiapas, whence he departed in October 1767. The archbishop's death occurred June 24, 1765. In accordance with his request his remains were deposited in the church of the Jesuit college, to whose members he had been warmly attached.[XXXVII‑79] The archiepiscopal chair remained vacant after Figueredo's death until 1768, when it was occupied by Doctor Don Pedro Cortés y Larraz.[XXXVII‑80] Preceding his arrival in 1767 the famous decree of expulsion against the Jesuits was carried into effect in Guatemala, but was unattended with any of the serious disturbances which marked its enforcement in New Spain.[XXXVII‑81] The utmost secrecy and despatch were observed. At 6 o'clock on the morning of the 26th of June, troops having been stationed at certain points, the president and audiencia with an escort of dragoons proceeded to the Jesuit convent. It was the feast of the sacred heart, and service had already begun. Awaiting a favorable opportunity the president requested the celebrants to cease, and the sacrament having been covered and the doors closed, in tears he notified the friars of the fatal decree. Silently and with bowed heads they signified their submission. The convent was surrounded by a guard of militia, and all communication with friends forbidden. On July 1st they were conducted to Golfo Dulce and embarked on a Spanish frigate, and a month later the members of their order from Chiapas joined them. The decree was published on the 30th of July. The total number of exiles was eleven. The rector and two lay brothers remained, the former to deliver the church property, and the latter because they were unable to travel.[XXXVII‑82]
Archbishop Cortés took possession of his office in February 1768. The chief event during his rule was his difficulty with the audiencia, owing to his opposition to the removal of the city, and which has been related in connection with that event. These differences, however, were evidently of an earlier date. Cortés, who had been appointed by the king in opposition to his council, did not find matters to his liking in Guatemala, and accordingly in August 1769 he tendered his resignation. This was rejected by the king, who expressed himself as satisfied with his conduct, and this rejection was considered final. In opposing the removal of the city, however, he did not count on the influence of President Mayorga, who was protected by the chief minister of the royal council; and however justifiable in the beginning this opposition may have been it was unwisely prolonged. Minister Galvez succeeded in having the resignation of Cortés reconsidered, notwithstanding the protests of that prelate. He caused his brother to be appointed Mayorga's successor, had Cortés transferred to the bishopric of Tortosa, and, as we have seen, a new archbishop nominated to Guatemala. The refusal of Cortés to surrender his chair, it is claimed, was because he had not received his bulls confirming his appointment to the bishopric of Tortosa. After leaving Guatemala, as previously narrated, he proceeded to his new bishopric, where he continued until his death, which occurred in 1786. His interest in the welfare of Guatemala did not end with his departure, for he subsequently donated sixty thousand dollars with which to found a college for the education of the young.[XXXVII‑83]
Doctor Cayetano Francos y Monroy, his successor, was installed and duly recognized after Cortés' departure;[XXXVII‑84] but not satisfied with the manner in which he had been appointed he procured a confirmatory bull from Pope Pius VII. in 1779. This irregularity was also recognized by the council of the Indies, as is shown by the fact that they declared that the revenues of the archbishopric of Guatemala until December 1779 belonged to Cortés, whose appointment to Tortosa was not confirmed until this date.
HISTORICAL REVIEW.
Thus we have traced the history of Spanish conquest and colonization in Central America from the time when Rodrigo de Bastidas first touched Tierra Firme to the close of the eighteenth century. We have seen the sword and the cross side by side, without a shadow of right or recompense, enter in and take possession of the broad area from Darien to New Spain; then sitting down to wrangle and to rest. During the process of gradual extinction the natives broke out in occasional rebellions; but for the most part they were docile, and submitted with philosophic or Christian resignation to the inevitable, which was too often infamous on the part of civilization and Christianity.
It was a period of repose, the two and a half centuries of Central America's existence under Spain's audiencias and governors, a period of apathy and stagnation as far as intellectual and moral progress are concerned. Nor is there much to be said in the way of material improvement. Neither God nor mammon could truthfully claim much higher or nobler results from the country under European domination than under American. The province and policy of rulers, civil and ecclesiastical, were fixed, and the duties of subjects was determined. Although the people did not know it, the grasp of the mother government upon the country, however nervous and jealous it might be, was in reality weak, for the parent herself was rapidly declining.
There was nothing to fight for, and nothing to work for. If we except an occasional attempted subjugation of unpacified peoples, and the descent of pirates, the greatest issues of the time were those affecting precedence and place. It was easier to evade obnoxious laws than to quarrel with them. The natives found it less burdensome to perform the little labor necessary to the support of themselves and their masters than to endure the penalties of opposition. Between the poor kings of Spain and the pirates of England, France, and Holland, the wealth of the people was far from secure; there was no great incentive to enterprise in any direction, and had there been it is not certain that men would have exerted themselves. Simple existence satisfied them; high development and limitless wealth could do no more.
The appearance on their shores of legalized robbery and murder, in the form of freebooters, was not generally regarded as retribution, though their infamies were scarcely greater than those which had been perpetrated by the Spaniards in this quarter a century or two before. The buccaneers and Scotch settlers were right enough in looking upon the Spaniards as intruders, having no more ownership in the country than they, except such as priority in wrongs committed gave them; which wrongs by no means made right the cruelties and injustice of the English and French inflicted upon the Spaniards.
APPROACHING REVOLUTION.