Life in Mexico

by Madame Calderón de la Barca

"Stay," said the viceroy, "there is some mistake here. How many ounces were there in the bag you lost?" "Twenty-eight." "And how many are here?" "But twenty-six." "Count them down. I see it is as you say. The case is clear, and we have all been mistaken. Had this Indian been a thief, he would never have brought back the bag, and stolen merely two ounces. He would have kept the whole. It is evident that this is not your bag but another which this poor man has found. Sir, our interview is at an end. Continue to search for your bag of gold; and as for you, friend, since we cannot find the true owner, sweep up these twenty-six pieces and carry them away. They are yours." So saying, his Excellency bowed out the discomfited cheat and the overjoyed rustic. Mr. ——- says that this story, he thinks, is taken from something similar in an oriental tale. However, it may have occurred twice.

A horrible murder took place in 1789, during the vice-royaltyship of Revillagigedo, which is remarkable in two particulars; the trifling circumstances which led to its discovery, and the energy displayed by the viceroy, contrasting strongly with the tardy execution of justice in our days. There lived in Mexico at that period, in the street of Cordovanes, No. 15, a rich merchant of the name of Don Joaquin Dongo. A clerk named José Joaquin Blanco, who had formerly been in his office, having fallen into vicious courses, and joined in companionship with two other young men, Filipe Aldama and Baltazar Quintero gamblers and cock-fighters (with reverence be it spoken) like himself, formed, in concert with them, a plan for robbing his former master.

They accordingly repaired to the house one evening when they knew that Dongo was from home, and imitating the signal which Blanco knew the coachman was in the habit of making to the porter when the carriage returned at night, the doors were immediately thrown open, and the robbers entered. The porter was their first victim. He was thrown down and stabbed. A postman, who was waiting with letters for the return of the master of the house, was the next, and then the cook, and so on, until eleven lay weltering in their blood. The wretches then proceeded to pick the locks of the different bureaux, guided by Blanco, who, in his former capacity, had made himself au fait of all the secrets of the house. They obtained twenty-two thousand dollars in specie, and about seven thousand dollars' worth of plate.

Meanwhile the unfortunate master of the house returned home, and at the accustomed signal the doors were opened by the robbers, and on the entrance of the carriage, instantly relocked. Seeing the porter bathed in blood, and dead bodies lying at the foot of the staircase, he comprehended at once his desperate situation, and advancing to Aldama, who stood near the door, he said, "My life is in your hands; but for God's sake, show some mercy, and do not murder me in cold blood. Say what sums of money you want. Take all that is in the house, and leave me, and I swear to keep your secret." Aldama consented, and Dongo passed on. As he ascended the stairs, stepping over the body of the postman, he encountered Quintero, and to him he made the same appeal, with the same success; when Blanco, springing forward, held his sword to Quintero's breast, and swearing a great oath, exclaimed, "If you do not stab him, I will kill you on the spot!" Conceive, for one moment, the situation of the unfortunate Dongo, surrounded by the murdered and the murderers in his own house, at the dead of the night, and without a hope of assistance! The suspense was momentary. Thus adjured, Quintero stabbed him to the heart.

The murderers then collected their spoil, and it being still dark, two of them got into Dongo's carriage, the third acting as coachman, and so drove swiftly out of the gates of the city, till, arriving at a deserted spot, not far from a village, they turned the carriage and mules adrift, and buried their treasure, which they transported afterwards to a house in the Calle de la Aguila (the street of the eagle), No. 23; and went about their avocations in the morning, as if nothing had occurred. Meanwhile, the public consternation may be conceived, when the morning dawned upon this bloody tragedy. As for the viceroy, he swore that the murderers should be discovered, and hanged before his eyes, that day week.

Immediately the most energetic measures were taken, and the gates of the city shut, to prevent all egress. Orders were given through all the different districts of the capital, that every guest, or visitor, or boarder, whether in inn or lodging, or private house, should have their names given up to the police, with an account of their condition, occupation, motives for living in Mexico, etc. Strict cognizance was taken in all the villages near the capital, of every person who had passed through, or entered, or left the village within a certain space of time. All the roads near the capital were scoured by parties of soldiers. Every hidden place was searched by the police; every suspected house entered. The funeral of the ill-fated Dongo and of the other victims, took place the following day; and it was afterwards remembered that Aldama was there amongst the foremost, remarking and commenting upon this horrible wholesale butchery, and upon the probabilities of discovering the murderers.

A country family from a neighbouring village, hearing of all these doings in Mexico, and with that love of the marvellous which characterizes persons uneducated, or unaccustomed to the world, determined to pay a visit to the capital, and to hear at the fountain head, all these wonderful stories, which had probably reached them under a hundred exaggerated forms. No sooner had they entered their lodgings, than they were visited and examined by the police, and their deposition taken down as to their motives for visiting the capital, their place of birth, etc. As a gratuitous piece of information, one of them mentioned, that, passing by a barber's shop (probably with his eyes opened wide in the expectation of seeing horrible sights), he had observed a man talking to the barber, who had a stain of blood upon his queue (hair being then worn powdered and tied behind). Trifling as this circumstance appears to us, the viceroy ordered that the person who mentioned it should instantly conduct the police officers to the shop where he had observed it. The shop being found, the barber was questioned as to what persons he had been conversing with that morning, and mentioned about half-a-dozen; amongst others Aldama, who did not bear a very good reputation. Aldama was sent for, confronted with the man who gave the information, identified as the same, and the stain of blood being observed, he was immediately committed to prison upon suspicion. Being questioned as to the cause of the stain, he replied, that being at a cock-fight, on such a day, at such an hour, the blood from one of the dying cocks, which he held, had spirted up, and stained the collar of his shirt and his hair. Inquiries being made at the cock-pit, this was corroborated by several witnesses, and extraordinary as it is, it is most probable that the assertion was true.

But meanwhile, the mother of Blanco, deeply distressed at the dissolute courses of her son, took the resolution (which proves more than anything else Revillagigedo's goodness, and the confidence which all classes had in him) to consult the viceroy as to the means of converting the young man to better habits. It seems as if the hand of an avenging Providence had conducted this unfortunate mother to take a step so fatal to her son. She told the viceroy that she had in vain attempted to check him, that his days and nights were spent with profligate companions in gambling-houses and in cock-pits, and that she feared some mischief would come some day from his fighting and swearing and drinking; that but a few days since he had come home late, and that she had observed that his stockings were dabbled in blood; that she had questioned him upon it, and that he had answered surlily he had got it in the cock-pit. Her narration was hardly concluded, before Blanco was arrested and placed in a separate cell of the same prison with Aldama. Shortly after, Quintero, only as being the intimate friend and companion of both parties, was taken up on suspicion and lodged in the same prison; all being separately confined, and no communication permitted between them.

It seems as if Quintero, perhaps the least hardened of the three, was struck with the conviction that, in the extraordinary combination of circumstances which had led to the arrest of himself and his companions in villany, the finger of God was too distinctly visible to permit a doubt of ultimate discovery to rest upon his mind, for he confessed at once, and declaring that he saw all denial was useless, gave a circumstantial account of the whole. He begged for nine days' grace to prepare himself for death, but the viceroy would grant but three. When Aldama confessed, he made the avowal that he was guilty of a previous murder, when he was alcalde of a village near Mexico, which was before the time of Revillagigedo, and for which he had been tried and acquitted. He being alcalde, the postman of the village was in the habit of passing by his house, giving him an account of whatever money he had collected, etc. One evening this man stopped at Aldama's, and told him he was intrusted with a sum of fifteen hundred dollars to carry to a neighbouring village. At twelve o'clock he left Aldama's house, who, taking a short cut across the fields, reached the postman by this other direction, stabbed him, and carried back the money. Next day, when the murder was made known, the alcalde, in his robes of justice, visited the body, and affected to institute a strict search for the murderer. Nevertheless he was suspected and arrested, but escaped by bribery, and shortly after, leaving the village, came to the wider theatre of Mexico.

The murderers having thus made their confession, were ordered to prepare for death. A scaffold erected between the central gate of the palace, and that which is now the principal gate of the city guards, was hung with black to denote that the criminals were of noble blood. An immense crowd were assembled; and the viceroy, standing on the balcony of his palace, witnessed the execution in the great square, the very day week that the murders were committed.