CHARLES III CAGIGAL VICEROY.

239

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.

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.

--

THEIR EXPULSION FROM SPANISH DOMINIONS THEIR ARRIVAL IN EUROPE BANISHED. CAUSES OF THIS CONDUCT TO THE

ORDER.

ORIGIN OF THE MILITARY CHARACTER OF MEXICO.

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

MILITARY PREPARATIONS

PEACE

PESTILENCE. 241

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 Perote.

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

242 GALVEZ VISITADOR · REFORMS

TOBACCO MONOPOLY.

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

DE CROIX VICEROY THE JESUITS.

243

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.

DON CARLOS FRANCISCO DE CROIX, MARQUES DE CROIX,
XLV. VICEROY OF NEW SPAIN.

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, SantaMaria, 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 controled 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.