# Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican/Volume 1/Book 2/Chapter 14

Table of Contents
CHAPTER XIV.
1771—1784.
Don Antonio Maria de Bucareli y Ursua, Lieutenant General of the Spanish Arms, 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 [mercury] 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.
Don Martin de Mayorga, XL VII. 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 cooperate 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 disaagreement 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 un fortunate 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 controled 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.
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.
CHAPULTEPEC