possession of two other deposits belonging to regidores of the capital. By these means, and by the expenditure of ten thousand pesos of his own, wherewith he made purchases in the neighboring provinces, he accumulated a considerable store of grain. He broke up effectually the trade in contraband goods between Acapulco and Peru. While this was a-doing it was found that members of the consulado had been concerned, some of them openly, in these practices. He removed the royal officials having charge of the supplies for the Philippines, putting clean-handed men in their places, and in consequence the amount of supplies sent to that colony was greater than ever before."

He checked immediately all pilfering of the royal treasury, banishing from the mines the foreigners and others who had defrauded the revenue, ordering that all money received for taxes should be sent at once to Mexico, and putting an end to other practices by which so much of the king's money had remained in the hands of dishonest officials. Owing to these reforms in the management of the treasury the viceroy was enabled to send an increased amount of money to Spain, where at this time it was sorely

8

5 He also ordered that maize should not be fed to cattle within fourteen leagues of Mexico and ten of Pueblo, and that throughout the viceroyalty the price of this staple should not be more than twenty reales the fanega. Abundance soon brought the price down to less than this, and it sold as low as sixteen reales. This public benefaction was acknowledged by the cabildo of Mexico, in a formal manner, toward the close of 1623. Mex., Rel. del Estad., 7-8. The viceroy also ordered that Juan Juarez, fiscal of the audicncia, should be present at the granary, at certain determined hours daily, for the purpose of seeing that the poor were impartially treated. He caused the butcher-shops of the archiepiscopal palace to be closed and prohibited the sale of all articles of food at the exorbitant prices hitherto prevailing. Grambila, Tumultos, MS., 3.

"In the prosecutions growing out of this matter the viceroy allowed no appeal; this was afterward qualified as an act of tyranny by the audiencia in their answer of February 8, 1624, to Gelves' protest from his cell in the convent of San Francisco. Mex., Rel. Svm., 15.

In 1622 the value of these supplies was nine hundred thousand dollars, and in the following year two thirds of that amount. Mex., Rel. del Estad., 5. 8 Gelves had been told that it would be impossible to recover money turned into the treasury in partial payment of taxes. On investigation it was found that there was nearly a quarter of a million of dollars thus owing, some of it since 1598, and of this amount about one half was recovered. Mex., Rel. del Estad., 4.

RIGOROUS REFORM.

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needed. After paying all the expenses of administering the viceroyalty and meeting the cost of supplies sent to Manila, a million of pesos was sent to the king in 1622, and a million and a half in the following year."

The marquis was a religious man and his respect for the clergy was sincere. To the archbishop he spoke privily, regretting the dissensions which rent atwain brethren who should dwell in harmony. He also begged the prelate to cease the unseemly practice of receiving gifts from suitors in the ecclesiastical court, and to reform other abuses.10 He restrained the inquisitors from intermeddling in temporal matters not within their jurisdiction. As far as he was able to exercise control he saw that offices in the religious orders were held by men fitted for their several positions.

Convinced by the frequent complaints of the Indians that the appointment of secular clergymen as doctrineros instead of friars would be detrimental to interests of the crown also, the viceroy ordered that the latter should be retained in the doctrinas, and that in the future only friars should be appointed to them. In this matter the viceroy was certainly not strictly impartial. Moreover in this action he undoubtedly laid the foundation for an accusation which afterward his enemies were only too glad to make. While his action in the premises had its origin, undeniably, in a spirit of just kindness to the Indians-for to have substituted for the friars to whom they were

"This was more than had been sent heretofore in any corresponding period. Grambila, Tumultos, MS., 10; Mex., Rel. del Estad., 5.

10 The abuse of the privilege of sanctuary was notorious, and criminals availed themselves of false witnesses in order to prove that they were entitled to it. Gelves required the fiscal to use every diligence in order to arrive at the truth in these matters. One Juan de Rincon having brought forward 11 witnesses to prove his right to immunity, on the testimony of 29 others these men were shown to have forsworn themselves, and were condemned to penal servitude at Manila. They were sent out of the city together with other convicts; but notwithstanding the opposition of the viceroy, the audiencia, on the ground that the sentence was excessive, caused them to be brought back, and finally they went unwhipped of justice. Mex., Rel. Svm., 2.

with reason attached secular clergymen ignorant of their tongues and customs alike, would have been tantamount to cruelty-it was nevertheless in conflict. with the provisions of royal cédulas. Father Bartolomé de Burguillos, his confessor, was a friar of San Diego, and possibly his counsels had sufficient weight with the marquis to induce him thus to slight the wish of the sovereign frequently expressed."

The course of the marquis was commended by the upright, but these were far less in number than the vicious, and the number of his enemies increased daily. Those high in place, accustomed to have their own way in matters of government, were offended at the summary clipping of their wings. In public they contented themselves with shrugs and with fingers laid aside the nose, while privately they spoke in open anger, and fostered a hatred to the all-unconscious object thereof that merely bided its time for throwing off the mask. Occasionally, however, resentment overcame prudence.

Pedro de Vergara Gaviria, the senior oidor, was a self-willed man, who after the brief taste of power enjoyed before the arrival of Gelves had become unfitted to play the subordinate. He had easily become chief among his fellows, and was not at all inclined to brook the restraint imposed upon him by the just though severe measures of the viceroy. Gelves, always courteous in his treatment of members of the audiencia and the cabildo, went further than necessary in useless attempts to make a friend of this man, who on his part seemed to consider all the favors of the marquis as so many marks of weakness. Gelves made him his asesor in matters relating to war, and Gaviria's inclination to absolutism readily induced him to fall into the habit of giving orders without having troubled himself to consult the viceroy. To this the

11 For the provisions of many different cédulas, too numerous for insertion here, see Recop. de Ind., in the titles of book first relating to clérigos, religiosos, doctrineros, and doctrinas.

FRIARS AND CLERGY.

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latter very properly objected. But the asesor went on in this insubordinate fashion until Gelves found himself constrained to order that he should be confined to his own house.13

This unruly spirit was common among high officials. On a certain day of solemn observance some of the regidores ordered that their chairs should not be taken to the cathedral, whither it was their duty to accompany the viceroy and the other corporations, alleging as an excuse for their conduct some unsettled question of precedence with the royal officials. Noticing their absence, and informed of the cause, the viceroy ordered their attendance, without prejudice to their rights, real or fancied. Nevertheless they did not make their appearance. Gelves, after consultation with the audiencia, sent a corregidor to arrest them in case of a continued refusal to obey. Persisting in their disobedience, they were put under arrest in the casas de cabildo, or city hall. The justices and others in office had each his grievance. Some of these were incensed because the peculations of which they had been guilty, and which for so long a time they had practised with impunity, were punished by dismissal from office. Others again gave themselves up to the resentment felt by little minds because the crimes which they had been unable to discover were brought to light through the exertions of the viceroy. The

12 On a certain occasion, having received one of these reproofs, Gaviria, in the viceroy's ante-chamber and in the presence of several persons, snatched from the hand of the secretary the papers to which objection had been made and tore them in pieces, exclaiming petulantly that he would not continue in office if he were not allowed his way in all things. Mex., Rel. Svm., 2.

13 In the letter of the cabildo of Mexico to the king, dated February 19, 1624, in which an account was given of the riot of the preceding month, it is asserted that Gaviria's imprisonment was entirely owing to his having allowed to be read before the audiencia certain petitions of some friar of La Merced complaining of their vicar-general, Fray Juan Gomez, a great favorite of the viceroy. Mex., Cartas de la ciudad á S. M., in Doc. Hist. Mex., série ii. tom. iii. 130. In another letter of the same date, in which the cabildo recommends Gaviria, and Dr Galdos de Valencia, another oidor whom Gelves had found it recessary to remove from office, to the royal favor, it is stated that the imprisonment of the former lasted for eighteen months. Id., 171-2.

14 Thence, however, they rallied at their will, in order to inveigh in public against the marquis. Mex., Rel. del Estad., 2.

friars took umbrage because of what they considered an unwarranted meddling of the viceroy in their elections. The Jesuits were aggrieved that their attempt on the doctrinas had met with signal failure, and these restless intriguers immediately addressed themselves to the work of undoing Gelves as they had undermined others. 15

By far the most formidable of the enemies of the marquis was the archbishop, Juan Perez de la Serna, a man who from the position of canónigo magistral of Zamora had in 1613 been appointed to succeed the deplored prelate-viceroy Guerra as head of the church in New Spain.16 He proved zealous in extending spiritual administration through curacies and convents, striving to bring into greater veneration sacred places and relics, and to practise charity" in a manner that brought him in contact with the poor and assisted to make him popular with the masses. Among the rich and the officials he found less welcome, owing partly to his persevering efforts for episcopal rights,is partly to the enforcement of a stricter morality among the higher classes. The unseemly strife between friars and clergy, and the loose conduct of many of them, greatly encouraged an irreligious feeling among those whose means lured them from austerity and strict rules to a life of ease and free indulgence, and to laxity even in sacred matters. Painters, for instance, made efforts to present church ceremonials in a ridiculous

15 The venom of one of them appears in a manuscript in my possession copied from the original in the collection of Gayangos. Although it is anonymous there is sufficient internal evidence to show that it was the work of a Jesuit. Relacion de un estupendo y monstruo caso, in Mexico y sus disturbios, i. 631-57.

16 He was born at Cervera, studied at Sigüenza and Valladolid, became a professor at Durango, and in 1597 canónigo magistral of the church at Zamora, a position won from nine competitors grandes.' On January 18, 1613, he was appointed archbishop. Vetancvrt, Trat. Mex., 24; Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 45; Concilios Prov., 1555-65, 216-17.

All charities being given by his own hands, porque dezia ser mucha la diferencia que ay, de oir la miseria del pobre en relacion, à verla por vista.' Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 45.

18 Among other troubles was the attempt by officials to deprive him of the procuracion tribute given by towns and villages visited by the prelate. Gage gives his income at 60,000 ducats a year. Voy. (Amst. 1720), i. 201.