took the reins with a firm hand. He found many of the departments of government in a bad condition, and is said to have reformed certain abuses which were gradually undermining the political and social structure of the colony. In these duties the two first years of his viceroyalty passed away quietly; but Gelves though an excellent magistrate so far as the internal police of the country is concerned, was, nevertheless, a selfish and avaricious person, and seems to have resolved that his fortune should prosper by his government of New Spain.
The incidents which we are about to relate are stated on the authority of Father Gage, an English friar who visited Mexico in 1625; and whose pictures of the manners of the people correspond so well with our personal knowledge of them, at present, that we are scarcely at liberty to question his fidelity as a historian.[1]
In the year 1624, Mexico was, for a time, in a state of great distraction, and well nigh revolted from the Spanish throne. The passion for acquiring fortune, which had manifested itself some what in other viceroys, seems in Gelves unbounded. He resolved to achieve his end by a bold stroke; and, in 1623, having determined to monopolize the staff of life among the Indians and Creoles, he despatched one of the wealthiest Mexicans, Don Pedro de Mexia, to buy up corn in all the provinces at the rate of fourteen reales, the sum fixed by law at which the corn was sold in times of famine. The farmers, who, of course, knew nothing of Mexia's plan readily disposed of their corn, with which the artful purveyor filled his store houses all over the country. After the remnant of the crop was brought to market and sold, men began
- ↑ "A new survey of the West Indies, or The English American, his Travels by land and sea; by Thomas Gage, London, 1677, see p. 176. "It is due to impartial history and to the memory of the Marques de Gelves to state that a different account of these occurrences is given by Ramon J. Alcaraz, a modern Mexican writer in the Liceo Mexicano, vol. 2, p. 120. Alcaraz fortifies his views by some documents, and by a justificatory commentary of the Marques himself. But he, like Gage, does not state his authorities. The story as related by the English friar is very characteristic of the age, and, si non e vero e ben trovato. Those who are anxious to discover the innocence or guilt of the viceroy, with certainty, will have a difficult task in exploring the Spanish manuscripts of the period. The British traveller Gage, was on the spot in the year after the events occurred, and his subsequent abandonment of the Catholic church would not be likely to lead him into the espousal of the archbishop de la Serna's cause against the viceroy.
Cavo in his work entitled—"Tres Siglos de Mexico,"—states that the account he gives of this transaction is taken from five different narratives of it which were published at the time of its occurrence—three in favor of the viceroy and two sustaining the cause of the archbishop. In the last two, he alleges, that all the imputations against the archbishop were disproved, and that all the charges against the viceroy were sustained by solid argument.
