CHAPTER IX.
1642—1654.
Don Garcia Sarmiento de Sotomayor,
Count de Salvatierra, Marques de Sobroso,
XIX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1642—1648.
Philip IV. seems to have been more anxious to use Palafox as an instrument to remove the Duke of Escalona, than to empower him, for any length of time, with viceroyal authority; for, no sooner did he suppose that the duke was displaced quietly without leaving the government in the hands of the Audiencia, than he appointed the Conde de Salvatierra as his representative. This nobleman reached his government on the 23d of November, 1642, and Palafox immediately retired from his office, still preserving, however, the functions of Visitador. At the conclusion of this year the duke departed from Churubusco for San Martin, in order to prepare for his voyage home; and in 1643, this ill used personage left New Spain having previously fortified himself with numerous certificates of his loyalty to the Spanish crown, all of which he used so skilfully in vindication before the vacillating and imbecile king, that he was not only exculpated entirely, but offered once more the viceroyalty from which he had been so rudely thrust. The duke promptly rejected the proposed restoration, but accepted the viceroyalty of Sicily. Before he departed for the seat of government,
