authorities, who they always accused of criminally withholding grain or maintaining its exorbitant price whenever the seasons were inauspicious. But the Conde de Montezuma was on his guard, and immediately took means to control the Indians and lower classes who inhabited the suburbs of the capital. In the meanwhile he caused large quantities of corn to be sent to Mexico from the provinces, and, as long as the scarcity continued and until it was ascertained that the new crop would be abundant, he ordered grain to be served out carefully to those who were really in want or unable to supply themselves at the prices of the day.[1]
In 1698 the joyful news of the peace concluded in the preceding year between France, Spain, Holland and England, reached Mexico, and gave rise to unusual rejoicings among the people. Commerce, which had suffered greatly from the war, recovered its wonted activity. The two following years passed over New Spain uneventfully; but the beginning of the eighteenth century was signalized by a matter which not only affected the politics of Europe, but might have interfered essentially with the loyalty and prosperity of the New World.
In 1701, the monarchy of Spain passed from the house of Austria to that of Bourbon. The history of this transition of the crown, and of the conflicts to which it gave rise not only in Spain but throughout Europe, is well known at the present day. Yet America does not appear to have been shaken in its fidelity, amid all the convulsions of the parent state. Patient, submissive and obedient to the authorities sent them from across the sea, the people of Mexico were as willing to receive a sovereign of a new race, as to hail the advent in their capital of a new viceroy. Accordingly the inhabitants immediately manifested their fealty to the successor named by Charles II., a fact which afforded no small degree of consolation to Philip V. during all the vicissitudes of his fortune. It is even related that this monarch thought at one period of taking refuge among his American subjects, and thus relieving himself of the quarrels and conflicts by which he was surrounded and assailed in Europe.
The public mourning and funeral obsequies for the late sovereign were celebrated in Mexico with great pomp according to a precise
- ↑ In 1697 there was an eruption of the volcano of Popocatepetl, on the 29th of October.
