CAUSE OF THE MEASURE.
443
feelings of the people, because of the affection they bore it, and of the degradation inflicted on them by the assurance that they were mere serfs, born to obey, and not to think about, much less dispute, the acts of their master. Some persons, doubting the truth of the mandate, ventured to expostulate, and suffered for it.[1]
But in destroying what the royal government considered an evil which must be eradicated at all hazards,
Guanajuato, Queretaro, and Mexico.
even against the dearest traditions of the people, every preparation had been made to confront any possible attempts at rebellion. The fact should not be lost sight
- ↑ A canon of Mexico, Francisco Javier de Esnaurrizar, for free utterances in private, was shut up in San Juan de Ulúa. Doctor Antonio Lopez Portillo, accused of being the author of a hostile article, was sent to Spain, and because of his great learning, then deemed very dangerous, was never permitted to return to his country. Bustamante, Expatriacion, in Aleyre, Hist. Comp. Jesus, iii. 305; Id., Suplem., in Cavo, Tres Siglos, iii. 5. In Jalisco the nuns sided with the Jesuits, and some fanatical prophecies were made in favor of the fathers’ return. The bishop of the diocese in 1768 reproved
