CHAPTER II.
ADMINISTRATION OF VICEROY ITURRIGARAY.
1803-1808.
Causes of the Revolution of Independence — Arrival of the Viceroy His Antecedents and Comportment — The Viceregal Family — Sordidness of Iturrigaray — His Visit to the Mines — Public Improvements Introduction of Vaccination — Sequestration of Property — Effect on the Land Owners — Humboldt's Visit — International Complications — Demands for Treasure — Difficulties with the United States — War with England — Military Preparations — European Affairs Abdication of Cárlos IV. — Iturrigaray's Indifference — Effects in Mexico of Events in Spain — Power of the Inquisition — Attitude of the Press — Sparks of Revolution
When the subjects of Spain in America awoke to a realization of their position, they found present no lack of reason for revolt. Almost every form of oppression that ever a people had been called to undergo at the hand of despotism they had suffered. The worst that had come to England's colonies we find among the mildest of Mexico's wrongs — so mild, indeed, that they were scarcely felt amidst the others weightier.
Hitherto, they had expected, as a matter of course, that the king of Spain would make such laws for his provinces as suited him. He was to his people almighty power, differing in degree rather than in essence from the power of the almighty, and they had learned to obey the one as the other. And if at the first there had been no more than the English colonies had to complain of — such as the interposition of authority between the people and laws of their making, dissolving or forbidding representative bodies, restrict-
