CHAPTER XX.
VICEROY CALLEJA AND HIS PLANS.
1813.
Calleja's Character and Appearance — How the Appointment was Received — Condition of Affairs — Fresh Taxes and Loans — Reforms — Insurgent Heroine — Constitution of 1812 Enforced — Inquisition Disappears — Increase of Crime — Protests and Counter-appeals — Extent of Insurrection — Calleja's Campaign Plan — Royalist Positions — Verdusco's Fiasco — Rayon's Tour of Inspection — Quarrel between the Leaders — Iturbide's Victory at Salvatierra.
The feeling in New Spain at the appointment of Calleja was by no means of unmixed delight. Spaniards naturally welcomed one from whose proved skill, energy, and experience they hoped to reach a speedy conclusion of the protracted civil war and attendant disorders, and the inhabitants of the capital could not object to a man whose fondness for ostentation promised to sustain the splendor of the court and the allurements of the metropolis. Society spoke of him besides as elegant in manners, with a conversation that revealed both wide reading and taste. Here the praise stopped, however, for there was something strongly repelling in his haughty disposition and sinister aspect, stamped by cold calculation and vindictiveness. Much of this was due to a bilious temperament, reflected also in his jaundiced complexion and cat-like face, with its greenish eyes and lowering glances.[1]
- ↑ Bustamante compares his eyes to two boiled tomatoes. His beard terminated in a point. The portrait in Alaman, iv. 77, shows no beard. Other wise the former gives him a fine figure, 'agestado, elegante, airoso en los movimientos.' Campañas de Calleja, app. 17.
