Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/77

Rh viceroy born in America (Peru), and the Count de Revilla-Gigedo (1789-1794), both of whom were unquestionably rulers of great ability, and who might also well be represented in the national galleries of the United States; and the portraits of occasional ecclesiastical viceroys—bishops or archbishops—conspicuous among their neighbors by reason of their more somber vestments. The faces of these latter are not devoid of intellectuality, or indications of mental ability; but they are—one and all—stern, unimpassioned, and with an expression of grim malevolence and bigotry, which as much as says, "Woe betide any heretic, or contemner of Church supremacy, who dares to question my authority!" To which may be properly added that, during nearly all the long period of Spanish rule in Mexico, the Inquisition, or "Holy Office," wielded a power as baleful and as despotic as it ever did in Old Spain, and held its last auto-da-fe and burned its last conspicuous victim—General José Morelos—in the Plaza of the city of Mexico, as late as November, 1815!

In 1810, Mexico, under the lead of Hidalgo—whom the modern Mexicans regard as a second Washington—revolted against its Spanish rulers, and, after many and varying vicissitudes, finally attained its complete independence, and proclaimed itself, in 1822, first an empire, and two years later,