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Rh a man of considerable talent and good education, affable and kind-hearted, but weak, irresolute, and lacking energy. He was disposed to be upright and faithful, but lacked strength of principle for emergencies. In the administration of justice and the enforcement of military discipline he was notably ineffective. He has been abused extensively by partisans of the friars, but no man could have escaped such abuse without a complete surrender to the mission monopoly and a reckless disobedience to his instructions. He favored secularization, and his views were sound, but he was not hasty or radical in effecting the change, but rather the contrary. True, at the very end of his rule he was induced by Padrés to do an illegal and unwise act, but that act did not go into effect, and the padres had no good cause of offence. No man in Echeandía's place, and faithfully representing the spirit of Mexican republicanism, could have treated the friars better. His faults lay in another direction, as already indicated.

Figueroa's early relations with the diputacion, the last of the powers he had to conciliate, are not clearly recorded, but were doubtless altogether friendly. Before Figueroa's arrival some steps were taken by the ayuntamientos for holding primary elections, and