Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/190

174 selfish and avaricious purposes of the receivers. He immediately abolished this impost, and diminished the whole amount of taxation upon the Indians.

In consequence of the loss of the galeon from the Philipines, which we have related, the king ordered an expedition, under the command of General Sebastian Viscaino, to examine and scour the coasts of the Californias, where it was alleged the precious metals, and, especially, the most valuable pearls would be found in abundance. Viscaino recruited a large number of followers in Mexico for this enterprise, and set sail with three vessels, in 1596, from Acapulco. The adventurers coasted the territory for a considerable time without finding a suitable location in which they might settle advantageously, until, at length, they disembarked in the port of La Paz, whence, however, they soon departed for want of provisions and supplies of every kind.

Meanwhile the Count of Monterey examined into the state of the expedition to New Mexico, which he found had been projected and partly prepared by his predecessor. He made some changes in the plan agreed on between Velasco and Oñate, and, in order to exhibit his good will to the latter personage, he joined with him, in the enterprise, his relation Vicente Saldivar, who had gathered a number of emigrants for these remote and northern regions. People were tempted to abandon their homes by the reports of extraordinary mineral wealth which was to be obtained in these unexplored portions of New Spain; and, accordingly, when the standard of the expedition was raised in the great square of the capital, crowds of men with their families flocked around it to enlist for the hazardous and toilsome service.

The first news received from the emigrant colonists, when they reached Caxco, two hundred leagues from the capital, was disastrous. Quarrels had originated among the adventurers, who asserted that the terms of the expedition had not been complied with faithfully. As soon as the viceroy heard of the discontent, he despatched Don Lope de Ulloa as a pacificator, to the inflamed band which was quickly reduced to harmony and persuaded to continue its journey to the promised land. At length the weary emigrants reached the boasted El Dorado; but finding the reports of mineral wealth altogether exaggerated, and doubting the advantage of residing with their families permanently in such distant out-posts, many of them retraced their way southward to regions that were more densely populated.

In 1598, another effort was resolved on to gather the dispersed