Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/213

Rh subsequent attacks. These fortifications were hardly commenced when another Dutch fleet appeared before the town. But this time the visit was not of a hostile nature;—it was an exhausted fleet, demanding water and provisions, after recovering which it resumed its track for the East Indies. Whilst the Spaniards were thus succoring and sustaining their enemies the Dutch, a dreadful famine scourged Sinaloa and neighboring provinces, carrying off upwards of eight thousand Indians.

During the long reign of the present monarch, Philip IV., Spain was frequently at war with England, Holland, and France; and the Dutch, who inflicted dreadful ravages on the American coasts, secured immense spoil from the Spaniards. In 1628, Pedro Hein, a Hollander of great distinction, placed a squadron in the gulf on the coasts of Florida to intercept the fleet of New Spain. The resistance made by the Spaniards was feeble, and, their vessels being captured by the Dutch, the commerce of Mexico experienced a severe blow from which it was long in recovering.

In 1629, there were ecclesiastical troubles in the colony, growing out of an attempt by the higher order of the Spanish clergy to prevent the increase of the regular priesthood from among the natives of the country. They feared that in the course of time the dominion of the establishment would thus be wrested from their hands by the power of the Mexicans. The king, himself was appealed to on this subject and caused it to be examined into carefully. In 1631, in consequence of the repeated danger of the capital from floods, the project of removing the site from its present location, to the loftier levels between Tacuba and Tacubaya, was seriously argued before the people. But the interest of property holders, and inhabitants of the city would have been so seriously affected by this act, that the idea was abandoned.

The remaining years of this viceroyalty were consumed in matters of mere local detail and domestic government, and in fact we know but little of it, save that the severe inundations of 1629 caused the authorities to use their utmost efforts in prosecuting the work of the desague, as we have already seen in the general account given of that gigantic enterprise. In 1635 this viceroy's reign terminated.