Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/223

Rh In 1656, the British forces having been successful against Jamaica, the Mexicans were apprehensive that their arms would next be turned against New Spain; and accordingly Alburquerque fitted out an armada to operate against the enemy among the islands before they could reach the coast of his viceroyalty. This well designed expedition failed, and most of the soldiers who engaged in it, perished. The duke, unsuccessful in war, next turned his attention to the gradual and peaceful extension, northward, of the colonial emigration; and, distributing a large portion of the territory of New Mexico among a hundred families, he founded the city of Alburquerque, and established in it several Franciscan missions as the nucleus of future population.

The year 1659 was signalized in Mexico by one of those horrid dramas which occasionally took place in all countries into which the monstrous institution of the Inquisition was unfortunately naturalized, and fifty human victims were burned alive by order of the Audiencia. For the credit of the country it must be remembered that this was the first occurrence of the kind, but, either from curiosity or from a superior sense of duty, the dreadful pageant was not only witnessed by an immense crowd of eager spectators, but was even presided over by the viceroy himself. In 1660 the duke narrowly escaped death by the hands of an assassin. Whilst on his knees at prayer in a chapel of the cathedral, the murderer,—a youthful soldier seventeen years old,—stole behind him, and was in the act of striking the fatal blow when he was arrested. In less than twelve hours he had gone to account for the meditated crime.

Alburquerque appears to have been popular, useful and intelligent, though, from his portrait which is preserved in the gallery of the viceroys in Mexico, we would have imagined him to be a gross sensualist, resembling more the usual pictorial representations of Sancho Panza than one who was calculated to wield the destinies of an empire. Nevertheless the expression of public sorrow was unfeigned and loud among all classes when he departed for Spain in the year 1660.