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222 were not conciliatory, and whose purposes were altogether selfish, did not contribute to strengthen the ties between the Spaniards and the natives. Indeed, the Indians continually complained of the fishermen's ill usage, and were unwilling to enter either into trade or friendship with so wild a class of unsettled visiters. The colonial efforts, previously made, had failed in consequence of the scarcity of supplies, nor could sufficient forces be spared to compel the submission of the large and savage tribes that dwelt in those remote regions. Accordingly, when the worthy Father Salvatierra, moved by the descriptions of Father Kino, prayed the Audiencia to intrust the reduction of the Californias to the care of the Jesuits, who would undertake it without supplies from the royal treasury, that body and the episcopal viceroy, consented to the proposed spiritual conquest, and imposed on the holy father no other conditions except that the effort should be made without cost to Spain, and that the territory subdued should be taken possession of in the name of Charles II. Besides this concession to the Jesuits, the viceroy and Audiencia granted to Salvatierra and Kino the right to levy troops and name commanders for their protection in the wilderness. A few days after the conclusion of this contract with the zealous missionaries, the government of Montañez was terminated by the arrival of his successor, the Conde de Montezuma.

The Conde de Montezuma arrived in Mexico on the 18th December, 1696. Early in the ensuing January the annual galeon from the Philipine islands reached the port of Acapulco, and this year the advent of the vessel, laden with oriental products seems to have been the motive for the assemblage of people not only from all parts of Mexico, but even from Peru, at a fair, at which nearly two millions of dollars were spent by inhabitants of the latter viceroyalty in merchandise from China. Hardly had the festivities of this universal concourse ended when a violent earthquake shook the soil of New Spain, and extended from the west coast to the interior beyond the capital, in which the inhabitants were suffering from scarcity, and beginning already to exhibit symptoms of discontent, as they had done five years before, against the supreme