Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/268

Rh The policy was at once blind and revengeful. If it was produced by the intrigue of France, the old hereditary foe and rival of England, it was still less pardonable, for a fault or a crime when perpetrated originally and boldly by a nation sometimes rises almost into glory, if successful; but a second-hand iniquity, conceived in jealousy and vindictiveness, is as mean as it is short sighted. England had no friends at that epoch. Her previous conduct had been so selfishly grasping, that all Europe rejoiced when her colonial power was broken by the American revolution. Portugal, Holland, Russia, Morocco and Austria, all, secretly favored the course of Spain and France, and the most discreet politicians of Europe believed that the condition of Great Britain was hopeless.

The declaration of this impolitic war was finally made in Mexico on the 12th of August, 1779, before the arrival of Mayorga, the new viceroy, who did not reach the capital till the 23d of the same month. The Mexicans were not as well acquainted with the politics of the world as the Spanish cabinet, and did not appreciate all the delicate and diplomatic motives which actuated Charles III. They regarded a war with England as a direct invitation to the British to ravage their coasts and harass their trade; and, accordingly as soon as the direful news was announced, prayers were solemnly uttered in all the churches for the successful issue of the contest. Nor did war alone strike the Mexicans with panic; for in this same period the small pox broke out in the capital; and in the ensuing months in the space of sixty-seven days, no less than eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-one persons were hurried by it to the grave. It was a sad season of pestilence and anxiety. The streets were filled with dead bodies, while the temples were crowded with the diseased and the healthy who rushed promiscuously to the holy images, in order to implore divine aid and compassion. This indiscriminate mixture of all classes and conditions,—this stupid reunion of the sound and the sick, whose superstitions led them to the altar instead of the hospital, soon spread the contagion far and wide, until all New Spain suffered from its desolating ravages and scarcely a person was found unmarked by its frightful ravages.

An expedition had been ordered during the viceroyalty of Bucareli to explore portions of the Pacific adjacent to the Mexican coast, and in February of 1799, it reached a point 55° 17 minutes north. It continued its voyage, until on the 1st of July, when it took possession of the land at 60° 13 minutes, in the name of Charles III. It then proceeded onwards, in sight of the coast,