Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/299

Rh people began to reflect. The prestige of Spanish power, to which we have alluded heretofore, was destroyed. A French king sat upon the Spanish throne. The wand of the enchanter, with which he had spell-bound America across the wide Atlantic, was broken forever. The treasured memory of oppression, conquest, bad government and misery, was suddenly refreshed, and it is not surprising to find that when the popular rising finally took place, it manifested its bitterness in an universal outcry against the Spaniards.

After the occurrences at Bayonne, emissaries from king Joseph Bonaparte spread themselves over the continent to prepare the people for the ratification and permanence of the French government. These political propagandists were charged, as we have stated with orders from Ferdinand VII. and the Council of the Indies, to transfer the allegiance of America to France. It may be imagined that this would have gratified the masses in America, who perhaps, had heard that the French were the unquestionable patrons of "liberty and equality." But, the exact reverse was the case among the Creoles, whilst the Spaniards in America, received the emissaries with welcome, and bowed down submissively to the orders they brought. Blinded for centuries to all ideas of government save those of regal character, the Mexicans had no notion of rule or ruler except their traditionary Spanish king. They clung to him, therefore, with confidence, for they felt the necessity of some paramount authority, as political self control was, as yet, an utter impossibility.

A secret union among leading men was, therefore, formed in 1810, which contemplated a general rising throughout the provinces, but the plot was detected at the moment when it was ripe for development. This conspiracy was based upon a desire to overthrow the Spaniards. "They felt," says Mr. Ward, "that the question was not now one between themselves as subjects, but between themselves and their fellow subjects, the European Spaniards, as to which should possess the right of representing the absent king," as guardians and preservers of the rights of Ferdinand. The Europeans claimed this privilege exclusively, with customary insolence. "The Ayuntamiento of Mexico was told by the Audiencia that it possessed no authority except over the leperos"—or mob of the capital; and it was a favorite maxim of the oidor Battaller that "while a Manchego mule or a Castilian cobler remained in the Peninsula, he had a right to govern."