Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/105

 MEXICO. 73 government officer, or, at least, as holding some rank in the militia. The municipal establishments, throughout the New World, long retained some vestiges of that spirit of freedom, and that predilection for popular institutions, which Charles V. so elfectually quelled in the Peninsula, upon his accession to the throne. We can desire no better proof of the importance originally attached to them, and of the authority with which they were supposed to be invested, than the fact, that Cortez, when desirous to emancipate himself from the jurisdiction of Velasquez, from whom his original commission for the con- quest of Mexico emanated, could devise no better method of effecting his purpose, than by forming a Cabildo, or Munici- pality, for the infant settlement of Veracruz, into whose hands he resigned the commission, which he held of the Go- vernor of Cuba, and from wjiom he received, in return, autho- rity to act as Generalissimo,, until the Emperor's pleasure should be known. The Regidores and Alcaldes, who com- posed the Municipalities, {Ayuntamientos,) were originally elected by the inhabitants of each town ; and though the in- stitution was soon perverted, it was always looked up to with affection, and respect, by the people, who regarded the mem- bers of the Cabildo as their natural protectors. And such they almost invariably proved ; for they were connected with them by a thousand ties, which the higher officers of state were forbidden to form ; and by a community of interests, that could not exist between the Europeans, and any class of the Natives. At the commencement of the Revolution, the Cabildos became, every where, the organs of the people, and the great advocates of their right to an Independent Provi- sional government, during the absence of the King : indeed, it was the line taken by them, in opposition to the Audiencias, which were devoted, of course, to the European interest, that first brought matters between the Creoles and the Mother country to a crisis. It is remarkable that this spirit should