Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/307

Rh Vera Cruz was visited by a severe earthquake. In the town of Córdoba the shocks came in so rapid succession and with so increasing intensity that the entire population rushed forth into the streets. Women forgot their modesty and hurried almost naked from their dwellings; men forgot their manhood and left their little ones to perish amidst the wreck of falling houses; while man, matron, and maid knelt side by side, bare-kneed on the pavement, and offered fervent supplications to the virgin for deliverance.

Before the people of Córdoba had time to recover from their fright another calamity befell them and one far more disastrous. On the 23d of June in the same year, dense black clouds rolled in from the ocean, and torrents of rain fell, almost without intermission for fifteen days. The houses were flooded; and those who lived on the mountain side were in danger of destruction from the huge bowlders and trunks of trees swept down by the swollen torrents. All communication with the neighboring haciendas was cut off; cattle perished by the thousand, and their owners barely escaped with their lives. When the storm cleared away it was found that the surface of the country was greatly changed. Enormous barrancas were formed and the streams diverted from their former channels.

During all these calamities the people of New Spain found some consolation in the relief which they now enjoyed from the raids of freebooters and privateers; but this immunity was secured under conditions which, ere long, caused Spain the loss of her New World commerce. By the treaty which was signed at Utrecht on the 11th of April, 1713, England obtained the privilege of shipping negro slaves to the islands and mainland of America, and of maintaining