Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/384

364 Spain, among whom was the late viceroy, marqués de Casafuerte, and it is even said that royal blood coursed in her veins.

The marqués de Cruíllas was appointed viceroy of New Spain on or before the 9th of May, 1760. He left Spain in July, touched at Puerto Rico and Cuba, and landed in Vera Cruz the 4th of September. He left that city the 19th, and journeying as his predecessors had done, reviewing on his way the colored troops in Puebla, and reached on the 5th of October Otumba, where acting viceroy Cagigal delivered him the baton of command, and on the next day informally entered the capital. Being received by the ayuntamiento and conducted to the presence of the royal audiencia he then laid before that body his commissions as viceroy, governor, and president, took the oath of office, and made his public entry into Mexico on the 25th of January, 1761, not the 17th as modern authors have asserted.

Several important affairs soon engaged the new viceroy's attention. The first was the recognition and proclamation of the new king who had ascended the throne in November 1759. The act had been decreed in 1760 and postponed. The viceroy resolved that it should be on a magnificent scale. Accompanied from the palace by the city council, courts of justice, and the nobility on horseback, holding the standard that had been blessed by the archbishop, the marquis repaired to the stage erected in the plaza mayor, where being challenged to raise the standard for Cárlos