Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/472

452 early in the century, regarding them as a miserable set for the most part, bent on plunder and other malefeasances.

The plan proposed was the creation of intendencias in Mexico, Puebla, Vera Cruz, Yucatan, Oajaca, Valladolid, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Nueva Galicia, Durango, Sonora, and Sinaloa, New Mexico, and the Californias, with a gobernador intendente at the head of each, charged with the four important branches of the public service, namely, government and police, justice, treasury, and war. Excepting those of Mexico, Vera Cruz, Yucatan, and Sonora, they were to have also the patronato real. Viceroy Bucareli could not see the advantage of these intendentes, with so many and enlarged powers, feeling certain that they never could efficiently perform their manifold duties, owing mainly to the difficulty in procuring competent subordinates for the sub-districts of the vast extent of territory assigned to each intendencia. He preferred to see reforms introduced more slowly.

The scheme seems to have lain dormant till toward the end of 1786, when by a royal ordinance countersigned by José de Galvez, as ministro universal de Indias, New Spain, including Yucatan and Nueva Galicia, was divided into twelve intendencias, namely, one intendencia general for the province of Mexico, and the intendencias of Guadalajara, Zacatecas, Durango, Sonora, Puebla, Vera Cruz, Mérida, Oajaca, Valladolid, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí, taking the names of their capitals, and each having at its head a gobernador intendente. The head towns and residences of such officers were made the seats of corregimientos, a rank that several of them had not before. Under this ordinance the alcaldes mayores were