Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/484

464 to the same alarms, but no serious damage seems to have been done to property.

Imaginary afflictions were not wanting. A brilliant meteor was observed about seven o'clock in the evening of the 24th of January, 1678, running from west to east, and made the city lights look pale and sickly; it disappeared after passing the meridian, previous to which it threw out sparks of a red color similar to those of a rocket. No report was heard in Mexico, but the people of Tacubaya and other places asserted that they had clearly heard it, and felt much alarmed. Between seven and eight in the evening of November 14, 1789, an aurora borealis was seen, which covered a large portion of the hemisphere on the north side. Surely the end of all things was at hand. The heavenly fire attained its greatest intensity an hour later, when red and yellow light glared threateningly. In yet another hour it had disappeared, leaving New Spain unscorched.

The fifty-first viceroy, Manuel Antonio Florez, was a lieutenant-general, or vice-admiral of the royal navy, a knight of the order of Calatrava, and commander of Molinos and Laguna-rota of the same order. He arrived at Vera Cruz on the line of battle ship San Julian, after a voyage of fifty-six days, on the 18th of July, 1787, bringing his family, one of whom was Lieutenant-colonel Joseph Florez, who had the appointment of Castellano, or commandant of the fort at Acapulco.