Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/485

Rh The tidings of the viceroy's arrival at the port reached the capital on the 21st. On the 14th of August the real acuerdo paid its last official visit to Archbishop Haro, as viceroy. The latter on the 16th surrendered the baton to his successor at the town of San Cristóbal de Ecatepec, where, as well as in Guadalupe, the incoming viceroy was splendidly entertained. On the 17th he entered the city of Mexico amid salvos of artillery and the enthusiastic, hearty greeting of the people, the troops lining both sides of the procession. He proceeded direct to the council chamber, where, his three commissions as viceroy-governor, president of the audiencia, and captain general having been read, the oath of office was solemnly administered to him. The rest of that day and night and the two following ones were spent in receiving and returning visits of ceremony, in attending banquets, and general amusement.

On the 21st the late viceroy was closeted in consultation on public affairs with Florez nearly three hours. The business of the ministerio general de Indias having become in 1787 extensive and complicated, the king resolved to divide it, placing judicial and ecclesiastic affairs in charge of one department, and the military and financial together with commerce and navigation in that of another; a secretary of state presiding over each of the departments. Viceroy Florez had filled the same position in Santa Fé de Bogotá, and was therefore familiar with its powers and duties; but in Mexico he found a complete change in the system of administration, owing to the establishment of the intendencias and the creation of a superintendente delegado de hacienda in the person of Fernando Mangino, former chief of the mint, by