Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/514

494 conspirators, after eight years of investigation, were exiled to different parts of the world.

While Guerrero and his friends were undergoing trial, another plot was discovered, which created much excitement at the time in the city of Mexico. This was the so-called "machete conspiracy" toward the end of 1799, instigated by Pedro Portilla, collector of duties of the city. His nephew, Isidore Francisco de Aguirre, a former government employ at Guadalajara, to whom Portilla had confided the matter, believing him dissatisfied with the authorities, disclosed the affair to Viceroy Azanza. The conspirators numbered thirteen, and were either relatives or friends of the leader, some of them holding public positions. The object was much the same as that of Guerrero, but the project was in its conception impracticable. Without weighing the difficulties attending the execution of their plan the conspirators had provided themselves with no other arms than a number of machetes. Prisoners were to be liberated with whose aid they would make themselves masters of the palace and government offices; the authorities and all Europeans were to be imprisoned, and their possessions confiscated. The people should then be called upon to decide on the convocation of a congress like that of the United States, or other form of government.

Though the plot was ridiculous, Azanza did not undervalue its moral importance. "Although," he says to the king, "the condition of the individuals who formed the project would cause me little anxiety, as neither for their position, faculties, nor talents were they fit to carry out a plan of that kind, yet by some