Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/525

Rh that of the presidents of the United States, but this was small as compared with the profits of office, for not infrequently they retired with enormous fortunes acquired by stolen gains. Yet, as we have seen, the Spanish monarch and his representatives in New Spain often neglected to find means for the protection of the colonies from the raids of corsairs, and from invasion by foreign powers. So little confidence had the people in their rulers that even in the reign of Revilla Gigedo—one of the most able and energetic of all the viceroys—the presence of a fishing fleet in the gulf of Mexico threw the country into a panic.

But other causes were also at work. The successful termination of the American war of independence, and the vast increase in material. prosperity which ensued within less than a quarter of century; the marvellous change which the genius of the First Consul had wrought in the fortunes of the French republic; the feeble administration of Cárlos IV., who in the darkest hour of his country's distress still left the control of affairs in the hands of his crafty but incapable minister, Manuel de Godoy—all these events tended to foster the spirit of disloyalty among the people, who became every year more ripe for rebellion. Though the hour had not yet come, the term of Spain's long dominion in the New World was well nigh accomplished; her days were numbered, and already the handwriting was on the wall.

 The bibliographic review at the close of the preceding volume may be said to include in its general features the present, by explaining the imperfect and scattered nature of the material from which I have had to cull the facts. Writers who have attempted to cover the entire field from the conquest to their own times are most unsatisfactory in their scanty outline, swelled now