Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/56

36 order a viceroy had his hands full; Gelves accomplished more in a week than others in a month. But this very excess of zeal wrought his own undoing. The land was indeed in want of cultivation; was it for him who put his hand to the plough to foresee that thorns, not kindly fruits, would be the harvest? In his eagerness the marquis did not reflect that the great extent of newly settled New Spain was totally unlike his compact little government of Aragon, and, though he had crossed it, he was unmindful of the broad ocean rolling between a colonial viceroy and the master whose strengthening hand might at any time be needed. Most of all he forgot, as will be seen, that sweeping reforms, such as that attempted by the strong man in the temple, not infrequently involve in common ruin reformer and reformed.

New Spain awoke to consciousness of the fact that she had a ruler of ability and courage sufficient to redress wrongs and punish evil-doers. Gelves visited the prisons, and at times sat in judgment in the courts. He caused delayed business to be despatched promptly, ordering that in matters of justice no distinction should be made between the rich and the poor, and insisted that no magistrate should sit in any case wherein he was interested. He was accessible always to those who had complaints to make, and his servants were bidden never to deny him to the weak and friendless. Criminals who, though under sentence, were at large, he caused to be arrested and punished, while such as were unjustly detained in prison were released. He ferreted malefactors who through official negligence or wilful ignorance had gone unsuspected. In some instances it came out that certain official personages were sharers in the fruits of robbery. These, also, were punished, but in causing this to be done Gelves gained the enmity of others high in station who were their patrons. He forbade the exercise of gubernatorial