Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/64

44 where order was most needed, and at the close of 1623 he found arrayed against him the archbishop and the friars, the audiencia and the cabildo of Mexico. The lower class of the people knew no will but that of the church, when that will was signified; the upper class, composed almost entirely of men with but a single interest, that of plundering the royal treasury, was manipulated by the two great corporations. Against such a combination any man protected only by an autocrat six thousand miles away must have been powerless, and it needed but the most trivial circumstance to bring about an outbreak. The occasion was not long wanting.

In September 1622, Manuel Soto, a person employed at the public granary of Mexico, denounced to the viceroy Melchor Perez de Varaez, alcalde mayor of Metepec, accusing him of forcing the Indians of his jurisdiction to purchase grain of him at an exorbitant price, and to sell to him their cattle and produce at merely nominal rates, as well as of other oppressive acts. The viceroy caused the charges to be investigated, and the proofs being irrefutable, ordered the less important to be made grounds of action in Mexico while the more grave he referred to the India council. Meanwhile Varaez had been under arrest in a private house, and Gelves now ordered that, under bonds, he should be given the freedom of the city. Varaez demurred to this, alleging that bonds should not be exacted from him for a cause so trivial, but the viceroy peremptorily ordered compliance, and referred