Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/83

Rh direction of Tlatelulco, with a view to meet the large force of Indians who were said to be gathering there intending to march to the main square.

All this time the rabble at the palace were having their own way, with little or no attempt at interference on the part of the oidores remaining at the city hall. Gelves even charges them with promoting the trouble, and intimates that Gaviria kept away on purpose, so that he might be driven to extremes for the benefit of Gaviria's party. Part of the palace was already in the hands of the sackers, and the viceroy and his adherents were beaten further and further back, with loss both in dead and wounded. Finding that it would not be possible to hold out much longer, and warned by the insensate outcry against him, Gelves resolved to seek safety in flight. He donned the garments of a servant, took off his well known spectacles, and favored by the darkness he mingled with the mob, shouting awhile as lustily as any of them against himself. With two servants he thereupon hurried to San Francisco convent, and hid in a room behind the refectory.

His departure gave the signal for a general abandonment of the palace, which the rioters now overran, plundering and destroying, and respecting not even the sacred vessels and images in the chapel. They also sacked the houses of Armenteros and the viceregal asesor, and would have extended their raid against other adherents of the opposite party, perhaps against any one whom it might pay to plunder; but Gaviria now returned at the head of an overwhelming force of citizens. Whatever may have been his motives they could no longer be promoted by countenancing the riot, which now threatened to endanger the common interest. It was not long, therefore, ere he had cleared the palace and its