Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/32

16 preferments being so much greater than those of the Creoles, they succeeded in securing for themselves all the higher offices. It is true that the Americans occupied most of the subaltern grades, but this only tended to bring them into more jealous competition with the Europeans by inspiring them to seek the more important. Although in the ecclesiastical preferments they were more favored than in political and military matters, during the last century of the colonial period they were gradually excluded from the high dignities of the church; and in 1808 all the bishoprics in New Spain, with one exception, and most of the rich benefices, were held by the European clergy. In the cloisters also of the regular orders there was the same want of fairness which even the alternative system failed to correct. Thus it was that as generation after generation passed away, not only in social communications but in public careers and professions, envy and jealousy became more marked, and finally developed into a deadly hatred between the two classes.

But after all, and toward the end, though not the most iniquitous, it was the commercial monopolies which caused the most wide-spread discontent. The entire control of trade by Spanish merchants, and the exorbitant prices charged by them for every commodity, the grinding restrictions upon such industries as interfered with the commerce of the mother country, and the limited amount of productions received by her, were more sweeping in effect, since all classes suffered, and the poor people the more severely. A bond of union to a greater or less extent was thus initiated between the Creoles, mestizos, and native Indians, all of whom at an early date exhibited inclinations to acquire independence. The Englishman, Thomas Gage, who was in Mexico in 1625, correctly estimated the prevailing sentiment, and in his observations about the disturbances during the administration of Gelves thus prophetically expresses himself: "The chief actors were found to be the Criolians or