Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/509

Rh allowed him no leisure except for a ride occasionally in the afternoon. An able financier and ruler, he had generally managed to procure resources to meet the enormous expenses of the war, and to organize armies to oppose the insurgents wherever they appeared in force.

His resolution to enter the struggle with so many odds against him was certainly that of a man possessed of undaunted courage; and when he made preparations to resist Hidalgo and his host of 80,000 men, with a handful of soldiers in whom he could not then have much confidence, the most he might expect was an honorable death. Even certain weaknesses in his relations with the other sex, attributed to him, he made use of for the benefit of his cause—the insurgents of Mexico were always of the opinion that to female gossip he owed the discovery of the August conspiracy. The war allowed Venegas but little opportunity to attend to the duties of the viceregal office proper, but he did not neglect them entirely. It may be truthfully asserted that if peace had reigned during his incumbency he would have been one of the best viceroys New Spain ever had. On his return to the mother country he was given the title of Marqués de la Reunion de Nueva España, and was also treated with the utmost consideration in other respects.