Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/89

Rh 1809, and some arrests were made, but instead of tending toward suppressing sedition, its creation was turned to advantage by the independents, and supplied additional means of fomenting discontent. The innovation made by transferring the prerogatives of the sala del crímen to an extraordinary court arbitrarily established, and employing a great number of spies, was seized upon as an illustration of despotism, on the part of the government. A rumor was spread that the prisons were crowded with innocent victims; households were filled with fear of arrests, and the public were taught to believe that the mere suspicion of free opinions being entertained by a man was sufficient to cause his being sent prisoner to Spain. Outward demonstrations were, it is true, for the time suppressed; but none the less did the cause of independence gain ground under the more cautious and secret operations of its promoters.

Illustrative not alone of the anomalous position in which New Spain stood with regard to the mother country during this period, but also of the unsettled and somewhat incongruous ideas as to government and succession, was a claim in 1808 of an Indian to the throne of Mexico. This personage alleged that he was a descendant of the emperor Montezuma, and maintained that in view of the downfall of the Spanish monarchy he had a right to the crown of the Aztec royal line. Had the native population been as well prepared for revolt as they were two years later, such a claim might have caused much alarm, and probably bloodshed. As it was, ridicule was the