Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/94

78, conduced even more directly to the advancement of the intriguers' designs.

Thus led bv the craft and machinations which were brought to bear upon his adviser, Alfaro, he entered upon a system of opposition to the Yermo party and the stanchest loyalists. Their dissatisfaction at his official action was so marked that the intriguers had no difficulty in persuading the guileless archbishop that a plot was hatching among the gachupines to capture or assassinate him; whereupon he fortified the viceregal palace with artillery and increased the guard. He placed all that portion of the city under martial law. The patrol force was augmented, and detachments were stationed at all important points. Orders were issued that the patrols should arrest after eleven o'clock at night all persons on whom arms were found; and should more than six men in one party be met, they were all to be arrested. Military officials of unquestionable loyalty to the mother country were removed. Aguirre and other prominent Spaniards were threatened with banishment, and Lizana, abhorring the Yermo party, and hoodwinked by the racionales caballeros, who about that time were loud in their protestations of loyalty, identified himself with the creole faction, which so eagerly had advocated the convocation of a national congress. He could not see