Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/104

84 A crime that caused much consternation was the murder, in the night of the 25th of June, 1792, of the captain-general, Lúcas de Galvez. The deed was wrongly attributed to an officer named Toribio del Mazo, a nephew of the bishop, who, with others, was conveyed to Mexico, and immured in dungeons of San Juan de Ulúa, where they were confined for eight years, undergoing trial without any convicting evidence being found against them. At last the instigator of the crime made confession, and both he and the actual murderer were captured, and the innocent victims released.

To Governor Benito Perez Valdelomar, who took charge of the government in 1800, Yucatan owed much improvement, particularly in public instruction and facilities for trade. During his government there came to Yucatan, in 1810, an emissary of Joseph Bonaparte, then king of Spain — a young Dane named Gustav Nordingh De Witt, who was made much of by the governor and society; but when his business was discovered, he was arrested, tried, and executed.

Yucatan, like the rest of New Spain, experienced the effects of the new institutions resulting from the short-lived constitution of 1812, and the restored one of 1820. The governor, Miguel de Castro y Araos, was deprived of his office, and Mariano Carrillo was made captain-general by the diputacion provincial; but though highly recommended to the court, Carrillo was not appointed, and Juan María de Echéverri came out as gefe superior político and captain-general.