Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/348

 342 In 1530 the misgovernment in Mexico called for a change; a new Audiencia was appointed, followed by the establishment of a viceroyalty. The viceroy, the person who was to be invested with all the authority of the king himself, and who was to govern the new vice-kingdom, was to be one whose high position placed him beyond suspicion, and whose fidelity to the crown was unquestionable. Such a man was found in Don Antonio de Mendoza, one of the royal chamberlains.

He arrived in Mexico in 1535, where he was received as one who represented in his person the king, who was to carry out the policy of Charles, believed to be favorably disposed towards his Indian subjects. For several years his reign was uneventful, except that the vice-kingdom steadily progressed, the mines continued to be worked, and the Indians still labored for the benefit of Spanish taskmasters.

[A. D. 1536.] Most celebrated in the annals of the viceroyalty should be this year, 1536, for in it was published the first book printed in Mexico, the first ever printed in the New World! It was issued from the press of Juan Pablos, and entitled La Escala de San Juan Climaca.

In the same year the first money was coined in Mexico, for the viceroy had orders from the king when he left Spain to establish a mint. Two hundred thousand dollars in copper were coined, but it proved so offensive to the Indians that they could only with difficulty be made to receive it, and in 1541 cast the entire coinage into the lake. These descendants of the nobility of Mexico had been accustomed to handling of gold and silver, and scorned to soil their hands by contact with baser metal.

In 1537 Guzman, the assassin of the King of Michoacan, was cast into prison; in 1540 Cortez sailed for Spain accompanied by his son; and in 1541 died Pedro de