to command the city. The expense incurred was large and disapproved by the crown, but the order came out when it could not annoy Galvez. If, as charged, the viceroy was plotting independence, his rule was too short for his ambition.
Others scouted the imputation of treason, and said that he who, like his father, and his uncles the marqués de Sonora, and Miguel de Galvez, ambassador at Berlin, had been so exceptionally favored by their sovereign, would never lend himself to treasonable schemes; and further, if gratitude would not deter him, fear of the consequences would. And again, if, as the count's accusers say, his ambiguous behavior gave rise to suspicion, how is it that neither the sovereign, nor his ministers, nor the audiencia or other authorities in New Spain, gave information of it?[1]
I am inclined to doubt the truth of any charge of treason, and for the following reasons. On the 22d of May 1786, the audiencia sent a petition to the king that the count might be retained at the head of the government in New Spain, recounting his merits and services to the crown. Speaking for the people of Mexico the oidores praise his benevolence; the wisdom of his measures in government; in the subjugation of hostile Indians; in the arrangement and division of the provincias internas; and generally, in everything he had done, all which they declare as conducive to the public welfare and happiness. To that petition the king answered on the 18th of August promising to retain Galvez as viceroy in Mexico,[2] so long as he might not be more urgently needed for other duties. The idea of treason seems not to have occurred to any one at the time, and what follows
- ↑ It is stated that he received severe rebukes from the crown that so preyed upon his mind, as to break down his health; that he became melancholy, and seriously ill, which much alarmed the people, and prayers were daily uttered in almost every household for their idolized ruler and friend. Bustamante, Suplem., in Cavo, Tres Siglos, iii. 65.
- ↑ ’Para satisfaccion y consuelo de sus Vasallos de N. E.' Beleña, Recop., i. pref. 3-4.
