opinion that his intention was ultimately to govern without dependence on the crown. The party opposed to him, therefore, determined to hasten their plans. There was organized against him what the viceroy would probably call a conspiracy.[1] Those composing it were mostly European Spaniards, and were supported by the commercial class. Believing that the convocation of a national congress, determined upon by the viceroy, would bring to a conclusion Spanish rule in Mexico, they resolved to stifle all tendency to what they might call disloyalty to Spain, by the seizure of the viceroy and his principal supporters. Gabriel de Yermo, a native of Vizcaya, and warmly attached to the party of the oidores, was selected as their leader. Nor was the choice ill made. Courageous, energetic, possessed of ability and caution, Yermo was in every respect the man to take the lead. Moreover, he had at his command wealth, and the affection of liberated slaves and other dependents on his large estates. [2] Though he considered that the condition of affairs required a desperate remedy, he did not immediately accept the invitation of the conspirators to put himself at their head. Having, however, consulted with his confessor, he at last expressed his willingness to act as their leader, and as no time was to be lost, he acted promptly. [3] At a close meeting it was determined that the
- ↑ Negrete, Mex. Siglo XIX., i. 108.
- ↑ Gabriel Joaquin de Yermo was born in the neighborhood of Bilbao on the 10th of September, 1757. He married his cousin María Josefa Yermo in Mexico, who had inherited from her father valuable sugar-cane haciendas in the valley of Cuernavaca. On the birth of his son José María in 1790, he liberated his negro and mulatto slaves to the number of more than 400, and again in 1797, when he purchased the estate of Jalmolonga, he enfranchised 200 more who belonged to it. The freedmen ever afterward exhibited underrating fidelity and affection for him and the cause of the king of Spain. His success as an agriculturist was well known in New Spain. Speaking in defence of his action in this conspiracy, he thus alludes to this occupation: 'He sido y soy puramente un agricultor industrioso, cuya riqueza tal cual es, dimana exclusivamente de los frutos de mis haciendas, mejoradas en mi poder extraordinariamente, como sabe toda la Nueva España.' Pap. Var., xxxvi., no. Ixviii., ii. 54-9; Cancelada, in Id., ccxv., no. iii., xliv.-l.; Alaman, Hist. Mej., i. 238. He died in Mexico on the 7th of September, 1813, being nearly 56 years of age. Id., i. 503.
- ↑ Iturrigaray's defenders assert that Yermo's decision was influenced by resentment against the viceroy for interfering with his interests as a contractor for meat for the city, and because the viceroy was active in prompting the sequestration of the estates of the benevolent institutions to which his own property was mortgaged in the sum of 400,000 pesos. Yermo, moreover, had taken an active part in a suit brought by the producers of aguardiente to protect themselves against a heavy and irregularly imposed tax upon that liquor. By the extreme and free opinions which he expressed on the subject, he incurred the anger of the viceroy, who ordered his imprisonment, from which he was only saved by the influence of one of his countrymen, who was a friend of Iturrigaray. Alaman defends Yermo against the charge that personal motives influenced him in the action he took against the viceroy. Id., i. 239-43. Negrete takes a different view. Mex. Siglo XIX., i. 118-19; Rev. N. Esp. Verdadero Origen, no. ii. 53-6.
