Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/557

APPENDIX. 517 province, .'ind every Provincial Deputation, absolute in its own district, and without any obligation to contribute, by order of the Viceroy, to- wards the common support of the army. It was impossible in this way to attempt any farther resistance, or to prevent the provinces from fal- ling into the hands of the Insurgents in detail. The discussion began to grow warm, and it was insinuated that the Vice- roy was nothing more than a mere Captain-General of a province, not en- titled, as such, to dispose, in any way, of the revenues of the State, which belonged exclusively to the Real Hacienda (Royal Treasury) ; and this error, originating in our new laws, and fomented by the factious, to whom nothing could have been more advantageous than such a division of power, was about to precipitate us into an abyss of misfortunes. I had foreseen these evils, and the point to which the Provincial Juntas would carry their pretensions ; but the scandalous occurrences which took place in Yucatan, where the Provincial Deputation, after disembarrassing it- self of the authority of the Captain-General, decreed, and actually car- ried into eifect, a project of free trade, by throwing open the ports to Foreigners, without taking into account its dependence, in financial matters, upon this Viceroyalty, — ^confirmed my suspicions, and made me accelerate the declaration of the paramount authority of the Viceroy throughout the kingdom, and of the submission due to him by all the Deputations, supported by the opinion of a number of ministers, and lawyei-s, as will appear by the inclosed copy of the decree. (Refusal of the Junta of Monterey, capital of New Leon, to acknow- ledge Don Joaquin Arredondo, as Military Commandant, and Gefe Politico, of the Internal Provinces, or to furnish him with necessary supplies.) Such is the vacillating and depressed state to which I have seen my- self reduced here : — without power, without authority, without repre- sentation, or dignity, — deprived of that assistance which the Audiencia has always afforded by its Dictam.enes, and Acuerdos, to my predecessors ; — subjected, in some measure, to the legal opinions of a Fiscal, and Auditor, and consequently unable to consult any one but them on the most critical occasions ; — without a sufficient number of troops to extin- guish the rebellion at once ; — without money, or reliance upon the public corporations ; — struggling, at the same time, with the armed bands of rebels, and the machinations of secret traitors ; trying to restrain the insolent disobedience of the one, and the hardened fanaticism of the others ; in the midst of a confusion of ideas with regard to the govern- ment, with which the good and the bad were equally infected ;— resisting the fury of that political mania, the contagion of which seemed to have spread to all classes, drawing alike the merchant, the artizan, the clergy- man, and the husbandman, out of their proper spheres, and making them politicians, or rather political dreamers, (febricitantes ;) — trying, in every way, to conciliate the reciprocal hatred of the Europeans and