unpleasing task to depose the old tyrant; so plucking up courage the two commissioners, with the secretary Sanchez Lopez de Agurto, early next morning repaired to the convent and asked for Muñoz. The page hesitated to disturb his master's rest or devotions, but finally conducted the visitors to his room. Muñoz received them sitting, and barely returned their salutation. Without further preamble Villanueva drew forth the royal cédula and directed Agurto[1] to read it.
The effect on Muñoz was as if he had been struck. Without uttering a word his head fell heavily on his breast, and after a time he signified his acquiescence. The news that the tyrant had been deposed spread through the city, and the jubilant inhabitants appeared upon the streets just in time to see the so lately proud and haughty representative of royalty, now a poor and trembling old man, friendless and comparatively alone, wending his way out of the country, an object of scorn and execration. His weaker but scarcely less detested colleague Carrillo was with him; and it is said, though probably with exaggeration, that had it not been for the compassion of certain citizens they would have been obliged to perform the journey to Vera Cruz on foot. However this may have been, they received marked demonstrations of antipathy everywhere on their journey. Sharp corners of fortune were those which the king-servers and king-defiers used to turn then in the Indies. Going on board the vessel which was to carry them to Spain, these who had been
- ↑ It is presumed he was the same known also as Sancho Lopez de Recalde, who was secretary of the royal council in Spain in 1544, and afterward a notary public in the city of Mexico, where he died in 1575, leaving two sons, Sancho Lopez and Diego; the latter of whom became a canon of the cathedral; the former was a notary public before 1572, and in 1575 was made notary and secretary of the audiencia, holding the office till November 9, 1582, on which date he wrote a letter to the king in council. It seems he had often written the king on public affairs. During the disturbances of the so-called conspiracy of the marqués del Valle, he contributed with his estate and personal services, together with those of his relatives and subordinates, to the preservation of peace and guarding of the city. In October 1576 the secretary of the civil department was Juan de Cuevas. 'Till lately he had a colleague, Sancho Lopez de Recalde, who died recently.' Enriquez, Carta al Rey, in Cartas de Indias, 333.
