other public places of the king's portraits, coats of arms, etc. Nor did the conspirators even attempt to restore order among their followers. When this state of things became known in Mexico, the viceroy clothed the visitador José de Galvez wnth full powers to crush the rebellion, and punish the leaders. Galvez appointed commissioners to investigate, under his direction, the cases of treason, reserving for his own more particular scrutiny those in Valladolid, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí. There was fighting in several places, Indians taking a prominent part, and, as might be expected, the disorganized rebels were soon defeated, the punishment of the leaders being both swift and severe.[1]
The Spanish and American Jesuits, to the number of about six thousand, residing in the pontifical capital and legations, were punctually paid their pensions. Some years later, in 1784, a royal order declared that they had a right to inherit and possess real and personal property, but this was subject to restrictions.[2]
- ↑ Galvez, Informe del Visitador, MS., 11-48, 54-81; Galvez, Informe Gen., 138-9; Doc. Hist. Mex., série iv. ii. 62-4; Iturribarria, in Soc. Mex. Geog. Boletin, vii. 289-90; Alaman, Disert., iii. app. 66; Dicc. Univ. Hist. Geog., X. 313. Upward of ninety persons perished on the scaffold, after undergoing the most cruel torture, and their limbs, exposed to view in high roads and public places, remained without burial for a long time. Many others were sentenced to cruel cudgelings, or to hard labor in chain-gangs, and not a few to imprisonment for life. Mora, Rev. Méj., iii. 265-70; El Indicador de la fed. Mex., iii. 151-4. The visitador not only hanged some of the rioters of Guanajuato, but laid a yearly tribute of $8,000 on the city, which proceeding told against the Spanish government in 1810. Alegre, Hist. Comp. Jesus (footnote), iii. 244. That odious tribute was paid by the tribunal de minería every year till September 12, 1810, when Intendente Riaño, to propitiate the goodwill of the people and avert the revolution, repealed it. Romero, Mich., 161.
- ↑ To prevent the removal from the Spanish dominions of the proceeds of such estates, they were to be administered by the nearest relatives of the heirs, without the privilege of selling, and with the obligation of investing moneys and other effects so as to obtain incomes therefrom. Ex-coadjutors, if unmarried, were to receive one half the income during their lifetime; if married, two thirds; the other half or third, as the case might be, was for the administrator of the estate. The same rule applied to novices. The children of ex-coadjutors or ex-novices were allowed to reside in the Spanish dominions, by first obtaining, should there be no objection to their personal behavior, a special passport from the crown. Ordained priests were allowed one half the income; at their death the estates were to go to their legal heirs ab intestato. Whenever an ex-Jesuit acquired by inheritance an income exceeding $200 a year, his pension from the crown was to cease. Reales Órdenes, v. 412-17.
