among its contributors. Two of the ablest were Pablo de La Llave, and Doctor Servando Teresa de Mier y Guerra. The first named was a clergyman, and a native of Córdoba, in the province of Vera Cruz; a man of solid instruction, who in Madrid devoted himself to botany. He figured later as a minister of state in Mexico. We shall meet Doctor Mier again in Mexico, both before and after her final separation from Spain.[1]
- ↑ Mier was a man of remarkable ability. His birthplace was Monterey, in Nuevo Leon, having descended from one of the families that settled there in 1599. His father had been governor and captain-general of Nuevo Leon. After completing his studies he professed as a Dominican friar in Mexico, and afterward was made a doctor of theology. In a short time he became noted for his eloquence and sound reasoning in the pulpit, and particularly on his preaching the sermon on the 8th of Nov. 1794, at the solemn obsequies of Hernan Cortés, which were attended by the viceroy, the courts, prelates, and the élite of Mexican society. Another great discourse that he delivered in the colegiata of Guadalupe on the 13th of Dec. of the same year was the beginning of the series of misfortunes which he experienced during his life. In that discourse he denied that there had been an actual apparition to the Indian Juan Diego, as had been reported and was believed by so many, of the so-called virgen de Guadalupe. Gomez, Diario, 422. The effect of the sermon was at first a great triumph for the orator, and for a few days he enjoyed the praises of his friends; but in the mean time the ecclesiastical censorship took the matter into consideration by order of Archbishop Haro, and the end of it was that Mier was arrested, and sentenced to be confined ten years in one of the most austere convents of his order in Spain. His sufferings were such, even before sentence, that nature gave away, and he offered to retract his statements, and even to prepare and publish a discourse against that sermon, but nothing availed him. Some days later was published 'Inter missarum solemnia,' an abusive edict that may justly be called a defamation of character. He was allowed no defence, no appeal, none of the tutelary forms of justice. The sermon originating this infamous treatment was in 1799 referred by the council of the Indies to the Academia de la Historia, when it was decided, in Feb. 1800, that the author had not actually denied the apparition of Guadalupe; and that his sermon contained nothing in any manner worthy of theological censure or note. It was added that the archbishop had exceeded his authority, and all that had been done in Mexico, as well as the sentence, was illegal and unjust. 'Un hombre de honradez y de mérito cayó maniatado en mano de sus verdugos.' Payno, Escritos Dr Mier, 5-7. This is a work containing the memoranda incomplete of Dr Mier's adventures from the time of his arrest in Mexico, and in Europe, and particularly of his sufferings in Spain.
Mier travelled in Europe; and in Rome, to escape the persecutions of his order, had himself secularized. At the breaking-out of the insurrection against the French he became the chaplain of a Spanish regiment and served some time till he was taken prisoner, but escaped when being carried to France. On his return to Cádiz he was promised a prebend. Meantime he wrote vehement letters on American affairs to El Español, published in London. Whether it was from fear of persecution, as he alleged, or that Iturrigaray allowed him a stipend to write in his defence in that city, he went there and published, under the name of Doctor Guerra, his second surname, his Historia de la Revolucion de Nueva España, anttguamente Anáhuac. Lon don, 1813, 2 vol. 8vo, i., liii. and 364 pp. 81.; ii. 305-778 pp., and app. of pp.
