EARLY ACTS OF THE FIRST VICEROY COINAGE. 141 



penalties, to sell arms to negroes or Indians, and the latter were, 

 moreover, denied the privilege of learning to work in those more 

 difficult or elegant branches of labor which might interfere with 

 the sale of Spanish imported productions. 



During the following year Mendoza received despatches from 

 the Emperor in which, after bestowing encomiums for the manifes- 

 tations of good government which the viceroy had already given, 

 he was directed to pay particular attention to the Indians ; and, 

 together. with these missives, came a summary of the laws which 

 the Council of the Indies had formed for the welfare of the natives. 

 These benevolent intentions, not only of the sovereign but of the 

 Spanish people also, were made known to the Indians and their 

 caciques, upon an occasion of festivity, by a clergyman who was 

 versed in their language, and, in a similar way, they were dissemi- 

 nated throughout the whole viceroyalty. This year was, moreover, 

 memorable in Mexican annals as that in which the first book, 

 entitled La Escala de San Juan Climaca., was published in Mexico, 

 in the establishment of Juan Pablos, having been printed at a press 

 brought to the country by the viceroy Mendoza. Nor was 1536 

 alone signalized by the first literary issue of the new kingdom ; for 

 the first money, as well as the first book came at this time from the 

 Mexican mint. According to Torquemada two hundred thousand 

 dollars were coined in copper ; but the emission of a circulating 

 medium, in this base metal, was so distasteful to the Mexicans, 

 that it became necessary for the viceroy to use stringent means in 

 order to compel its reception for the ordinary purposes of trade. 



Between the years 1536 and 1540 the history of the Mexican 

 viceroyalty was uneventful, save in the gradual progressive efforts 

 made not only by Mendoza, but by the Emperor himself, in en- 

 deavoring to model and consolidate the Spanish empire on our 

 continent. Schools were established ; hospitals were erected ; 

 the protection of the Indians, under the apostolic labors of Las 

 Casas was honestly fostered, and every effort appears to have 

 been zealously made to give a permanent and domestic character 

 to the population which found its way rapidly into New Spain. 

 In 1541 the copper coin, of which we have already spoken as being 

 distasteful to the Mexicans, suddenly disappeared altogether from 

 circulation, and it was discovered that the natives had either buried 

 or thrown it into the lake as utterly worthless. The viceroy en- 

 deavored to remedy the evil and dispel the popular prejudice by 

 coming cuartillas of silver ; but these, from their extreme smallness 

 and the constant risk of loss, were equally unacceptable to the 



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