188 



GELVES FORESTALLS THE MARKET. 



took the reins with a firm hand. He found many of the depart- 

 ments of government in a bad condition, and is said to have 

 reformed certain abuses which were gradually undermining the 

 political and social structure of the colony. In these duties the 

 two first years of his viceroyalty passed away quietly; but Gelves, 

 though an excellent magistrate so far as the internal police of the 

 country is concerned, was, nevertheless, a selfish and avaricious 

 person, and seems to have resolved that his fortune should prosper 

 by his government of New Spain. 



The incidents which we are about to relate are stated on the 

 authority of Father Gage, an English friar who visited Mexico in 

 1625 ; and whose pictures of the manners of the people correspond 

 so well with our personal knowledge of them, at present, that we 

 are scarcely at liberty to question his fidelity as a historian. 1 



In the year 1624, Mexico was, for a time, in a state of great 

 distraction, and well nigh revolted from the Spanish throne. The 

 passion for acquiring fortune, which had manifested itself some- 

 what in other viceroys, seems in Gelves unbounded. He resolved 

 to achieve his end by a bold stroke ; and, in 1623, having deter- 

 mined to monopolize the staff of life among the Indians and Creoles, 

 he despatched one of the wealthiest Mexicans, Don Pedro de 

 Mexia, to buy up corn in all the provinces at the rate of fourteen 

 reales, the sum fixed by law at which the corn was sold in 

 times of famine. The farmers, who, of course, knew nothing of 

 Mexia's plan readily disposed of their corn, with which the artful 

 purveyor filled his store houses all over the country. After the 

 remnant of the crop was brought to market and sold, men began 



1 " A new survey of the West Indies, or The English American, his Travels by 

 land and sea ; by Thomas Gage, London, 1677, see p. 176. " It is due to impar- 

 tial history and to the memory of the Marques de Gelves to state that a different 

 account of these occurrences is given by Ramon J. Alcaraz, a modern Mexican 

 writer in the Liceo Mexicano, vol. 2, p. 120. Alcaraz fortifies his views by some 

 documents, and by a justificatory commentary of the Marques himself. But he, 

 like Gage, does not state his authorities. The story as related by the English friar 

 is very characteristic of the age, and, si non e vero e ben trovato. Those who are 

 anxious to discover the innocence or guilt of the viceroy, with certainty, will have 

 a difficult task in exploring the Spanish manuscripts of the period. The British 

 traveller Gage, was on the spot in the year after the events occurred, and his subsequent 

 abandonment of the Catholic church would not be likely to lead him into the 

 espousal of the archbishop de la Serna's cause against the viceroy. 



Cavo in his work entitled — " Tres Siglos de Mexico, " — states that the account 

 he gives of this transaction is taken from five different narratives of it which were 

 published at the time of its occurrence — three in favor of the viceroy and two 

 sustaining the cause of the archbishop. In the last two, he alleges, that all the 

 imputations against the archbishop were disproved, and that all the charges 

 against the viceroy were sustained by solid argument. 



