ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE HIM. 



207 



In 1656, the British forces having been successful against 

 Jamaica, the Mexicans were apprehensive that their arms would 

 next be turned against New Spain ; and accordingly Alburquerque 

 fitted out an armada to operate against the enemy among the 

 islands before they could reach the coast of his viceroyalty. This 

 well designed expedition failed, and most of the soldiers who en- 

 gaged in it, perished. The duke, unsuccessful in war, next turned 

 his attention to the gradual and peaceful extension, northward, of 

 the colonial emigration ; and, distributing a large portion of the 

 territory of New Mexico among a hundred families, he founded 

 the city of Alburquerque, and established in it several Franciscan 

 missions as the nucleus of future population. 



The year 1659 was signalized in Mexico by one of those horrid 

 dramas which occasionally took place in all countries into which 

 the monstrous institution of the Inquisition was unfortunately 

 naturalized, and fifty human victims were burned alive by order of 

 the Audiencia. For the credit of the country it must be remem- 

 bered that this was the first occurrence of the kind, but, either from 

 curiosity or from a superior sense of duty, the dreadful pageant 

 was not only witnessed by an immense crowd of eager spectators, 

 but was even presided over by the viceroy himself. In 1660 the 

 duke narrowly escaped death by the hands of an assassin. Whilst 

 on his knees at prayer in a chapel of the cathedral, the murderer, 

 — a youthful soldier seventeen years old, — stole behind him, and 

 was in the act of striking the fatal blow when he was arrested. In 

 less than twelve hours he had gone to account for the meditated 

 crime. 



Alburquerque appears to have been popular, useful and intelli- 

 gent, though, from his portrait which is preserved in the gallery of 

 the viceroys in Mexico, we would have imagined him to be a gross 

 sensualist, resembling more the usual pictorial representations of 

 Sancho Panza than one who was calculated to wield the destinies 

 of an empire. Nevertheless the expression of public sorrow was 

 unfeigned and loud among all classes when he departed for Spain 

 in the year 1660. 



