222 VALLADARES VICEROY FAIR AT ACAPULCO, 



were not conciliatory, and whose purposes were altogether selfish, 

 did not contribute to strengthen the ties between the Spaniards and 

 the natives. Indeed, the Indians continually complained of the 

 fishermen's ill usage, and were unwilling to enter either into trade 

 or friendship with so wild a class of unsettled visiters. The 

 colonial efforts, previously made, had failed in consequence of the 

 scarcity of supplies, nor could sufficient forces be spared to com- 

 pel the submission of the large and savage tribes that dwelt in 

 those remote regions. Accordingly, when the worthy Father Sal- 

 vatierra, moved by the descriptions of Father Kino, prayed the 

 Audiencia to intrust the reduction of the Californias to the care of 

 the Jesuits, who would undertake it without supplies from the 

 royal treasury, that body and the episcopal viceroy, consented to 

 the proposed spiritual conquest, and imposed on the holy father no 

 other conditions except that the effort should be made without cost 

 to Spain, and that the territory subdued should be taken possession 

 of in the name of Charles II. Besides this concession to the 

 Jesuits, the viceroy and Audiencia granted to Salvatierra and Kino 

 the right to levy troops and name commanders for their protection 

 in the wilderness. A few days after the conclusion of this contract 

 with the zealous missionaries, the government of Montanez was 

 terminated by the arrival of his successor, the Conde de Montezuma. 



Don Jose Sarmiento Valladares, 

 Count de Montezuma y Tula 

 XXXII. Viceroy of Mexico. 

 1696 — 1702. 



The Conde de Montezuma arrived in Mexico on the 18th of 

 December, 1696. Early in the ensuing January the annual galeon 

 from the Philipine islands reached the port of Acapulco, and this 

 year the advent of the vessel, laden with oriental products seems to 

 have been the motive for the assemblage of people not only from 

 all parts of Mexico, but even from Peru, at a fair, at which nearly 

 two millions of dollars were spent by inhabitants of the latter vice- 

 royalty in merchandise from China. Hardly had the festivities of 

 this universal concourse ended when a violent earthquake shook 

 the soil of New Spain, and extended from the west coast to the 

 interior beyond the capital, in which the inhabitants were suffering 

 from scarcity, and beginning already to exhibit symptoms of dis- 

 content, as they had done five years before, against the supreme 



