234 



FUEN-CLARA VICEROY 



GALEON LOST. 



Don Pedro Cebrian y Agustin, Count de Fuen-Clara. 

 XL. Viceroy of New Spain. 

 1742 — 1746. 



The Count de Fuen-Clara assumed the viceroyal baton on the 

 3d of November, 1742. His term of four years was passed with- 

 out any events of remarkable importance for New Spain save the 

 capture, by Anson, of one of the East Indian galeons with a freight 

 of one million three hundred and thirteen thousand dollars in 

 coined silver, and four thousand four hundred and seventy marks 

 of the same precious metal, besides a quantity of the most valua- 

 ble products of Mexico. This period of the viceroyalty must ne- 

 cessarily be uninteresting and eventless. The wars of the old 

 world were confined to the continent and to the sea. Mexico, 

 locked up amid her mountains, was not easily assailed by enemies 

 who could spare no large armies from the contests at home for enter- 

 prises in so distant a country. Besides, it was easier to grasp the 

 harvest on the ocean that had been gathered on the land. England 

 contented herself, therefore, with harassing and pilfering the com- 

 merce of Castile, while Mexico devoted all her energies to the de- 

 velopment of her internal resources of mineral and agricultural 

 wealth. Emigrants poured into the country. The waste lands 

 were filling up. North, south, east and west, the country was oc- 

 cupied by industrious settlers and zealous curates, who were en- 

 gaged in the cultivation of the soil and the spiritual subjection of 

 the Indians. The spirit as well as the dangers of the conquest 

 were past, and Mexico, assumed, in the history of the age, the 

 position of a quiet, growing nation, equally distant from the roman- 

 tic or adventurous era of early settlement when danger and diffi- 

 culty surrounded the Spaniards, and from the lethean stagnation 

 into which she fell in future years under Spanish misrule. 



Don Juan Francisco Guemes y Horcasitas, 

 Count de Revilla-Gigedo — the first. 

 XLI. Viceroy of New Spain. 

 1746 — 1755. 



The Conde de Revilla-Gigedo, the first of that name who was 

 viceroy of Mexico, reached the capital on the 9th of July, 1746, 

 and on the 12th of the same month, his master, Philip V. died, 

 leaving Ferdinand VI. as his successor. Under the reign of this 



