272 MARQUINA VICEROY REVOLT IN JALISCO. 



Don Felix Berenguer de Marquina, 

 LV. Viceroy of New Spain. 

 1800—1802. 



Marquina took charge of the viceroyalty on the 30th of April, 

 1800, after a sudden and mysterious arrival in New Spain, having 

 passed through the enemy's squadron and been taken prisoner. It 

 was inconceivable to the Mexicans why the vice-admiral of Ja- 

 maica deemed it proper to release a Spanish officer who came to 

 America on a warlike mission; yet it is now known that in Novem- 

 ber, of 1800, the king ordered forty thousand dollars to be paid the 

 viceroy to reimburse the extraordinary expenses of his voyage ! 



The government of this personage was not remarkable in the 

 development of the colony. The war with England still con- 

 tinued, but it was of a mild character, and vessels constantly 

 passed between the belligerants with flags of truce, through whose 

 intervention the Mexicans were permitted to purchase in Jamaica, 

 the paper, quicksilver, and European stuffs, which the British 

 crusiers had captured from Spanish ships in the Gulf. 



In 1801, an Indian named Mariano, of Tepic in Jalisco, son of 

 the governor of the village of Tlascala in that department, at 

 tempted to excite a revolution among the people of his class, b] 

 means of an anonymous circular which proclaimed him king 

 Measures were immediately taken to suppress this outbreak, anc 

 numbers of the natives were apprehended and carried to Guadala 

 jara. The fears of Marquina were greatly excited by this paltrj 

 rebellion, which he imagined, or feigned to believe, a wide spreaa 

 conspiracy excited by the North Americans and designed t( 

 overthrow the Spanish power. The viceroy, accordingly, detailed 

 his services in exaggerated terms to the home government, and it 

 is probably owing to the eulogium passed by him upon the conduct 

 of Abascal, president of Guadalaxara, that this personage was made 

 viceroy of Buenos Ayres, and afterwards honored with the govern 

 ment of Peru and created Marques de la Concordia. 



A definitive treaty of peace was concluded between the principal 

 European and American belligerants in 1802, and soon after, Mar- 

 quina, who was offended by some slights received from the Spanish 

 ministry, resigned an office for the performance of whose manifold 

 duties and intricate labors he manifested no ability save that of a 

 good disposition. He was probably better fitted to govern a vil- 

 lage of fifty inhabitants than the vast and important empire of 

 New Spain. 



