SECRET UNION IN MEXICO AGAINST SPANIARDS. 281 



people began to reflect. The prestige of Spanish power, to which 

 we have alluded heretofore, was destroyed. A French king sat 

 upon the Spanish throne. The wand of the enchanter, with which 

 he had spell-bound America across the wide Atlantic, was broken 

 forever. The treasured memory of oppression, conquest, bad 

 government and misery, was suddenly refreshed, and it is not 

 surprising to find that when the popular rising finally took place, it 

 manifested its bitterness in an universal outcry against the Spaniards. 



After the occurrences at Bayonne, emissaries from king Joseph 

 Bonaparte spread themselves over the continent to prepare the 

 people for the ratification and permanence of the French govern- 

 ment. These political propagandists were charged, as we have 

 stated with orders from Ferdinand VII, and the Council of the 

 Indies, to transfer the allegiance of America to France. 1 It may 

 be imagined that this would have gratified the masses in America, 

 who perhaps, had heard that the French were the unquestionable 

 patrons of " liberty and equality. " But, the exact reverse was the 

 case among the Creoles, whilst the Spaniards in America, received 

 the emissaries with welcome, and. bowed down submissively to the 

 orders they brought. Blinded for centuries to all ideas of govern- 

 ment save those of regal character, the Mexicans had no notion of 

 rule or ruler except their traditionary Spanish king. They clung 

 to him, therefore, with confidence, for they felt the necessity of 

 some paramount authority, as political self control was, as yet, an 

 utter impossibility. 



A secret union among leading men was, therefore, formed in 

 1810, which contemplated a general rising throughout the pro- 

 vinces, but the plot was detected at the moment when it was ripe 

 for development. This conspiracy was based upon a desire to 

 overthrow the Spaniards. "They felt," says Mr. Ward, "that 

 the question was not now one between themselves as subjects, 

 but between themselves and their fellow subjects, the European 

 Spaniards, as to which should possess the right of representing the 

 absent king," as guardians and preservers of the rights of Ferdi- 

 nand. The Europeans claimed this privilege exclusively, with 

 customary insolence. "The Ayuntamiento of Mexico was told by 

 the Audiencia that it possessed no authority except over the leper os" 

 — or mob of the capital ; and it was a favorite maxim of the oidor 

 Battaller that " while a Manchego mule or a Castilian cobler re- 

 mained in the Peninsula, he had a right to govern. " 2 



1 Robinson's Hist. Mex. Rev. p. 10. 



2 Ward's Mexico, vol. 1, p. 127. Id. p. 157. 



