z, in the year 1796, in the most
prosperous era of the colonial government of the vice-kingdom of New
Spain, while Ravillagigedo was Virey. The new and liberal code,
regulating mines and mining, was yielding its legitimate fruits in the
immensely increased production of silver and gold, while the
newly-granted privilege of unrestricted trade with Spain and her other
colonies was followed by considerable shipments of grain from the
table-lands of Mexico to the West India Islands. The profound peace
that had reigned uninterruptedly for two hundred and seventy-five years
was still unbroken. Not a word of disloyalty was breathed; while the
Inquisition of Mexico watched with the utmost care for the least
appearance of rebellion against God or the king. Such was the religious
and political stagnation at the time Santa Anna was born; and so it
continued for the first twelve years of his life. But his youth was not
to be passed in a period of national repose.

THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION.

It was the year 1808 that the news arrived in Mexico of the
imprisonment of Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII., the dotard and
simpleton who then disputed the Spanish throne, and who had rendered
themselves the laughing stock of all Europe by going, each one in
person, to advocate his side of a family quarrel before a common enemy,
the French Emperor, by whom both had thus been caught like mice in a
cage, and compelled to abdicate. At this news a feeling of indignation
ran through the vice-kingdom, while all Europe laughed at the strange
combination of knave and fool exhibited in the characters of the two
Spanish kings. The people of New Spain saw in them only the guardians
of the Church in the power of the infidels, and at once forgot the
unnatural crimes of their two kings. They thought only of their piety,
and with joy the news was carried throughout New Spain, that one of
their previous kings had consecrated his imprisonment to embroidering a
petticoat for the Virgin Mary; and when this announcement was followed
by another, a little more apocryphal, that the most holy image had, by
a nod, signified her acceptance of the present, there could no longer
be a doubt of his title of Most Catholic King, which might from that
time onward be interpreted Most Catholic Mantua-maker. The world might
now laugh at him, and hold him up to ridicule. All its ridicule
mattered nothing to the Mexicans. It made no difference to them. To
revere the king and render