hich they might
lose in a moment if the heir to the throne should prove an idiot, as
was most likely, and priests should again usurp the control of affairs,
and play their old game of plundering the rich while they excited the
populace.

Fortunately for the family of Terreros and the many successful mining
families of that period, Charles IV. was not quite so much of an idiot
as his grandfather or his great-grandfather had been, and though the
Inquisitors resumed their fires, yet it was with such comparative
moderation as not to interfere seriously with the progress of that
prosperity to which Carlos III. had given an impulse. The Countess of
Regla still sported the richest jewels to be found in New Spain, and
her sister's coronet was the envy of all the ladies of the court. But
the insurrection of Hidalgo came upon them in the midst of prosperity,
overwhelming alike the rich and the poor. The large Spanish capitals
began to be withdrawn from the country, the plantations were broken up,
and the mines, abandoned by their laborers, soon fell to ruin; and they
who had been baptized in the midst of the most ostentatious display of
wealth, found themselves pinched to sustain their ordinary expenses.

THE REAL DEL MONTE.

The Terreros family kept their title good to the Real del Monte by
retaining a few workmen about the premises; but it was substantially
abandoned for twenty-five years before the English Real del Monte
Company took possession. In the space of two years this company had
cleared out and rebuilt the adit by working gangs of hands night and
day. Another party, engaged upon the shafts, arrived at the adit level
at the same time with the workmen upon the drain. A third party,
engaged in making and repairing a carriage-road from the sea to the
mine, had completed their labors; while a fourth party, in charge of
machinery and steam-power apparatus enough to equip a Cornish mine of
the largest class, had arrived at the mine. In this fourfold, and much
of it useless labor, the company had exhibited untiring activity, while
they exhausted all their capital without realizing the return of a
single dollar. But they derived rich hopes from reading the story of
Peter Terreros, and they continued to hope on and hope ever, for a
period of twenty-five years longer, when they ceased to exist. The
story of this company is summed up in saying that they expended upon
this vast enterprise the sum of $20,000,000, and realized