Carillo had been accompanied to New Spain by a new viceroy, Don Roderigo Pacheco Osorio, Marques of Cerralvo, who arrived in the capital on the 3d of November, 1624, and assumed the government. He left the examination of the insurrection entirely in the hands of the Inquisitor and directed his attention to the public affairs of the colony. These he found peaceful, except that a Dutch squadron, under the command of the prince of Nassau attacked Acapulco, and the feeble city and garrison readily surrendered without resistance. The fleet held the city, however, only for a few days, and set sail for other enterprises. This assault upon an important port alarmed the viceroy, who, at once, sent orders to have the town immediately surrounded with a wall, and suitable forts and bastions erected which would guard it in all
subsequent attacks. These fortifications were hardly commenced when another Dutch fleet appeared before the town. But this time the visit was not of a hostile nature;—it was an exhausted fleet, demanding water and provisions, after recovering which it resumed its track for the East Indies. Whilst the Spaniards were thus succoring and sustaining their enemies the Dutch, a dreadful famine scourged Sinaloa and neighboring provinces, carrying off upwards of eight thousand Indians.
During the long reign of the present monarch, Philip IV., Spain was frequently at war with England, Holland, and France; and the Dutch, who inflicted dreadful ravages on the American coasts, secured immense spoil from the Spaniards. In 1628, Pedro Hein, a Hollander of great distinction, placed a squadron in the gulf on the coasts of Florida to intercept the fleet of New Spain. The resistance made by the Spaniards was feeble, and, their vessels being captured by the Dutch, the commerce of Mexico experienced a severe blow from which it was long in recovering.
In 1629, there were ecclesiastical troubles in the colony, growing out of an attempt by the higher order of the Spanish clergy to prevent the