increase of the regular priesthood from among the natives of the country. They feared that in the course of time the dominion of the establishment would thus be wrested from their hands by the power of the Mexicans. The king, himself was appealed to on this subject and caused it to be examined into carefully. In 1631, in consequence of the repeated danger of the capital from floods, the project of removing the site from its present location, to the loftier levels between Tacuba and Tacubaya, was seriously argued before the people. But the interest of property holders, and inhabitants of the city would have been so seriously affected by this act, that the idea was abandoned.
The remaining years of this viceroyalty were consumed in matters of mere local detail and domestic government, and in fact we know but little of it, save that the severe inundations of 1629 caused the authorities to use their utmost efforts in prosecuting the work of the desague, as we have already seen in the general account given of that gigantic enterprise. In 1635 this viceroy's reign terminated.
Don Lope Diaz de Armendariz, Marques de Cadereita, XVI. Viceroy of New Spain. 1635–1640.
The five years of this personage's government were unmarked by any events of consequence in the colony; except that in the last of them,—1640,—he despatched an expedition to the north, where he founded in New Leon, the town of Cadereita, which the emigrants named in honor of their viceroy.
Don Diego Lopez Pacheco Cabrera y Bobadilla, Duke of Escalona, Marques of Vilbua and Grandee of Spain of the first class. XVII. Viceroy of New Spain. 1640–1642.
The Duke of Escalona succeeded the Marques of Cadereita, and arrived in Mexico on the 28th of June, 1640, together with the venerable