the twelfth of every month, he made pious pilgrimages to the sanctuary of the Mexican protectress. He placed a large image of the virgin on the balcony of the palace, and ordered a salute to be fired at daybreak in honor of the saint on the twelfth of every December. With these cheap ceremonials, however, he satisfied his hypocritical piety and absorbing avarice, but he never bestowed a farthing upon the collegiate church of the Virgin. Whenever he spoke in his court of the sovereign of Spain it was with an humble mien, a reverential voice, and all the external manifestations of subserviency for the royal personages who conferred such unmerited honors upon him. Such is the picture which has been left by Mexican annalists of one of their worst rulers.
Don Miguel José de Azanza, LIV. Viceroy of New Spain. —1798–1800.
Azanza, who, as we have related, assumed the viceroyalty in May, 1798, was exceedingly well received in Mexico. His worthy character was already known to the people, and almost any new viceroy would have been hailed as a deliverer from the odious administration of Branciforte. Azanza was urbane towards all classes, and his discreet conversation, at once, secured the respect and confidence of the colonists. Besides this, the early measures of his administration were exceedingly wise. He dissolved the various military encampments, established and maintained at enormous cost, by his predecessor in the neighborhood of the eastern coasts. This heavy charge on the treasury was distasteful to the people, while so large an assemblage of colonial troops necessarily withdrew multitudes from agricultural and commercial pursuits, and greatly interfered with the business of New Spain. Anxious, however, to protect the important post of Vera Cruz, the viceroy formed a less numerous encampment in its neighborhood; but the greater portion of its officers and men perished in that unhealthy climate.