accordingly, detailed his services in exaggerated terms to the home government, and it is probably owing to the eulogium passed by him upon the conduct of Abascal, president of Guadalaxara, that this personage was made viceroy of Buenos Ayres, and afterwards honored with the government of Peru and created Marques de la Concordia.
A definitive treaty of peace was concluded between the principal European and American belligerants in 1802, and soon after, Marquina, who was offended by some slights received from the Spanish ministry, resigned an office for the performance of whose manifold duties and intricate labors he manifested no ability save that of a good disposition. He was probably better fitted to govern a village of fifty inhabitants than the vast and important empire of New Spain.
Don José Iturrigaray, Lieutenant General of the Spanish Army, LVI. Viceroy of New Spain. —1803–1808.
On the morning of the 4th of January, 1803, Don José Iturrigaray reached Guadalupe near Mexico, where he received the staff of office from his predecessor and was welcomed by the Audiencia, tribunals, and nobility of the capital.
The revolution in the British provinces of North America had been successful, and they had consolidated themselves into nationality under the title of United States. France followed in the footsteps of liberty, and, overthrowing the rotten throne of the Bourbons, was the first European state to give an impulse to freedom in the old world. The whole western part of that continent was more or less agitated by the throes of the moral and political volcano whose fiery eruption was soon to cover Europe with destruction. In the midst of this epoch of convulsive change, Spain alone exhibited the aspect of passive insignificance, for the king, queen, and Prince of Peace, still conducted the government of that great nation, and their corrupt rule has become a proverb of imbecility