infant, and the ceremony of its baptism was performed with all the splendor of the Catholic church, in the presence of the court and of a portion of the army. The defunct viceroy had become popular with the masses, and the people strove to manifest their love for the dead by their affectionate courtesy to his orphan, daughter and desolate widow.
The Audiencia Real assumed the government of Mexico, inasmuch as the Spanish ministry had provided no successor in the event of the count's death. Its power continued until the following February, during which period no event of note occurred in New Spain, save the destruction by fire of valuable mining property at Bolaños, and a violent hurricane at Acapulco, accompanied
by earthquakes, which swept the sea over the coast, and caused great losses to the farmers and herdsmen who dwelt on the neighboring lowlands.
Nuñez de Haro, Archbishop of Mexico, L. Viceroy, ad Interim, of New Spain. 1787.
The appointment of this eminent prelate to the viceroyalty ad interim by a royal order of 25th February, 1787, was perhaps one of those strokes of policy by which the Spanish ministry strove to reconcile and connect the ecclesiastical and civil unity of the American empire. The sway of the archbishop, complimentary as it was to himself and to the church, was exceedingly brief, for he entered upon the government on the 8th of May and was superceded by Flores on the 17th of August of the same year. New Spain was undisturbed during his government; and no event is worthy of historical record in these brief annals of the country, save the effort that was made to prohibit the repartimiento or subdivision of the Indians among the agriculturists and miners by the sub-delegados, who had succeeded the alcaldes mayores, in the performance of this odious task. The