The subsequent history of these provinces, and the experience of our own government, have shown the wisdom of this advice in regard to a band of savages whose habits are peculiarly warlike and whose robber traits have made them equally dangerous to all classes of settlers in the lonely districts of the Rio Grande or of the Gila and Colorado of the west. His secretary, Bonilla,—who had fought bravely in the northern provinces, and was practically acquainted with warfare among these barbarians,—seconded the mature opinion of the viceroy. The plan was successful for the time, and the frontier enjoyed a degree of peace, whilst the military power was sustained throughout the line of Presidios, which it has not known since the revolution in Mexico attracted the attention of all towards the central parts of the nation and left the north comparatively exposed. Flores enforced his system rigidly, during his viceroyalty. He equipped the expeditions liberally; promoted the officers who distinguished themselves; rewarded the bravest soldiers; and despatched a choice regiment of dragoons to Durango, whose officers, formed, in that city, the nucleus of its future civilization.
Nor was this viceroy stinted in his efforts to improve the capital and protect the growing arts and sciences of the colony. He labored to establish a botanical garden, under the auspices of Don Martin Sesé; but the perfect realization of this beneficial and useful project was reserved for his successor the Count Revilla-Gigedo.
The mining interests, too, were prospering, and improvements on the ancient Spanish system were sought to be introduced, through the instrumentality of eleven German miners whose services had been engaged by the home government in Dresden, through its envoy Don Luis Orcis. These personages presented themselves