Viceroy succeeded viceroy then in the history of Mexico, and tyranny and benevolence followed each other alternately in the governing of the people. Under the cruel Munoz, a member of the _Audiencia_, the son of Cortes was tortured, and gaols were filled and blood was freely shed on political and other charges. In 1571 another sinister event took place--the establishing of the Inquisition. A few years later the foundation of the Cathedral of Mexico was laid, the beautiful structure which to-day dominates the capital. A matter which was early forced upon the attention of the viceroys and city councils was the occurrence of flooding of the city and attendant epidemics and disaster; for the peculiar hydrographic conditions of the Valley of Mexico rendered it liable to floods, the first of which had occurred 1553. In 1580 plans were formulated for drainage by means of a canal which should give outlet through the surrounding hills. In 1603 this project was again brought forward and again abandoned; and in 1607 work was actually begun, with a force of nearly half a million Indians, upon the great cut of Nochistongo, which still exists and lies open to the view of the traveller upon the Mexican railway to-day. Towards the close of the sixteenth century the ports of New Spain, especially Vera Cruz, were visited by those enterprising and unscrupulous sea-rovers of Britain, Drake, Cavendish, Hawkins, and others, who took toll of coast towns and plate-ships throughout the regions which Spain claimed as her own, but which pretensions were not respected by others of the maritime nations of Europe. A memorable period was this in the history of the New World, as of the Old, for this flood-tide of staunch buccaneers from Britain and Holland did but swell onward and culminate in the defeat of the Invincible Armada off the Elizabethan coast, 1588. The student of the history of Spanish America at this period will not spare much sympathy for Spain and Spanish misrule. Under Philip II. a constant drain of treasure from Mexico and Peru for the needy Mother Country had given rise to serious abuses in the mines, and silver was extracted to fabulous values and sent to Spain under the system of forced labour. [Illustration: GUANAJUATO AS SEEN FROM THE HILLS: THE HISTORIC TREASURE-HOUSE OF MEXICO.]