At the beginning of the great nineteenth century, the long array of viceroys, governors, and priests nears its close. The imperial authority of the Spanish sovereign, unquestioned since Cortes won the country for it, reached its natural waning, urged on and influenced by world-happenings in European lands reacting upon these remote shores of New Spain. Not only was this the case in Mexico. The decrepitude of the Mother Country, the old age and infirmity which had been creeping upon Castile through the excesses of her rulers, who learnt nothing from time or circumstance, was laid bare to the people of America throughout the vast regions held by Spain. Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Argentina--for the voice of Bolivar was ringing through the Andes--all in the first and second decades of the progressive nineteenth century were bent upon one stern task, the throwing off of the yoke of Spain and the establishing of native administrations. The flower of the earth, the vast and rich tropics and sub-tropics of North and South America, from California, Texas, and the Rocky Mountains, Mexico, Central America, down through the great Andes of Peru and Chile to Cape Horn, was in the hands of Spain, and it slipped from the grasp of a foolish and moribund nation. But before entering upon these events let us take a final glance and draw a summary of the three long centuries--1521 to 1821--of this great array of Imperial Governors and their rule. Since that day of August 13, 1521, when Cortes unfurled the standard of Spain over the castle of Montezuma: to the consummation of Mexican independence, the entry of Iturbide into the city of Mexico on September 27, 1821: five Governors, two _Audiencias_, or Royal Commissions, and sixty-two Viceroys had guided the destiny of colonial Mexico. Many of the names of these authorities stand out in lustre as good and humane, tolerant and energetic for the advancement of the colony; merciful to the Indian population, and worthy of the approbation of the history of their time. Others were rapacious and cruel, using their power for their own ends, and showing that ruthless cruelty and indifference to bloodshed and suffering--holding the lives of natives as cheap as that of animals--which has been characteristic of Spaniards of all time. Counts, marquises, Churchmen--all have passed upon the scroll of those three hundred years; some left indelible marks for good, some for evil; whilst others, effete and useless, are buried in forgetfulness. The Spanish character, architecture, institutions, and class distinctions were now indelibly stamped upon the people of Mexico. The Aztec _regime_ had passed for ever; the Indian race was outclassed and subordinate; and the _mestizos_, the people of mixed native and Hispanic blood, were rapidly becoming the most numerous part of the civilised population of the country. Whatever of good had existed in the Aztec semi-civilisation--and there was much of use in their land