Kane.] 570 [jan. 19, 



pride, by taking the old fortress of San Juan d'Ulloa. How France went 

 on after this, giving the Mexicans no peace, is the history so familiar tons 

 of the famous Intervention. 



The Mexicans liad France, Spain and Entrland together upon their backs 

 by 18G1. Ba/aine did not evacuate 3Iexico till 1867. 



Certain political wounds are too green for me to say what I think of the 

 course adopted by the United States after tliis. 



I am unfortunate enough to entertain the conviction that in morals we 

 are responsilile for a great deal of the wrung which lias been done. Break- 

 ing off abruptly, I should beg you to pardon my apparently meaningless 

 digression. I am not confident that I have made out my case, but I felt 

 bound to put in a plea for my Mexican friends who appear to you inex- 

 cusably engaged in the business of national suicide. 



So very few of our good men have ever met them, the Mexican good men 

 and gentlemen, wljen the Erinnides were not pursuing them! I stand almost 

 alone in declaring that I know them as uniformly courteous, and generous, 

 and brave — worthy to be the sons of mothers wlio, rich and poor, gentle 

 and simple, afford the world some of its fairest examples of devoted ten- 

 derness and saintly piety. — Admit that they seem to be given over to the 

 Furies. If they deserve our censure, they are entitled to our pitj'. 



This said, I will return to what I think indisputably true. The history 

 of Mexico for the last half century is that of the resolution of a population 

 more and more into its constituent elements. The different races have 

 asserted themselves, or have been used by tlie various politicians to enforce 

 their pretensions. Some of these fellows have been strongl}^ backed, per- 

 haps by the remnant of a former ancient confederacy or union of several 

 tribes having similar ethnological characteristics ; others have appealed only 

 to the interests of single tribes or half tribes, as insignificant as the following of 

 the ten-vole repeater who traffics for office on our State House Row. The 

 same phenomenon, the thought occurs to one, is seen in every country, 

 but it looks uglier where it is associated with the direct employment ot 

 pliysical force. Running up from Acupulco, in 1857, I saw "the 

 Southern Tiger " Alvarez. A straight- limbed old Indian — not a trace of 

 Si)auish was discernible in him or any of the squaws decked in French 

 dresses who constituted his dusky harem. King of Guerrero his flatterers 

 called him. Before the Conquest lie would probably have been King of 

 Michoacan. He might then liave fought a Moctezuma. In our times he 

 fought and overcame a Santa Anna. 



Alvarez would have been at either epoch neither more nor less than 

 Head Chief of Tarascos. 



I will take a second example from the other extremity of the Republic. 

 Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico is another renowned nursery and cradle 

 of Revolutions. It is a unit in politics. If a Mejia has it, he is as sure of 

 his following as a Bayard in a southern county of Delaware. Only, its 

 warriors do not turn out to vote. They follow him with horses and arms, 

 and expect him to supply them with ammunition. Tamaulipas is popu- 



