230 DECLINING PRODUCE CHAP. XXV. 



A viceroy appointed by the Cortes arrived in 

 Mexico just as the authority of those who com- 

 missioned him had been disowned in that country. 

 A general who had led the Spanish armies, Itur- 

 bide, placed himself and the troops he com- 

 manded at the head of a revolution. The vice- 

 roy could not resist, and he either joined or 

 affected to join with them, but was removed by 

 death before his designs could be developed. 



The power fell into the sole hands of Iturbide, 

 who attempted to retain it under that kind of 

 representative government which, whenever the 

 experiment has been attempted, has utterly failed 

 of success. He was nominated president, and 

 afterwards emperor ; he abdicated, banished him- 

 self, returned again to try his influence, and on 

 landing was paid the penalty of his folly by the 

 hands of military executioners. 



In the seven years that have passed since that 

 event, a variety of projects of constitutions have 

 been tried, a variety of rebellions have been raised, 

 and in spite of loans originating in the knavery 

 acting upon the folly of Europeans, bankruptcy 

 has ensued, and scarcely a symptom of order, and 

 none of prosperity, has yet appeared. 



This slight historical sketch of the events in 

 Mexico for the last twenty years seemed ne- 

 cessary, in order to explain the causes of the 

 defalcation in the produce of the mines of that 



