Untrofcuction. vii 



irresponsible local chieftain, who had been able to overpower all oppo- 

 sition. I tried to obtain his support for the development of the country, 

 and he seemed to give it to me cheerfully, and I worked earnestly for 

 the purpose of establishing the supremacy of the Federal government 

 and the Federal laws which amply guarantee personal and property 

 rights, and I succeeded in having Federal troops and Federal judges 

 sent there for that purpose. His antagonists, however, availed them- 

 selves of the opportunity of his losing power to drive him out of the 

 place, and he, with the natural suspicion of ignorant men, thought I 

 was the cause of his overthrow, and that I had been working for it, and 

 decided to get rid of me at any cost. Besides, the then President of 

 Guatemala, General J. Rufino Barrios, who suspected my going to Soco- 

 nusco with some scheme hostile to his country and himself, 1 assisted 

 the Soconusco leader against me, and both plotted against my life, but 

 I was saved in an almost miraculous manner. My coffee plantation 

 had before, and while I was making it, been partially destroyed by 



1 The following extract from my paper on the " Settlement of the Mexico-Guate- 

 mala Boundary Question," just quoted, states the nature of my relations with General 

 Barrios, the President of Guatemala, while I was in Soconusco : 



"Public men in Guatemala are generally very suspicious, and especially were 

 they so when Mexico was concerned, and when they saw me living as a farmer in a 

 very humble frontier town adjoining their country, they imagined that I must have 

 some hostile designs against Guatemala, and that my farming was only a pretence to 

 cover my hidden designs. General J. Rufino Barrios became President very soon af- 

 ter I settled in Soconusco, and he, as well as most of the persons around him, thought 

 that I had gone there either with the purpose of attempting to make myself dictator 

 or ruler of Guatemala, or to work for the annexation of that country to Mexico, which 

 liad been for some time the great bugbear of Guatemalan statesmen. Judging by what 

 they had sometimes seen in their own country, they imagined that a man who had been 

 Secretary of the Treasury of Mexico for five years was, or ought to be, a millionaire, 

 and consequently they thought it an absurd idea that he should try to earn his living 

 by honest labor. 



" Although I had been warned of this danger, I did not at the time fully realize 

 its gravity, because I did not know how suspicious of Mexico and how hostile to her 

 the people of Guatemala were, and I tried to allay their fears by going myself to the 

 City of Guatemala to make the acquaintance of its public men and to inform them of 

 my reasons for having settled in Soconusco, and of my purposes for the future ; but, 

 judging me by the standard of their own views and principles, as it is natural for peo- 

 ple to do, this act of mine probably only served to confirm them in their suspicions. 



" General Barrios himself, whom I met in the City of Guatemala, before be- 

 coming President, treated me with the greatest duplicity. At the same time that 

 he pretended to be a friend of mine, and in some ways acted as such, probably in 

 order the better to deceive me by inspiring me with confidence in his sincerity, 

 as when he sent me his power of attorney, authorizing me to draw upon his funds 

 in bank and attend to his private affairs, especially to a farm he had in Soconusco, 

 he actually believed me to be his rival, and therefore his worst enemy, and he did all 

 he could against my person and property, but always in an underhand manner, so as 

 not to appear personally responsible." 



