THE EMPEROR ITURBIDE. 119 
himself, about the close of 1820, at the head of 
a large division of the royal army sent against 
the patriot Guerrero, suddenly turned over 
his whole force to the support of the republi- 
can cause, and finally succeeded in destroying 
the last vestige of Spanish authority in Mexi- 
co. How he wasafterwards crowned empe- 
ror, and subsequently dethroned, outlawed by 
a public decree and eventually executed, i is all 
matter of history. But it is not generally 
known, I believe, that this unfortunate soldier 
has since received the honors of the Father of 
the Republic, a dignity to which he was pro- 
bably as much entitled as any one else—ab- 
surd though the adoption of such a hero as 
the ‘champion of liberty,’ may appear to ‘re- 
publicans of the Jefferson school.’ ande 
Séte @hilarité takes place annually, in honor 
of his political canonization, which ‘comes 
off’ at the date already mentioned. To this 
great ball, however, no Americans were invited, 
with the exception of a Mexicanized denizen 
or two, whose invitation tickets informed the 
honored party that the price of admission to 
this famous feast,—a ball given by the gover- 
nor and other magnates of the land, in honor 
of the hero of independence,—was twenty- 
five dollars. | 
Balls or reunions of this kind, however, 
seem not as frequent in Chihuahua as in New 
Mexico: and to those we hear of; claiming the 
title of ‘fashionable,’ Americans are very rarely 
invited. _ There is, im fact, but little social in- 
nurse between foreigners and the natives, 
