COUNT RAOUSSF/r BOULBON. l^J 



was militarily organized. Garnier was his first lieutenant. 

 The population of Guaymas made them quite welcome, but 

 not so the authorities, who were not reassured at seeing so 

 many strangers well armed, and having two pieces of field 

 artillery with them. 



Governor-General Blanco, who resided at Hermosillo, 

 close to Guaymas, was not pleased with their arrival, 

 and tried all that he could to oppose their march into the 

 interior, but ultimately permission was accorded to them to go 

 to the mines ; but they w^ere scarcely gone when General 

 Blanco regretted his former decision, and sent an order to 

 Count Raousset to come back and confer with him. 



Things had reached the point wished for by Count 

 Raousset. Although he went away, exasperated by the 

 tardiness of attention given to his solicitations by the Mexican 

 General, the losses which these delays caused to the Company, 

 and the contrarieties of which his troop were the victims — ^in 

 his own mind he was glad of it — all these annoyances giving 

 him a show of reason for the aggression which he meditated, 

 and the spirit of his soldiers, cleverly managed by him and 

 the officers who were in his confidence, was so exalted already, 

 that Count Raousset in taking the offensive seemed to obey 

 the oreneral suffras^e. 



He refused to go to the conference proposed by General 

 Blanco, to whom he sent one of his officers, Garnier, who 

 came back with the following propositions made by the 

 General. 



The French could continue their route on the condition 

 of losing their nationality and becoming Mexican soldiers, 

 with Count Raousset as their captain, or reducing their number 

 to fifty, or lastly, waiting until their security cards had come 

 from Mexico. 



The last of these conditions was the only one acceptable, 

 but as they had already lost over two months in parleys and 

 w^ould probably have to lose as much more until the arrival 

 of the cards, there was unanimity in the camp to reject the 

 ultimatum of General Blanco. 



In the meanwhile, forty men of the French Colony, 

 Coscopera, founded a few months before, in the Upper 

 Sonora, by Marquis de Pindray, who died soon after, and 

 whose death brought about desertion amongst the colonists, 

 under the leadership of Mr. de la Chapelle, joined the 

 volunteers of Count Raousset. 



The latter, who thought that he had a sufficient force for 



