116 MEXICO. 



of government, perchance professed by a party most 

 frequently perish with those who upheld them. You 

 have read the wise intentions published to the world by 

 this or that ephemeral president and his government, 

 with regard to general tolerance, and the introduction of 

 those principles of popular education and of internal pol- 

 icy, which can alone render the Mexicans capable of self- 

 government. You have heard of the excellence of the 

 police : the energy with which order was restored upon 

 the public roads : of summary justice being inflicted upon 

 those who transgressed the law. I should lay it down as 

 a rule, that you never need believe more than a quarter 

 of that which you might be led to infer from the inflated 

 style and mendacious language of whatever is published 

 here ; but yet there may have been some foundation for 

 what was asserted at such a date — at the same time that 

 I would assure you, that the greatest probability exists of 

 there not being a single word of truth in the statement, 

 when applied to the real position of affairs, six months 

 after. How was it when we were in Mexico? Santa 

 Anna, a man of but little genius or talent, but cleverer 

 than those about him in the low arts of intrigue, and into 

 whose well-laid traps more than one old associate had 

 fallen, was at the head of the reform government as pres- 

 ident. The preceding year, General Duran had at- 

 tempted to get up a revolution in favour of the so- 

 called 4£ privileged classes." This year Canalizza had 

 run off to the eastward in the manner I have described ; 

 and, under what patriotic cry I forget, had issued a^ro- 

 nunciamiento, proposing to set up a counter government, 

 according to the custom of the country. If I mistake 

 not, General Bravo was down in the southwest, with the 

 same intentions. The vice president, Gomez Ferias, was 

 at couteau tire with the president ; and the latter had, 

 under the veil of leave of absence from the capital, 

 for the restoration of his health, gone off in a very bad 

 humour, to pout at his estate near Jalapa ; where the gen- 

 eral belief was, that he was brewing some mischief of 

 his own, in favour of the army and the church, both of 

 which were decidedly under a cloud in the actual state 



