THE REPUBLIC OF GUATEMALA. 
287 
dent of the Republic or Confederacy, and for ten years 
his party held the government. It is not easy for a 
foreigner to get trustworthy information of the true 
value of Morazan’s administration ; but while the man 
seems to have been patriotic and of excellent private 
character, he was not strong enough to control the 
warring elements around him. The Church was his 
bitter enemy; and while it long endured the low estate 
to which the party in power had reduced it, there was 
no lack of grumbling, nor of even more active endea¬ 
vors to find a champion. 
In the mean time an Indio of low birth 1 and wholly 
uneducated, but of great courage, had come into promi¬ 
nence as a leader of bands of marauding Indios. Rafael 
Carrera, young as he was, saw his advantage in the 
disturbed condition of his country, and after various 
defeats at the hands of the President, at last drove 
Morazan from Guatemala, and the Confederation came 
to an end (1839). 
Carrera favored the Church party, but had not the 
slightest intention of letting the Church rule him. He 
knew how to use it, and the clergy generally submitted 
gracefully. In all previous revolutions the defeated party 
had been banished, and so the State was kept unanimous 
— a condition that could not obtain now, because neither 
party had much real power left after the constant strug¬ 
gles of the past few years. It was while our countryman 
John L. Stephens, whose fascinating account of his travels 
1 Carrera was a servant in the family of the Marquis de Aycinena ; after¬ 
wards a drummer-hoy in the regiment under his master’s command. A pamphlet 
was published to prove that this young half-breed was a natural son of Ayci¬ 
nena. From the countenance as represented on the coins there is indication of 
Negro and Indian, rather than Spanish, blood in his parentage. 
