142 STATE OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS Book I. 
succeeded, The Royalists, unwilling to submit, asked the 
assistance of the ephemeral Mexican Emperor Iturbide ; 
and when, in consequence of this application, a Mexican 
army entered Guatemala, the fugitive Republican Con- 
gress decreed the annexation of Central America to the 
United States. The shortness of Iturbide's career relieved 
the country from the necessity of choosing between the 
two annexations, either to the then existing empire of 
Mexico or to the North American Union. But that 
decree of annexation to the United States decided the 
character of the interference of foreign powers in the 
domestic affairs of Central America ; and all the subse- 
quent phases of political dissension and civil war in that 
unfortunate country, down to William Walker, who was 
called in by the remnants of the same party which, in 
1822, decreed the annexation to the United States, take 
their origin from that desperate position of parties in the 
first year of independence. From that date it was decided 
that thenceforth Central America should be a prey to 
foreign influences — that the royalists or aristocrats, called 
"serviles," had to look to England; the republicans or 
democrats, called " liberales," to the United States, for 
sympathy and support in their struggle. for pow T er, and the 
realization of their political system. From that time also 
throughout Central America, the former might be called 
the English, the latter the American party ; and as the 
latter were those who established, supported, defended, 
and, after its having been overturned, strove to restore the 
federal constitution and government, British influence in 
Central America, as a matter of course, directed itself 
against all federal tendencies. 
From causes which do not enter into the subject of 
this rapid glance over the history of Central American 
