MEXICAN MANUFACTURES GENERALLY.

115

since the war. The well known Mexican serape, or poncho, -an oblong garment, pierced in the centre to allow the passage of the head, and which falls in graceful folds from the shoulders of a horseman over his person is one of the most generally demanded fabrics from native looms. These blankets are often of beautiful texture, composed of the richest materials and colors, and, according to the fineness of their wool and weaving, vary in cost from twenty-five to five hundred dollars. The serape is an indispensable article, both for use and luxury, for the lepero as well as the caballero, and being as much needed by men as the reboso, or long cotton shawl, is by the women, it may readily be conceived how great is the consumption of these two articles of domestic manufacture alone. There are between five and six thousand hand looms throughout the several states, and these are continually engaged in the fabrication of rebosos and serapes, the latter of which are most exquisitely dyed and woven in tasteful patterns in the neighborhood of Saltillo.

Whilst these pages are passing through the press information has been received from the Mexican gazettes that in 1846 there were sixty-two cotton factories for spinning and weaving, and five for manufacturing woollens; - that the first mentioned have been greatly improved by the introduction of the best kinds of machinery, and that two new factorics for woollens have been set in operation in the state of Mexico, which produce cloths and cassimeres that are eagerly purchased by the best classes. The cost of these fabrics is not mentioned, but it is probably fifty per cent. higher than if manufactured in the United States.

CHAPTER X.

THE ARMY AND NAVY OF MEXICO.

THE MILITARY IN MEXICO BEFORE AND AFTER THE REVOLUTION CONFIRMATION OF ARMY- ITS POLITICAL USE. CHARACTER OF

MEXICAN SOLDIERS

RECRUITING TACTICS OFFICERS.

DRAMATIC CHARACTER OF ARMY-RECRIMINATIONS.— CONDITION OF THE ARMY AT THE PEACE. ARMY ON THE NORTHERN FRONTIERMILITARY COLONIES. -CHARACTER OF THE TRIBES.-FORTRESSES PEROTE ACAPULCO SAN JUAN DE ULUA. REORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY-TABULAR VIEW OF MEN AND MATERIEL. NAVYEXTENT OF COAST ON BOTH SEAS.-NAVAL ESTABLISHMENT-VESSELS AND OFFICERS.- EXPENSES OF WAR AND NAVY.

WE have already alluded, in the historical portion of this work to some of the fostering sources of the Mexican army and to the evil results its importance has produced in the country. The colonial forces designed for the maintenance of order and due subjection in New Spain, were chiefly sent from the old world until the wars in Europe required the mother country to hoard its military resources. These foreign stipendiaries for a long time sufficed to secure the loyalty of the emigrants; but as the country grew in importance and numbers, and as the Indians revolted against their task-masters, it became necessary from time to time to call out reinforcements from the colonists; and when foreign invasion was dreaded, these levies, as we have seen, were largely augmented from all parts of the viceroyalty.

The idea of military service was, accordingly, not altogether unfamiliar to the Mexican mind when the first insurrectionary movements occurred under the lead of Hidalgo; but when the violent outbreak threatened to degenerate into a war of castes, and to array the Indians against all in whose veins circulated Castilian blood, it became the duty of the settlers to cultivate that spirit and discipline which would, at least, preserve them from utter destruction. The succeeding war of independence converted the whole country for eleven years into a camp, and when the strife terminated in success, it was found that a people, whose natural temperament addicted them to military spectacles, had become habituated and enured to a military career.

When the war was over and the power of Spain effectually broken, the contest was transferred from a foreign enemy to domes

CONFIRMATION OF ARMY

ITS POLITICAL USE.

117 tic foes. Men who had been accustomed for so long a period to military rule did not immediately acquire the habit of self-government. National police required a national army. Officers who had distinguished themselves in an epoch when laws were silent and the only authorities recognized wore the insignia of military life, did not forsake willingly the power they enjoyed. Indeed, they were the only authentic personages capable of enforcing obedience; and their adherents were soon armed against each other in all the contentions for political position which vexed the republic during the dawn of its national existence. Civil wars became habitual. An army was an element of strength and success which no military chieftain thought proper to crush. Rallying his disciplined partizans, as long as his friends or his fortune supplied their support, he was ready at a moment to take the field either for the maintenance of a leader's cause or to secure his own elevation. Nor was this mode of life disagreeable to the body of the army and inferior officers who were lodged and fed at the public expense during a period when it was difficult to find easy or agreeable civil employments in the distracted realm. Each petty subaltern and even every common soldier, clad in the livery of the state and carrying arms, was regarded by the unshod leperos and homeless vagrants as a personage of superior position; and thus, whilst the army became at that epoch popular with the people it had liberated from Spanish bondage, it ripened into a necessity of the aspiring politicians who craved a speedier access to power than by the slow and toilsome process of a republican canvass. The state, itself, perceiving these manifold causes of military favor, utility, and supposed need, preserved the army from all assaults by patriotic congressmen, and thus the greatest curse and burthen of the nation,—the origin and means of all its woes and all its despots, was, from the first, riveted to the body politic of Mexico.

It must not be supposed, however, that in speaking of the Mexican army we design to compare it, either in detail or as an organized body, with the troops of this country or of Europe. Neither in the mass of its materiel, nor in its officers, does it vie with the trained and disciplined forces of other civilized countries. Soldiers in Mexico are rather actors in a political drama, — dressed and decorated for imposing display, - than efficient warriors whose instruction and power make them irresistible in the field. In all the engagements, or attempts to engage, which occurred in Mexico since the termination of the war of independence, there has been a laudable desire, at least among the troops, to avoid the shedding of

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CHARACTER OF MEXICAN SOLDIERS.

blood. Cities have been besieged and bombarded; magnificent arrays of forces have been made on adjacent fields; large camps have been formed and held in readiness; cannons, loaded with cannister and grape, have been discharged along the crowded highways of towns; marksmen have been placed in towers, steeples, and azoteas, to pick off unwary passengers; divisions have been reviewed and manoeuvred in sight of each other, but, in all these revolts or pronunciamientos, no pitched battles were fought which actually terminated the contest by the gun and sword. The aspirant chief, or the hero he designed to displace, managed to secure the majority of the neighboring military forces, and as soon as the fact was unequivocally ascertained, the one who was in the minority fled from the scene without provoking a trial by battle. In 1840, 1841, and 1844, during the administrations of Bustamante and Santa Anna, there were various exhibitions of these sham contests; but, in all of them, we have reason to believe that the innocent non-combatant people were the greatest sufferers, and that the army escaped comparatively unscathed.

These observations are not designed to impugn the military nerve or spirit of the Mexicans, for the war with the United States and the war of their revolution, demonstrated that they unite both in quite an eminent degree. Our officers believe that the Mexican possesses the elements of a good soldier, but that he is neither trained, disciplined, nor led, so as to make him a dangerous foe. This is demonstrated by the result of the recent war and of every action fought during it. A brave show and a bold assault were not stubbornly followed up with pertinacious resolution, in spite of all resistance. The Mexicans were fighting on their own soil, for their own country, against a hated foe, yet they failed in every conflict, and with every conceivable disparity of numbers.

The great body of the army is of course composed either of Indians or mixed breeds, and the idea of nationality in its high love of a loveable country, does not in all probability, animate or inspire these classes in the hour of danger. They did not fight with a common or an understood purpose. They were rather forced mercenaries than patriots. It was not a war of enthusiasm. Every effort was made by grandiloquent proclamations and false allegations to rally and nerve them; but whenever they crossed arms with our forces, if they failed in the onset, like lions foiled in their spring, they retreated to their lair. Nevertheless, throughout the contest, there were repeated instances of courage, constancy, endurance, and persistence which satisfied our officers that under a differ

ent system of education and command, the Mexicans would make excellent soldiers. Their horsemen, probably the best riders on the continent, paid more attention to the management of their animals than to the use of their horse's force in the charge; while their infantry and artillery avoided those close quarters which make the bayonet so powerful a weapon when directed by intrepid, unquailing arms in the presence and under the lead of unflinching compnay officers. Their lancers did more damage to dismounted victims than to erect and fighting foes.

With the majority of the rank and file, the army is, in all likelihood, not a profession of choice. Enlistment is now scarcely ever voluntary. When men are required for a new regiment or to fill companies thinned by death or desertion, a sergeant is despatched with his guard to recruit among the Indians and peons of the neighborhood. The subaltern probably finds these individuals laboring in the fields, and without even the formality of a request, selects the best men from the group and orders them into the ranks. If they resist or attempt to escape, they are immediately lazo'd, and, at nightfall the gang is marched, bound in pairs, to the nearest barrack, where the wretched victims of military oppression are pursued by a mournful procession of wives and children who henceforth follow their husbands or parents during the whole period of service. From the hands of the recruiting sergeant the conscript passes into those of the drill sergeant. The chief duty of this personage is to teach him to march, countermarch, and to handle an unserviceable weapon. From the drill sergeant he succeeds to the company officer, and here, perhaps, he encounters the worst foe of his ultimate efficiency.

Officers in Mexico have no thorough military and scientific education. There is a military school at Chapultepec, near the capital, but it has never been carefully and completely organized, nor has it furnished many men who have distinguished themselves in the field. The politicians, relying on the dramatic power of the army, made that army the means of reward and influence in civil life, by selecting its officers of all grades from every employment or occupation. Merchants, tradespeople, professional men, children of wealthy or ambitious families, all attained rank in the army by this unwise means, and the consequence has been that the majority of company, and perhaps even of field officers, was rather fitted to display the magnificent uniforms to which their grades entitle them than to discipline the rank and file when organized in battalions, regiments and divisions.