leaves like ours, and not on rolls. Horses were unknown, but posts were established throughout the empire, with relays of runners who with marvellous speed transmitted the orders of the Emperor. So fleet were these runners, and so admirably organised the system, that the fish which one day were swimming in the waters of the Pacific or Atlantic, were next day served up at the royal table in the capital. The beauty of their goldsmiths' work was praised as unrivalled by Cortez, even when sending the very articles to his Emperor, who would judge of them for himself. The cotton plant was cultivated, and its snowy pods were woven, and formed the clothing of the people. The vine was unknown, but they found a substitute in the sweet juices of the agave; while its pulp was converted into paper, and its fibres into rope. They had explored the mineral treasures of the mountains, and possessed gold, silver, copper, tin, and even iron. In astronomical science. also, they were well advanced; and to the astonishment of the Spaniards, they possessed a calendar more perfect than that of Greece and Rome, or even than that which prevailed in Europe under Francis I. and Charles V. This spectacle of grandeur and prosperity which met the eyes of Cortez and the other chroniclers of the Conquest disappeared like a dream. The numerous and civilised population dwindled and sank into barbarism. The very face of the country became changed. It was not a Government studious to preserve civilisation and order that made the Conquest, but a band of bigoted and rapacious adventurers. The administrative system of the Aztec Emperors fell into decay; the reign of order was succeeded by chaos and rapacity; cultivation was neglected, the people enslaved, the collections of science scattered, and the libraries of literature destroyed. "To the mines!" was the cry of the Spaniards. Their only thought, as Christians, was to obliterate and destroy the pagan past; their only passion, as conquerors, was to possess themselves of the precious ores. The great nobles were killed or despoiled,--the priesthood, the depositaries of the national learning and traditions, were persecuted and massacred; and the books were gathered together, and destroyed in the flames. The Indians were hurried off to work in gangs in the mines. The great cities were depopulated, and crumbled into ruins. The forests were felled or burnt, partly because they afforded shelter to the natives, partly in imitation of the treeless plains of Castile; and the soil, denuded of its natural covering, became arid and barren, and no longer attracted or retained as before the fertilising showers. The population is now probably not onethird of what it was in the time of Montezuma. And by partially draining the lakes of the valley, the Spaniards have only uncovered an expanse of salt-impregnated soil a disfigurement to the eye, and utterly useless for cultivation. But this did not complete the tale of ruin which has befallen Mexico. In course of time evil days came for the whites themselves, and they began to suffer disasters at their own hands, as if in divine vengeance for those which they had so ruthlessly inflicted on the natives. The Government of the mothercountry became oppressive to the Spanish population of Mexico, and when they threw it off they only fell into worse evils. Revolution after revolution, each accompanied by a civil war, took place; and the country became a prey to military factions. Private adventurers set themselves in arms against the Goverument of the hour, and if their insurrection proved successful, their first care was to enrich themselves and their followers at the expense of the rest of the community. Peaceful industry went to the wall; wealthy citizens found themselves singled out for extortion; and commercial enterprise gradually became extinct. The profession of arms-if such a title can be applied to what was simply brigandage—was the at only one which prospered, and was permitted to exist. He considered eagerly followed by the whole scum it probable, also, that the better of the population. Robbery and classes in Mexico would avail themmurder became even more common selves of the presence of the Allied than revolts. The whole country expedition to establish a Governwas a prey to licentious marauders, ment in accordance with their own and its whole strength was exhaust wishes, and the requirements of ed in internal commotions. One- civilisation. He did not avow his half of its territory was given up convictions on these points, to the encroaching ambition of the least, not to England; but he trustUnited States. Texas, with its ed that, once fairly engaged in the prairies of exuberant fertility, and enterprise, his allies would see the California, with its immense mines necessity of proceeding further than of gold, were wrung from Mexico was originally agreed on. In truth by force of arms; and the vast ter- the convention was a blunder if ritory now known as New Mexico its terms were not to be exceeded. was ceded to the overbearing Cabinet What cared a ruler like Juarez for a of Washington for a trifling sum of seizure of a seaport or two? And money. Mexico was fast disappear- how ignoble would be the attitude ing from the map. The still-exist of the three great Powers if their ing half of the country seemed forces were simply to act as taxready to be absorbed as soon as the gatherers at Vera Cruz and Matapeople of the United States felt moros, while a full-blood Indian the desire for further annexations. like Juarez refused all redress, and Mexico was perishing by her own openly set them at defiance! But sins, when, fortunately for her, some when the question of a direct inof her own sins gave rise to an inter- tervention came to an issue, Spain, vention on the part of other Powers seeing that France would take the who had no selfish ambition to grati- lead, withdrew in pique, and Engfy at her expense, and which was land patched up a useless treaty converted by the Emperor Napoleon with Juarez, and recalled her squadinto a means of rescuing her from ron. But the Emperor adhered to impending destruction. his purpose. As usual, he had formed his plans and counted the cost beforehand, and he would not recede. He could not have reckoned that England would willingly engage in an intervention such as he designed, and so opposed to her principles of policy; but doubtless he did not expect to be left so summarily and entirely to his own resources. But the die was cast.. The French troops could not be allowed to remain at Vera Cruz, exposed to the deadly malaria of the coast-region. They must either advance into the interior, or be withdrawn at once. The advance was ordered; the troops ascended to the edge of the table-land, where When the Mexicans murdered and despoiled one andther, they were not likely to be more tender towards foreign settlers. Several British and other foreign merchants and traders were murdered or despoiled of their goods; the debts due to foreign creditors were repudiated, and the claims of foreign Governments were contumeliously ignored. In these circumstances apparently at the suggestion of the Emperor Napoleon - England, France, and Spain agreed to act in concert with a view to obtain redress for their wrongs. That the Emperor Napoleon meditated from the outset an intervention in the internal affairs of Mexico is obvious the climate was temperate and from the tenor of his instructions healthy; but there the march was to Admiral Gravière. He foresaw stayed. The force was found quite that it was hopeless to expect re- inadequate to undertake a further dress from the Mexican Govern- advance; for some months the troops ment as long as that Government had a difficulty in maintaining or rather that rule of anarchy-was their intrenched position at Orizaba ; F and even after reinforcements arrived, and the advance was resumed, the fortunes of the expedition trembled in the scales before the walls of Puebla. The defence made by the Mexican garrison was unexpect edly obstinate; it seemed as if the spirit of the defenders of Saragossa still existed among their countrymen in the New World. But with the fall of Puebla resistance ceased. The French advanced, unopposed, to the capital. Conciliatory proclamations were addressed to the people, and soon every element of organised, resistance to the invaders melted away and disappeared. It was a sagacious act on the part of Napoleon to associate with him, in the outset of the enterprise, the only two Powers in Europe who might have regarded his policy in Mexico with distrust. He was equally careful to leave no ground for international jealousy in the selection which he made of a ruler for the regenerated empire. His great uncle, in the heyday of his success, surrounded France with affiliated kingdoms, placing members of his own family upon the thrones which his conquests had rendered vacant. Napoleon III. does not seem disposed to imitate his example. His cousin Prince Napoleon, although notoriously "a Prince in search of a crown,' was not chosen to fill the throne of Mexico; and Prince Murat was left to dream of possibilities which might one day place him on the throne of Southern Italy. The Emperor made a good choice in selecting the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Mexico could furnish no man suitable for the throne. The country had been in such a state of chaos and revolution for forty years, that the only prominent personages were unscrupulous adventurers, dishonoured by their previous career, and in whom no confidence could be placed. If any Mexican had been raised to the throne, his name would have had no power, he would have commanded no respect. Pronunciamen'os and insurrections would a have gone on as before. A foreigner was needed for the throne. "Let us wipe out the past; let us have a clear stage; let us start afresh." Such ought to be, and such in great part is, the sentiment of all the better classes in Mexico. But the chief of the new empire must not be a parvenu. All nations prefer to have for ruler a man born in the purple, a prince of royal lineage,a man accustomed to royalty, and removed from the jealousies which attend a commoner who is suddenly raised to be a king. Such a prince is the Archduke Maximilian, member of one of the oldest royal families in Europe, and the lives of whose ancestors form part of the public history of Europe. Moreover he was not inexperienced in the practical duties of government, and he had discharged those duties creditably and with ability. We trust that in the wider and higher sphere of duty to which he is now called, the Archduke will justify the best expectations which have been formed of him. culties will attend the outset of his career, although they are not such as should daunt any monarch of ordinary resolution and intelligence. He is a foreigner, he enters Mexico escorted by a foreign army; and foreign troops will for several years remain to support his throne. But he does not come as a conqueror. He does not seek to destroy the past, but to restore it. He succeeds to a blank in the annals of Mexico, and he will seek to make his reign a continuation of the prosperity which preceded that blank, and to raise the country to a higher position in the world than it ever enjoyed before. A brilliant future is before him, if he prove equal to the occasion. It is in his power to leave behind him a distinguished name in history, - to found a great empire, - and to restore to the civilised world one of its portions which had relapsed into misery and barbarism. Many diffi While thus carrying out his "Mexican idea" with admirable circumspection, the Emperor of the fornia, especially, with their rich mines, will tempt the cupidity of the Americans in California; and these provinces lie so remote from the capital, and the means of communication with them are so extremely defective, that the Mexican Government will have much difficulty in defending them in the event of their being attacked. In order to secure her north-western provinces, adjoining the Pacific, from attack, Mexico must have a fleet, or else obtain the assistance of a naval squadron from France. If the civil war in the United States terminates, as it seems likely to do, in a permanent disruption of the Union, the Mexican Government may find support in one or other of the rival sections into which its colossal neighbour will break up. But this is a very doubtful support to rely upon; and if the Mexicans are wise, they will act as men who know they are cnjoying a breathing time, and that ere long they must confide in their own energies to defend their territories and maintain their independence. French took care that the import- great risk of failure. The protance and true character of his de- vinces of Sonora and Lower Calisign should be generally known. No man knows better than he the power which a policy derives from the support of public opinion. He wished to get the moral sense of Europe on his side, and to prove to France that the "idea" was one which was worthy of a great nation which aspires to be the leader of civilisation. He intrusted the task of exposition to one of his Senators whose character for impartiality is as well known as his high intellectual powers, and who enjoys a celebrity greater than any which can be conferred by the favour of Courts. Michel Chevalier is the ablest political economist on the Continent, he is a man of facts, and of sound and careful reasoning; so that he was eminently fitted to be an expositor of the imperial policy upon whose judgment and integrity the public could rely. He has produced a work upon Mexico which goes far beyond the scope of the present intervention, and which gives a clear and solid exposition of the condition and history of the country from the earliest times of which we have any knowledge down to the present day. Although warmly approving the motive which led to the Napoleonic intervention in Mexico, he nowhere shows the slightest trace of the spirit of a partisan. He views everything clearly and dispassionately, and takes full account of the difficulties which beset this attempt to establish a stable Mexican empire. The greatest danger which besets the new empire, manifestly arises from the ill-will with which the Americans of the United States will regard an undertaking which has for its object to rob them of their prey. Either the new Mexican empire must be established on solid foundations before the termination of the civil war in the United States, or the project will run a As regards the immediate difficulties which surround the new Government, M. Chevalier evidently considers that the most serious is that which may arise from the conduct of the Pope-from the policy of the very Church which the Emperor takes under his special protection. In order to regenerate Mexico, says M. Chevalier, it is indispensable that the Government should secularise and take into its own management the immense property of the Church; by which means the finances of the State would be placed on a prosperous footing, without really impairing the resources of the clerical body. But the Pope has hitherto shown himself strongly op: osed to any such project; and M. Chevalier states that the influence of the clergy is so great among the Mexicans, "Mexico, Ancient and Modern.' By M. Michel Chevalier, Senator, and Member of the Institute of France. that no Government can secure less be drawn into the country. an adequate amount of popularity which sets itself in opposition to the Head of the Church. Is, then, the Pope to make the required concession, or is the new Emperor to find himself surrounded by disaffection, arising from the great influence of the clergy over the minds of the people? Before embarking for his new empire, the Archduke visited Rome to obtain the benediction of the Pope, and also doubtless to endeavour to procure a favourable settlement of this important question. We have not heard that the Archduke succeeded in the latter and more important part of his mission. He got a blessing on his voyage, but, probably, a non possumus as regards all else. Ere this, the new Emperor will have landed at Vera Cruz, amid salvoes of artillery, and will have commenced his royal progress to the capital. On the way, he will have abundant evidence of the fallen condition of the country; and when the magnificent valley of Anahuac opens upon him, he will see how ample are the triumphs which await him if he succeeds in his mission. Doubtless his first act will be to assemble a council of the notables, the leading men in the country, to ascertain from them the wants of the nation, and to obtain their co-operation in the measures requisite to reorganise the state and regenerate the people. Order must first be established, and the administrative system put upon an efficient footing. The work of regeneration will necessarily be a slow one, and years must elapse before much progress can be made in awaking the energies and developing the resources of the country. Mexico is almost roadless, and the cost and difficulty of transport at present are serious obstacles to the development of the export trade. A railway from Vera Cruz to the capital will probably be the first great public work undertaken by the new Government; and in the execution of this work, foreign capital and enterprise will doubt The mines of the precious metals will likewise engage the eager attention of the Government, as the most promising of all the immediate resources of the State. Two-thirds of all the silver circulating in the world has been produced from the mines of Mexico. Nevertheless, the mineral wealth of the country can hardly be said to have yet been explored; and probably Humboldt was right in his conjecture, that if the mines of Mexico be adequately worked, Europe will again be inundated with silver as in the sixteenth century. In any case we may expect that, ere long, the produce of the Mexican mines will to a great extent redress the balance of the precious metals, and prevent any derangement in the relative value of gold and silver by adding largely to the supplies of the latter metal. Let us hope also that, as soon as the finances of the State permit, the Emperor will seek to restore his capital - -the noblest city which the Spaniards ever built in the New World-to its former splendour, and make it worthy of its magnificent site, which is hardly rivalled, and certainly not surpassed, by any in the world. Let him do in some degree for Mexico what Napoleon has accomplished for Paris. Let him employ the crowds of beggars, which disfigure the streets in works of embellishment and public utility-thereby arousing them to a life of honest industry, and at the same time making his renovated capital a beautiful and stately symbol of the happy change which in like manner, we trust, will be accomplished in the country at large. If the new Emperor has difficulties to encounter, he has also many advantages. Although a stranger, a majority of the people will receive him as a monarch of their own choice, and the remainder will readily acquiesce in the new regime. He has no native rivals: there is no old sovereignty to be overborne -no old traditions of government to be encountered and supplanted. |