valley; and although the next part of the road is reckoned very insecure, we had no longer any apprehension, as, besides having an escort, the fact that some of the robbers had been taken a few hours before, made it very unlikely that they would renew their attempts that day.
This pestilence of robbers, which infests the republic, has never been eradicated. They are in fact the growth of civil war. Sometimes, in the guise of insurgents, taking an active part in the independence, they have independently laid waste the country, and robbed all whom they met. As expellers of the Spaniards, these armed bands infested the roads between Vera Cruz and the capital, ruined all commerce, and without any particular inquiry into political opinions, robbed and murdered in all directions. In 1824, a law was proposed in congress, which should subject all armed bands of robbers to military judges, in order to shorten proceedings, for many of those who had been apprehended and thrown into prison, found some opportunity to escape while their trial was pending, and many had been imprisoned four or five times for the same offence, yet never brought to justice. In this law were included, both robbers by profession, and those bodies of insurgents who were merely extempore amateurs.
But whatever measures have been taken at different times to eradicate this evil, its causes remain, and the idle and unprincipled will always take advantage of the disorganized state of a country, to obtain by force what they might gain by honest labor.
