CHAPTER XI.
1846—1847.
When General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna landed from the steamer Arab, after having been permitted to pass the line of our blockading fleet at Vera Cruz he was received by only a few friends. His reception was in fact not a public one, nor marked by enthusiasm.
By the revolution which overthrew Paredes, General Salas came into the exercise of the chief executive authority, and as soon as Santa Anna arrived he despatched three high officers to welcome him, among whom was Valentin Gomez Farias, a renowned leader of the federalist party, in former days a bitter foe of the exiled chief. Santa Anna, in his communications with the revolutionists from Cuba, had confessed his political mistake, in former years, in advocating the central system. "The love of provincial liberty," said he, in a letter to a friend dated in Havana on the 8th of March, 1846, "being firmly rooted in the minds of all, and the democratic principle predominating every where, nothing can be established in a solid manner in the country, which does not conform to these tendencies, nor can we without them attain either order, peace, prosperity or respectability among foreign nations.
" To draw every thing to the centre, and thus to give unity of action to the republic as I at one time deemed best, is no longer possible; nay, more, I say it is dangerous; it is contrary to the object I proposed to myself in the unitarian system, because we thereby expose ourselves to the separation of the northern departments which are most clamorous for freedom of internal administration. * * * * I therefore urge you to use all your influence to reconcile the liberals, communicating with Señor Farias and his
