Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/157

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SOME TRAITS OF PECULIAR HISTORY, ETC.
137

pulsed again. In a rage at both sides, he fitted out an expedition on his own account, landed in the country, and was well-nigh being shot, after the model, and almost on the same ground, as that Iturbide whom he had pronounced against forty-two years before. The court-martial, however, spared his life, "in consideration of the ancient services done to his country in Texas, at Tampico, and Vera Cruz," and sent him again, superannuated and poor (for he had squandered an ample fortune in this attempt), to finish his days in banishment.

I cannot forbear going a little farther into the questions and answers of the little history. Of the gallant generals who fought so well for the Independence, Victoria was the first President. Bravo pronounced against him, and was exiled to South America. Guerrero, defeated as a candidate for the succession by Pedraza, took up arms and seized it by force. He repelled, while in office, a new attempt by the Spaniards to recover the country.

"Question.—I suppose that with this triumph the government of Guerrero was firmly established?

"Answer.—This was to have been hoped, but that happened which always happens in Mexico—just the contrary."

Bustamente, in fact, pronounced against Guerrero; and when the latter would have returned to the capital from an expedition designed to put down the revolt, he found it closed against him, and in favor of Bustamente also.

"Q.—What end had this revolution?

"A.—The most terrible that can be imagined. The Government at Mexico, feeling that it could not overcome Guerrero . . . bought over, for $70,000, a Genoese named Picaluga, who commanded a vessel anchored in the harbor of Acapulco. Picaluga invited Guerrero