25
«Page 153.—"When the success of the expedition was perceived the projects of speculation were started in Paris, and many persons, among them some of high position who had been most opposed to the expedition and had most severely criticised Napoleon, were the first to endeavour to profit by his triumphs. The Sonora mines were the speculation which had most partisans. They did not know, as the Mexicans then did not know, that Napoleon had already taken his measures to convert that rich State into a French colony; a project which he afterwards partly abandoned, because His Majesty undoutedly understood all the inconveniences it presented, and he limited his desire to have a treaty made in Mexico between Almonte and Salas and M. de Montholon, successor of Saligny, by which treaty mining privileges, in open opposition with the laws of Mexico, were granted to France; privileges which were really a cession of Sonora to France; but this also was not carried out,
«A few weeks before the treaty was made in Mexico, Doctor Gwin, an emigrant from the South of the United-States, residing in Paris, presented another project to colonize Sonora with several thousand families from the Confederate States. Acoording to this project, they were to govern themselves as they pleased, independently, in fact, of the Government of Mexico. The approbation of the Arch duke was solicited for it, as this was deemed absolutely necessary. To this end the Doctor wrote to him, the project being recommended by Señor Gutierrez Estrada who had agreed to do so, fascinated as he undoubtedly was by the idea of carrying enemies of the United-States to Mexico, and an energetic race.»
«Pages 178 to 180.—A few days after the conflict between the Archbishop, Almonte and Salas, became known in Paris, it was rumored that the new Empire was to be given up to its own fate, France keeping Sonora in payment of her debt. The time has come to prove that the rumor was well founded, since M. L. Debrauz de Salde-
