206 MEXICO. country, and, with the exception of a decree for raising a forced loan of two millions and a half of dollars, and for ap- plying to the immediate exigencies of the State, two millions in specie, which had been sent to Veracruz by different mer- chants, but were detained at Perote, its records are hardly distinguished by a single public act. Iturbides popularity did not long survive his assvimption of arbitrary power. Before the end of November, an insur- rection broke out in the Northern Provinces, which was headed by General Garza. It was, however, suppressed by the Imperial troops, who remained faithful to their new Sove- reign. But the army was his only reliance, and, unfortu- nately for him, a schism soon afterwards took place between two of his most confidential officers. The motives Avhich first induced General Santana, the Go- vernor of Veracruz, to turn his arms against the Emperor, are said to have been of a private nature ; but of this it is impossible now to judge. All that is known to the public is, that, at the close of 1822, this young officer published an ad- dress to the nation, in which he reproached the Emperor with having broken his Coronation oath, by dissolving the Con- gress, and declared his own determination, and that of the garrison under his command, to re-assemble the Congress, and to support whatever form of Government that assembly might please to adopt. To repress this dangerous spirit, Iturbide detached General Echavari, a Spaniard, in whom he placed unlimited confi- dence, with a corpse of troops sufficiently strong to invest Veracruz, and thus to compel Santana to submission. But that officer had been joined, in the interim, by Guadalupe Vic- toria, to whom he yielded the chief command, in the expec- tation that his name, and the known strictness of his princi- ples, would inspire those with confidence who were inchned to favour the establishment of a Republic. Nor was he de- ceived : Victoria's character proved a powerful attraction ;
