plan of Igŭālă, to regard Iturbide's insurrection in this light, diminished the list of opponents, whom he would otherwise have had to encounter. I have given the whole of this plan, which consists of twenty-four Articles, in the Appendix, (Letter F.) Many of its provisions are excellent, particularly those by which all distinctions of Caste were abolished (Article 11), and an end put to the despotism of Military Commandants (Article 23), who were deprived of the power of inflicting capital punishments, which they had so long, and so shamefully, abused.[1] But it was an illusion to suppose that any intimate union could be effected, where the passions had been reciprocally excited by so long a series of inveterate hostility. Creoles might forgive Creoles for the part which they had taken in the preceding struggle; but Spaniards, never: and from the first, the basis of "Union," which was one of the three Guarantees proposed by the plan of Igŭālă, was wanting. The idea itself was singular. Iturbide, conceiving that Independence, the Maintenance of the Catholic Religion, and Union, were the three great objects which he ought to hold in view, denominated them, " the three Guarantees; and the troops who agreed to uphold them, "the Army of the three Guarantees." As a proof of his own prin-
- ↑ This power was latterly used almost entirely as a means of extorting money, to which every petty Commandant had recourse, by occasionally threatening with martial law the richest persons in his district.
