Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/453

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SEEKERS FOR BURIED TREASURES.
437

given by His Excellency, the Governor of Puebla, Señor Don Ignacio Romero y Vargas. At the banquet Mr. Seward excused himself from making any lengthy speech in answer to the toasts in his honor, on the ground that he had already said enough to fully convey his ideas of matters and things in Mexico since he landed at Manzanillo, and did not care to impress his own countrymen with the idea that he was becoming unduly garrulous and loquacious. He said of Mexico:

"The season of her calamities is ended; Mexico is still youthful, ambitious, hopeful. She possesses all the material and moral elements of national greatness. All that her people want is rest and peace, for five years, ten years, twenty years or fifty years; the longer the better; and she may now assume the way that leads to prosperity and power among the nations. For this reason, when at Vera Cruz I shall be bidding adieu to Mexico, I shall wrest the inscription, "Requiescat in pace" from its customary application to the dead, and use it with all the inspiration of hope, affection, and gratitude, as an invocation of a blessing upon the living, "Mexico Requiescat in Pace!"

The stupid ignorance of the numerous seekers after the treasure supposed to have been buried in the United States by that famous Captain, whose "name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed, when I sailed," and the Californian expeditionists in search of the pirate treasure buried on Cocos Island, has its parallel in that of the buried treasure hunters of Mexico to-day. All over the country the impression prevails, that the Jesuits, when suddenly expelled from Mexico by the Spanish Government, buried, or otherwise concealed millions of