repeatedly urged it, and Slidell had summed up his experience there in the following words, amply justified by the sequel: "We shall never be able to treat with her on fair terms until she has been taught to respect us . . . here all amicable advances are considered as indicative either of weakness or treachery." "Be assured," he added privately to Buchanan, "that nothing is to be done with these people, until they shall have been chastised." The solemn declarations of a succession of trusted agents that our forbearance was a tactical error were facts that our government was bound to consider; and by way of confirmation it had not only our complete failure to get on with Mexico, but the success of a power which seemed to have pursued a very different course, for in October, 1845, our consul at Vera Cruz had given the state department a specimen of England's tone. Mexico, said she to the minister of relations, must fulfil to the letter every contract with a British subject.[1]
Furthermore our government felt seriously concerned about the European monarchical schemes. Early in January, 1846, he London Times printed a letter from its correspondent at Mexico in which the opinion was expressed that a foreign prince, if "seconded by any leading European power," could gain a Mexican throne. A week later the same journal, recommending a Spanish king as the only possible cure for the ills of Mexico, had remarked that the United States could not oppose the "united policy of the European Powers"; and at about the same time the Picayune had announced, that it was proposed to give Cuba to England for her coöperation in the monarchical plan. Our government had, and could have, no intention of submitting to such European manoeuvres Any attempt of England and France to place a king on the throne of Mexico, Wrote Buchanan, "would be resisted by all the power of the United States ;" and the best way to oppose it was to effect a definitive settlement of our difficulties with Mexico at once — first, because this of itself would very likely make the development of the rather complicated scheme appear, in view of the "Monroe Doctrine," impracticable, and, secondly, because no European power could, with any show of decency, interfere in the domestic affairs of that country, While she was actually at war.[2]
