sociates to exercise the executive power as regents; and a Constituent Congress was prematurely summoned to draw up an organic law. The situation soon proved to be extremely difficult. Resentments needed to be healed, jealousies appeased, commerce and the industries put in motion, and the whole edifice of society and politics rebuilt on new foundations out of incongruous elements Peculiarly urgent was the demand for money—-the more so as some of the taxes were abolished in order to sweeten the revolution, while the expenses grew. On entering Mexico Itúrbide had proclaimed, "You see me in the most opulent of capitals;" and every one expected the new government—an independent, Mexican, popular government—to hear an open purse. In October, 1821, some fourteen thousand claims were presented to it.[1]
Itúrbide, whatever his aims and whatever his faults, was the sole Mexican of recognized preëminence, the sole possible rallying point; and patriotism called upon all to support his prestige and patiently correct his errors until society could take, shape. Nothing of the sort occurred, however. The army idolized him; the civil officials counted on him; the prelates feared him less than they did his enemies; and the masses, ignorant of what went on below the surface, revered him as the Father of Independence; but the cheated absolutists, disappointed borbonistas, cajoled insurgents, distanced comrades, eclipsed leaders and unsuccessful claimants, the patriots, indignant that a cruel royalist should be the heir of the revolution, the republicans, few in number but increasingly influential, the friends of those he had massacred or plundered, and behind all the Scottish Rite Freemasons, Who were liberals yet partisans of Spain—all these hated and dogged him. Honors and emoluments were heaped upon him to excite envy and odium; his weaknesses were baited; his strength was provoked; his administrative blundering was stimulated instead of corrected. When financial necessities compelled him to decree a forced loan, paper money and other arbitrary measures. many began to denounce him as a tyrant. Plausibly enough he was accused of disloyalty to his pledges and of aiming to be king. Finally his enemies, making the most of certain indiscretions that he committed, undertook to remove him from the command of the army Whatever had been his
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