Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/822

His residence in Italy, however, was of short duration. Influenced by news from Mexico, or, as he asserts, discovering that its independence was threatened by an alliance of the Latin powers of Europe for the recovery of the Americas, he resolved to leave a country where his freedom of action would be restricted, and on the 30th of November embarked with his two eldest sons for London. Forced by stress of weather to return, he decided to make the journey overland to Ostend. Avoiding France, he travelled through Switzerland, Germany, Prussia, and Holland, suffering somewhat from the cold, and embarked at Ostend December 31st, arriving in London the following day.^[1] In April he was joined by his wife and children. The hand of fate now beckoned him to his doom. On February 13th he had addressed a note to the new constituent congress of Mexico, which had been installed at the beginning of November 1823, assigning as the reason of his departure from Italy the intrigues of Spain against Mexico, and offering his services for the good of his country, while declaring that his only object was its welfare.^[2] But the government was thoroughly informed about him; his movements had been closely watched. Secret agents of the government had reported them; spies of the masonic order had followed his track, and his intentions were well known. On the 28th of April congress passed a decree declaring him an outlaw and an enemy of the state, if, under any pretext, he should place foot on Mexican soil, and caused copies of it to be circulated.

Without waiting for an answer to his note, and unaware of the above decree, on May 11th he sailed

over repudiates the charge that he had enriched himself from the public funds.

1. Malo states that they took passage on a small steamer, the first which plied the straits. Apunt. Hist., 27.
2. Copies of his note are supplied in Iturbide, Manifiesto, 128-30, and in the other editions mentioned in note 64 of this chapter. An English translation is given in Beneski's Narrative of the Last Moments of the Life of Don Agustin de Iturbide, published in New York, 1825.