country by a party with which the people at large were not in sympathy. With undefined ideas and scanty means he had started upon the experimental course, trusting to fortune and bad advisers, and neglecting the lessons taught by experience. Active and passive opposition encountered him on every side, based partly on stagnated resources, and breaking out in pronunciamientos, which, added to the French fiasco, the secession of Yucatan, the insolence of Texas, and Indian border raids, left his administration in no enviable plight.[1]
On October 7th Santa Anna made his triumphal entry into Mexico, and was declared provisional president.[2] Two days later he assumed control of affairs, forming a new cabinet, composed of Gomez Pedraza, Crispiniano del Castillo, Ignacio Trigueros, and General Tornel.[3] Popular approval naturally followed the winning side, but any change was now welcomed as an improvement, and the hero of Vera Cruz seemed the most promising man for the occasion. A specta-
- ↑ He returned after the fall of Santa Anna in 1844, and we shall again meet him in public life. He had been decorated while president, and received the coveted title benemérito de la patria. A. Bustamante, Decretos, 1-1; Id., Iniciativa, 1-13; Pap. Var., lvi. pt 5, clxxx. pt 14, cxci. pt 1. Madame Calderon comments on his frank, honest, unheroic face, and his qualities as subordinate, rather than leader. Life in Mex., i. 96-7. Löwenstern attributes his errors to frank reliance on friends. Mex., 281-5. Thompson lauds the unselfishness shown in his poverty. Recoll. Mex., 87. De manos puras y de corazon inocente,' adds Bustamante. Apuntes Hist. Santa-Anna, 28.
- ↑ Tornel signs the decree as president of the body. Méx., Col. Ley. y Dec., 1841, 93-4.
- ↑ For interior and foreign relations, public instruction and industries, finance, and army and navy, respectively. Pedraza had figured in 1838 as minister for foreign affairs, and Tornel, the well known supporter of his chief, had been repeatedly war minister, and also in charge of the finances. García, ex-governor of Zacatecas, had been selected for finances, but declined, and Dufóo took charge till Trigueros, a Vera Cruz merchant, entered in November. About the same time the able Bocanegra left the supreme court and took Pedraza's place, Castillo assuming control of the judicial and ecclesiastic branch. The latter was replaced by Pedro Veclez in February 1842. Thompson, Recoll. Mex., 82-4, speaks highly of Bocanegra, Trigueros, and Tornel, the latter known as a patron of learning. Pedraza is alluded to as a haughty, disagreeable man, with whom Santa Anna quarrelled on a slight pretext. Bustamante, Diario, MS., xliii. 258-9; Id., Mem. Hist. Méx., MS., ii. 153, concerning Trigueros' career. Almonte was quieted with the mission to the United States.
