employers to receive back their workmen, who for lack of bread drifted toward vagabondism. To leave a large body of such men armed was dangerous. And it was not safe to allow them to pass the barriers and spread themselves through the country, as they were likely to do if the work of disarmament was unwisely begun. It was first settled that all such persons should be disarmed at the barriers. To settle the larger question a method was adopted for all the districts which had been proposed in the district of SaintGermain des Prés. A notice was posted that the district would buy the guns of all workmen who would bring a certificate that they had returned to work. From July 20 to August 3 a single district purchased 250 muskets and twelve pistols.1

Another danger grew out of the fact that the courts had ceased to act. The prisons were rapidly being filled with persons arrested on suspicion. The engineers of disorder had little fear that they would be swiftly called to account. To correct the evil the electors on the twentieth formally sent several prisoners to the Châtelet with the request that justice take its ordinary course.2 In order to reassure the public mind, constantly alarmed by rumors of plots and insurrections, they also ordered that the theaters be reopened in spite of the threat of several districts to prevent this by force until after Necker's return.3

Although their retention of power was so brief, they were obliged to regulate provisionally the liberty of the press. The permanent committee had authorized the admission to the city of all pamphlets and newspapers. Some of these had proved to be virulent libels. Accordingly the electors laid down the principle "that every citizen is free to print and publish any work whatsoever, if he signs it and is ready to answer for it". When libels began to circulate touching the king himself, they specifically recalled the permission so freely

1 Procès-verbal, II, 125, 157–158. Cf. purchases by Saint-Roch, Bibl. Nat. Mss. fr. nouv. acq. 2670, fol. 55.

2 Procès-verbal, II, 235, 281–282. Cf. Brissot's Patriote français for July 30, p. 3. Many of the arrests had been ordered by the committee of police, one of the four bureaus of the permanent committee, which continued in power nearly four months. One of its members afterward described its action as "the justice of savage peoples, exercised by enlightened men, who were not allowed a moment for reflection and to whom would not have been pardoned the slightest uncertainty or the least delay". This member was Fauchet, who perished with the Girondins in 1793. His reminiscences were given to Godard, Exposé, 12-15. The operations of the committee were not so favorably regarded by all, for example, the royalist writer Rivarol in Journal PolitiqueNational des États-Généraux, I, 150–151. He spoke of the Parisians demolishing the Bastille with one hand and with the other filling the prisons with poor bourgeois about whom the royal government had never concerned itself.

3 Procès-verbal, II, 193–194, 229-230.

given by the committee and ordered the arrest of all distributers of printed matter upon which the name of the printer did not appear, and that the printers should be held responsible in cases where the author was not known, a decree that excited lively protests.1

The most serious problem was the food supply. This was intrusted to the committee on subsistence, but the electors themselves were obliged to lend their aid. One of the greatest difficulties was the pillaging of convoys of wheat on the Rouen road and the stopping by district officers of grain wagons sent out to Corbeil and other mill towns. Moreover the agents whom the government had formerly employed in supervising the grain supply were now discredited and in actual danger of being murdered. All dealers in grain were likewise in terror. The farmers kept their wheat in their barns because they feared that if they attempted to market it they would be plundered on the road. Before Necker had been dismissed, the government had been buying abroad and selling at a daily loss of 1,800 livres, in spite of the fact that bread was at fourteen and a half sous for four pounds. In the midst of the trouble the increasing distress in Paris led the multitude to cry out for cheaper bread. The committee on subsistence, alarmed at the situation, recommended that the price be reduced to twelve sous, and Bailly, although he disapproved such action, since it would increase the daily cost to the government to a total of from 25,000 to 30,000 livres, signed the measure to please the people and to "merit its confidence". The electors, however, were unwilling to go so far, and voted that the price should be thirteen and one-half sous. Even this concession was burdensome, because, owing to the disorder and especially to the armed intervention of the faubourgs, the collection of the octroi could not be fully reëstablished, so that three weeks later the government was losing about 40,000 livres a week2.

After the victory of Paris over the king and his advisers the city became a power greater than the prostrate and disorganized monarchy, and for a time the rival of the 'National Assembly itself. Towns, particularly those in its neighborhood, asked for authority to form a citizen guard or to reorganize their government. The

1 Ibid., 185, 353-354, 367-368. Cf. Révolutions de Paris, no. IV, pp. 9-11. The committee of police forbade publications of engravings that had not been approved by Robin, of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Journal de Paris, August 3.

2 Procès-verbal, II, 168-169, 256-268, 283-285, 432-433; Bailly, Mémoires, II, 96-98, 148, 252; Gorsas, Courrier de Versailles, no. XVI. On August 20 threats were made in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine to oppose force by force if the municipality attempted an effective collection. Actes, I, 288-289. Smugglers and petty traders, and the poor generally, saw in these taxes an intolerable burden.

electors uniformly disclaimed jurisdiction and limited themselves to advice simply1.

The period during which the electors directed the affairs of Paris was so short and so occupied either with the defense of the city and the restoration of order or with the puzzling question of giving themselves successors that there was little opportunity for purely municipal problems to be discussed. The antagonism which was later to arise between the central assembly and the district assemblies or between the central assembly and the mayor did not have time to develop. What appeared most clearly therefore was the determination of the Paris bourgeoisie to have some part in the management of their own affairs rather than await quietly the remedies which might be proposed in the States-General. It is also clear that the men they chose to represent them were conservative, partly it may be through a natural fear of assuming an unwonted responsibility, but partly also through a habitual respect for established authority. The curious way in which this respect is mingled with extreme revolutionary theories and sentiments is not the least interesting of the phenomena. No one can read the story of these days without thinking it fortunate that the electors had decided to remain in session. after their proper work was completed, for, had they not been ready to assume direction, the confusion must have been far more serious and its results disastrous.

HENRY E. BOURNE.

1 For examples see Procès-verbal, II, 186-187, 192-193, 217, 219–220.

THE TREATY OF GUADALUPE-HIDALGO

THE treaty of peace with Mexico was signed February 2, 1848, at the town of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. It has appended to it the name of but one American, that of Nicholas P. Trist, who admitted that he had no authority at the time to represent the United States. The government at Washington had canceled his powers, denied his authority, and ordered him to leave the headquarters of the invading army and return home. Various views have been published regarding his actions. Trist has been called a far-sighted patriot, who by disobeying orders sacrificed his own reputation in order that he might put an end to the Mexican War and give to his country the legitimate fruits of victory. His motives have, on the other hand, been represented as based upon inordinate vanity, which blinded him to the manifest obligations of his mission and gave his name a distinction which his character by no means justified. It is the purpose of this paper to trace the history of the negotiations of which the GuadalupeHidalgo treaty was the result in the light of the mass of correspondence to be found in the archives of the Department of State, a part of which has never been printed. The diary of James K. Polk, a manuscript copy of which is in the Lenox Library, New York, furnishes a running commentary upon the peace negotiations, and by it the President of fifty years ago takes us into his confidence as fully as he did his own cabinet.1

The history of the Mexican War, aside from the purely military part of it, has been written chiefly as a chapter in the history of the slavery question. The momentous national issues which pressed for attention even before Polk retired from office have given a twist to the many accounts of the period from 1845 to 1848. Books appearing soon after the event, animated not by a spirit of unbiased historical investigation, but written with the professed purpose of presenting a brief against the aggressions of slavery, have furnished in large measure the materials for the history of the period. The treatment of the subject of the Mexican War in the "reviews" of Jay" and

1 Acknowledgment is here made to the authorities of the Lenox Library for permission to use parts of Polk's diary.

2 William Jay, A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War (Boston, 1849).

Livermore1, well-constructed as they were and widely distributed, and fortified by an examination of published documents and newspapers, has grown into the narrative of Von Holst.

When Congress was told that by the act of Mexico there existed a state of war, and that Santa Anna was permitted to pass into Vera Cruz, Polk and his advisers were convinced that the war would be a short one, perhaps not ninety days in length. The diary informs us that when Polk came into office he had already made up his mind to acquire California. A plan developed by which he believed the acquisition might be made by peaceful negotiation. Claims against Mexico, under discussion as far back as Jackson's time, furnished the groundwork of the plan; the joint resolution annexing Texas gave the President something to build upon. By that act the determination of the boundaries of Texas rested with the United States. Mexico could not pay the claims in cash; the Texan boundary was unsettled. The idea of territorial indemnity was an irresistible conclusion; let her pay in land.

66

Two weeks after Polk was inaugurated, a secret agent, William S. Parrott, left Washington for Mexico to prepare a way for the reopening of diplomatic relations. By autumn the reports of the agent led Polk to believe that Mexico would receive a representative from the United States. John Black, the United States consul at the City of Mexico, wrote to Buchanan that he had positive and official assurance that the Mexican ministry was favorable to an adjustment of the questions in dispute between the two republics. The consul's letter was received November 9; on the tenth John Slidell, who had been selected by Polk two months previously, was sent upon of the most delicate and important [missions] which has ever been confided to a citizen of the United States ", one which, if successful, Buchanan told him, would establish for the envoy "an enviable reputation" and do an immense service" for his country.3 This was no sham mission. Parrott, the secret agent, had reported that Mexico would not fight. The notoriously peaceful proclivities of the Mexican president, Herrera, warranted the hope that some sort of a settlement might be quickly arranged. "An Envoy possessing suitable qualifications for this Court ", wrote Parrott, "might with comparative case,

66

1 Abiel Abbot Livermore, The War with Mexico Reviewed (Boston, 1850).

one

2 Buchanan to Slidell, September 17, 1845; Slidell to Buchanan, September 25, 1845. See George Ticknor Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, I, 591.

3 Buchanan to Slidell, November 10, 1845; called for by resolution of the House, January 4, 1848, ard refused by Polk, January 13, 1848; see H. Ex. Doc. 60, 30 Congress, I Session, 770; also No. 25, p. 1; printed in S. Ex. Doc. 52, 30 Congress, I Session, 71, with the correspondence concerning the treaty of peace with Mexico.