B. JOURNEY FROM MANGA DE CLAVO TO PLAN DEL RIO Gradually, as in Dante's Commedia, after leaving Purgatory, typified by Vera Cruz, we seemed to draw nearer to Paradise. The road is difficult, as the approach to Paradise ought to be, and the extraordinary jolts were sufficient to prevent us from being too much enraptured by the scenery, which increased in beauty as we advanced. At Santa Fé and Sopilote we changed horses, and at Tolomé, one of the sites of the civil war, came to the end of Santa Anna's twelve leagues of property. We arrived at Puente Nacional, formerly Puente del Rey, celebrated as the scene of many an engagement during the Revolution, and by occupying which, Victoria frequently prevented the passage of the Spanish troops, and that of the convoys of silver to the port. Here we stopped a short time to admire the beautiful bridge thrown over the river Antigua, with its stone arches, which brought Mrs. Ward's sketch to my recollection, though it is very long since I saw the book. We were accompanied by the commander of the fort. It is now a peaceful-looking scene. We walked to the bridge, pulled branches of large white flowers, admired the rapid river dashing over the rocks, and the fine, bold scenery that surrounds it. The village is a mere collection of huts, with some fine trees. It was difficult to believe, as we journeyed on, that we were now in the midst of December. The air was soft and balmy. The heat, without being oppressive, that of a July day in England. The road through a succession of woody country; trees covered with every variety of blossom, and loaded with the most delicious tropical fruits; flowers of every colour filling the air with fragrance, and the most fantastical profusion of parasitical plants intertwining the branches of the trees, and flinging their bright blossoms over every bough. Palms, cocoas, oranges, lemons, succeeded one another, and at one turn of the road, down in a lovely green valley, we caught a glimpse of an Indian woman, with her long hair, resting under the shade of a lofty tree, beside a running stream an Oriental picture. Had it not been for the dust and the jolting, nothing could have been more delightful. As for Don Miguel, with his head out of the window, now desiring the coachman to go more quietly, now warning us to prepare for a jolt, now pointing out every thing worth looking at, and making light of all difficulties, he was the very best conductor of a journey I ever met with. His hat of itself was a curiosity to us; a white beaver with immense brim, lined with thick silver tissue, with two large silver rolls and tassels round it. One circumstance must be observed by all who travel in Mexican territory. There is not one human being or passing object to be seen that is not in itself a picture, or which would not form a good subject for the pencil. The Indian women with their plaited hair, and little children slung to their backs, their large straw hats, and petticoats of two colours the long strings of arrièros with their loaded mules, and swarthy, wild-looking faces the chance horseman who passes with his sarape of many colours, his high ornamented saddle, Mexican hat, silver stirrups and leathern boots all is picturesque. Salvator Rosa and Hogarth might have travelled here to advantage, hand-in-hand; Salvator for the sublime, and Hogarth taking him up where the sublime became the ridiculous. At La Calera, we had a distant view of the sea. Occasionally we stopped to buy oranges fresh from the trees, pineapples, and granaditas, which are like Brobdinagian gooseberries, the pulp enclosed in a very thick, yellow, or green rind, and very refreshing. It was about seven in the evening, when very dusty, rather tired, but very much enchanted with all we had seen, we arrived at Plan del Rio.... 90. ABERDEEN TO BANKHEAD ON THE POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN TOWARD MEXICO IN THE WAR AGAINST THE UNITED STATES [June 1, 1846. British Foreign Office Archives MSS. Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, from George Lockhart Rives's United States and Mexico, 1821-1848 (1913), II, 162-163.] The instructions, excerpts from which are given below, were sent to the British minister to Mexico, Mr. Bankhead, by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Aberdeen, on June 1, 1846. They make clear the reasons which led the British government to refuse to intervene in the war between the United States and Mexico. Within the last three years I have frequently had occasion to convey to you the opinions of Her Majesty's Govt. respecting the position of embarrassment and danger in which the line of policy long and unfortunately pursued by the Mexican Govt. with regard to Texas, and also to the United States, had placed Mexico; and the decision to which Her Majesty's Govt. had come on the subject of any assistance which might be requested of them, on behalf of Mexico against the United States. ... The more recent events which have occurred in Mexico are far from affording Her Majesty's Govt. any reasonable ground for departing from the line of policy which in 1844 they found it expedient to adopt. On the contrary they see in those events more and more cause for rigidly adhering to the system of non-interference which they then prescribed to themselves. Since that time the Annexation of Texas to the United States, which had long been foreseen and pointed out to the Govt. of Mexico by Her Majesty's Govt. and which the timely recognition of Texas by Mexico, so often insisted on by Great Britain, could alone have prevented, has been consummated; and the further encroachment of the United States on the Mexican Territory, which was equally foretold by Her Majesty's Govt., has been realized. Meantime Mexico, although menaced, and now indeed, as we learn, actually engaged in hostilities, on her Texan Frontier, has been precluded by her internal dissensions and the penury of her finances from effectually providing against the emergency in which She is involved. ... Were Great Britain to interfere in that quarrel, She would involve herself in a war with the United States; and not only that, but She must necessarily play the part, not merely of an auxiliary, but of a principal, in such a war; that is, She would find herself engaged in a war with a nation with which She would have no personal cause of quarrel, in behalf of a Nation and Govt. which She has repeatedly warned in the most friendly and urgent manner of their danger, and which, solely in consequence of their wilful contempt of that warning, have at last plunged headlong down the precipice from which the British Govt. spared no efforts to save them. I state these circumstances not by way of reproach, for reproach is now useless, but solely in order to enable you to place more clearly before the eyes of the President Paredes, if he be still Chief Magistrate, the real state of the case without disguise, and to point out to him in a palpable shape the true position of Great Britain, and the reasons for which Her Majesty's Govt. must necessarily decline to come forward in support of Mexico against the United States. In making known this decision, however, which you will do in explicit but courteous terms, and accompanied by an assurance of the sincere regret which Her Majesty's Govt. feel in being compelled to take this course, you will at the same time declare to the President, or the Secretary of State, that Her Majesty's Govt. will always be found perfectly willing and desirous to give Mexico every proof of their earnest wish to save her, as far as it may be possible, by friendly interposition, from the fatal consequences of the policy which her successive Govts. have for many years past been so unfortunately induced to pursue towards Texas and the United States. 91. AMENDMENTS OF 1859 TO THE MEXICAN CONSTITUTION [September 25, 1874. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1874, 714. Published by the United States Department of State.] The amendments given below were decreed by the liberal government of Mexico at Vera Cruz in 1859. It was not until May 29, 1874, however, that they were incorporated in the constitution by order of the congress. They became part of the constitution on November 12, 1874, after they had been ratified by the state legislatures. The incorporation of these amendments marked the final triumph of the principles of the laws of reform and the success of the long struggle between the liberals and the conservatives. Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, constitutional President of the United States of Mexico,1 to all the inhabitants thereof: Know ye that the Congress of the Union has decreed the following: The Congress of the United States of Mexico, in the exercise of the faculty conferred upon it by the one hundred and twenty-seventh article of the constitution promulgated on the 12th of February, 1857, and with the previous approval of the legislatures of the republic, declares — The following are additions and amendments to the said constitution: 1 The United Mexican States. ARTICLE 1. The state and the church are mutually independent. Congress cannot pass any laws establishing or prohibiting any religion. ARTICLE 2. Marriage is a civil contract. This and other acts of the civil life of the individuals are under the exclusive supervision of the civil officials and authorities, in the manner provided by the laws, and will have the force and validity which said laws confer upon them. ARTICLE 3. No religious institutions can acquire real estate or capital, secured by mortgage thereupon, with the single exception provided in the twenty-seventh article of this constitution. ARTICLE 4. The simple promise to speak the truth and comply with the obligations, which are undertaken, shall take the place of the religious oath, with its effects and penalties. ARTICLE 5. No one can be compelled to give personal service without just compensation and without his full consent. The state cannot permit any contract, compact, or agreement to be executed which may have for its object the diminution, loss, or irrevocable sacrifice of personal liberty, whether by reason of labor, education, or religious vow. The law, therefore, does not recognize monastic orders, nor can it permit their establishment, under whatever name or object they may claim it to be formed. Neither can it allow any compact by which an individual agrees to his own proscription or banishment. Hall of the Congress, September 25, 1873. (Signed by all the deputies of the Congress.) Therefore I order the above to be printed, published, circulated, and duly obeyed. Given in the national palace of Mexico, September 25, 1873. To the Citizen Cayetano Gómez y Perez, SEBASTIAN LERDO DE TEJADA In Charge of the Ministry of the Interior. 92. SPEECH OF PRESIDENT JUÁREZ AT THE CLOSING OF THE SESSION OF CONGRESS [December 15, 1861. House Executive Documents, 37th Congress, 2d Session, VIII, 169-170.] The situation in Mexico in December, 1861, was indeed critical. The Spanish had arrived at Vera Cruz on December 14, |