take the next day, according to the intentions of his Excellency, the road to Puebla, to redeem that city out of the power of the enemy, cutting off at the same time all communication with Vera Cruz.

"The troops having already commenced the march, and having made some progress on the road, it became known, as much to our satisfaction as surprise, that the people, who the day before, although supported by the army and the valiant National Guards, had taken no part in the struggle, had undertaken on their own account the extermination of the invaders. Immediately the army was countermarched, and two columns, one under the command of his Excellency and the other under General Don Juan Alvarez, penetrated as far as the streets of Santo Domingo, and La Cerca, lancing some of the Americans. Subsequently, after some measures and other circumstances which it is unnecessary to mention, the heroic people of the capital were disarmed.

"In undertaking to carry out his first intent, the most formidable obstacle to be encountered was the entire want of means. The troops had been five days without any support. His Excellency the President had exhausted all his personal resources. From the 19th of August, the date of the misfortune at Padierna, to which our present situation is to be ascribed, up to that day—that is, in twenty-six days-not a man nor a dollar had been sent from any part. How could it be exacted, or even expected, that the city of Mexico, which had already made so many sacrifices, should alone carry on the war and bear the weight of the burdens which are destroying the nation? To the evils of the war, caused by the invaders, it would not have become the government to add those of making the army live at the expense of the people; and yet to disband the troops, in order that they might devastate the roads and villages, would have been a still greater evil. The difficulty was insuperable, as there

was no food on that day for the soldiers, and the situation was dreadful.

"His Excellency the President, since his return to the republic, has above all had to contend with difficulties of this nature, and to them is to be attributed the greater part of our misfortunes; but rather than destroy a force which, after being purified and organized in a different manner, could still be rendered serviceable to the nation, he embraced the middle course, of dividing the army into sections, under the command of tried officers, giving them instructions as to the roads they were to take, his Excellency reserving for himself a part of the cavalry. In this manner were obviated the great evils of a disbandment of the army: the burden was distributed so as not to weigh on a single district, and above all it furnished to the States of the Interior a nucleus which they could increase or shape as they might like, in order to carry on the war, which they have all demanded, without listening to any propositions of peace from the enemy.

"As regards political organization, his Excellency saw the extreme of perplexity of another kind in which he was placed by his determination to continue, personally, the defence of the independence of his country until one of the reverses of which so many have fallen upon us, through the will of God and our own dissensions, and under which we are suffering, should put an end to his existence. His Excellency did not wish to be invested with the character of President of the Republic, in conformity with the resolution of August of last year, his desire being to devote himself exclusively to carrying on the war against the invaders; and if he has since assumed that power, it was to put down a civil war which was raging in the capital, and, finally, to raise the necessary resources to place it in a state of defence.

"His Excellency saw that there was no one before whom he could make his resignation, in order to release himself from that onerous charge which prevented him from pursuing the only object of his

ardent desires, and which had drawn upon him so many annoyances; that all his efforts and repeated orders had been in vain to bring about a meeting of the Congress, composed of a hundred and forty members, which never held its regular sessions for want of numbers, and of which hardly twenty-six members could be assembled on occasions when he applied to it to discharge the mission which had been confided to it, and in order that the Executive might do no more than to carry out the will of the representatives of the nation. His Excellency saw that, for the new operations which he meditated, it would be necessary that he should be personally absent from the centre; and that, moving with his forces in different directions, the very uncertainty of his movements would occasion great difficulties in the administration of the government; he saw, finally, the consummation of the triumph of the enemy by abandoning these questions to the views of designing partisans. Under these circumstances, his Excellency determined to issue the decree which I communicated to your Excellency, and of which I have the honour to annex a printed copy, by which his Excellency, the President ad interim, endeavoured to consult not only the observance of the fundamental law in a great crisis, but also the spirit of the law and the will of the nation, manifested on former occasions.

"His Excellency only intends by this decree to fill a vacuum in the present circumstances, to preserve a representation of the unity and nationality of the republic-the capital of which is in possession of the enemy-but by no means to impose his will upon his fellow-citizens. Far from this, he has on this occasion only taken upon himself the solution of the difficulty, because, neither at the capital, which is its legal residence, nor in any other part of the republic, is there a legislative body, and he is ready to abide by whatever it may decide.

"After acts so pure, originating in intentions so honourable, there will not be wanting vile passions that always will accuse

after a misfortune, and upon that very account they are the more reprehensible. His Excellency the President carries in his garments, in the death of individuals allied to his person, and in his own person, irrefragable testimonials of his self-denial to devote himself to his country. General Santa Anna does not despair on account of these misfortunes, nor on account of ingratitude, which is still worse. His Excellency renounces power, and yet it is possible that stupidity may join with malice to add absurd calumnies to his other immense disasters. He abandons power, and with it consigns three facts to history for his eternal honour.

"First, that at the north, at the east, and at the capital, although with various fortune, he has been found confronting the enemies of his country, appearing at all points of the battle, and in those most exposed to danger; secondly, that in all the States their respective authorities, as well individuals as corporations, remain in the free exercise of their functions and in the enjoyment of their respective laws; thirdly, that the nation, and the government which may be called to preside over it, will have absolute liberty to act as may seem proper with regard to the question of war or peace with the United States, since it has been proved that neither the presence of their cannon nor the approach of a danger which has since become a reality, have had any influence on what was due by the government of his Excellency General Santa Anna to the divinity of his country nor to his own honour. The government has not taken a step, nor has it had a. single communication with the enemy but what is within the reach of all his compatriots, nor has it been bound by any com-. promise, past, present, or future. If in the publications which have been made it may have excited surprise, and not without reason, not to have found the discussions which were expected from the general and the commissioner of the government of the United States, it was that the contempt with which they treat us, and the unblushing determination which they have taken to carry

REFLECTIONS UPON SANTA ANNA'S REVERSES.

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on a war the most infamous and sanguinary, for their simple diversion and pleasure, no other answer could be given, except through the cannon's mouth and death.

"His Excellency the President ad interim orders the undersigned to communicate to your Excellency the preceding exposition, at the time transmitting to you the decree of his resignation, reserving to himself to give at a proper time to his fellow-citizens a circumstantial manifesto; he has also enjoined him particularly to state in his name to the new Constitutional Government, that he will not lay down his arms against the enemy of his country, until this government, or whatever government may be nominated by the nation or Congress, shall order him to lay them down; that he will be its firmest support against any revolution, as also in every matter which may be determined as to the American question, be it peace or war; that he will comply in his quality of subject with the national will legitimately expressed, as he always has done in his capacity of First Magistrate, and that his Excellency wishes to be the first to give an example of submission to the authority of the laws. God and liberty!

"I have the honour to be, with distinguished consideration, PACHECO.

"His Excellency the Governor of

There is something at this period of the war in regard to the condition of General Santa Anna which commands our pity, even while the knowledge of his former duplicity forbids our esteem. Suddenly fallen from the topmost height of national honour; deserted by his former friends and parasites; anathematized by many of his own countrymen; and soon to experience that even remote and secluded cities offered no secure refuge from the untiring pursuit of his warlike and energetic foes, he exhibited the sad spectacle of a once goodly ship shorn of the white and expansive adjuncts by which she was formerly impelled in grace