gentleman was well qualified by a long residence in the country, and an intimate acquaintance with it acquired by visiting various parts of it and conversing intimately with all classes of people, to give an intelligible and authentic history of this important event.

The Mexican viceroyalty was at the height of its prosperity at the time of the breaking out of the revolution in 1810. The population, now, it is said, reduced to four millions, then amounted to six. The royal revenue exceeded twenty millions of dollars, and the money coined annually at the mint, was, according to Mr Wilcocks, upwards of twenty eight millions. The revenue is now reduced to half what it was, and the money coined yearly to from five to eight millions, and the present year will not exceed four. Such were the consequences of a bloody and devastating war, which was carried on between the Americans and Spaniards. Among the most active officers, who supported the royal cause, was Don Augustin Iturbide, then a colonel of the regiment of Celaya, a native of Valladolid, in the province of Mechoacan, but born of European parents. The contest was maintained for four or five years with great animation, and an exterminating spirit on both sides, until the capture and death of Morelos, the republican leader, in the latter part of the year 1815. From that time the royal cause obtained an entire ascendency. The people, however, were not subdued. Many leaders kept the field at the head of small bodies of men, from three hundred to a thousand strong, and the whole country was infested with bands of robbers. This state of things continued until the arrival of the viceroy Apodaca, in September 1816.

To this disinterested, good, and virtuous man,' says Mr Wilcocks, is due the pacification of the kingdom; his penetration, skill, and humanity having suggested to him the propriety of laying aside the arms that had hitherto been in use, and of winning the affections of the people by means of persuasion, pardons, and premiums, who without general officers, money, or any immediate expectation of establishing the liberty of their country, and weary of the wandering and wretched life they had so long endured, embraced readily the opportunity that presented of returning to the bosom of their families. No sooner was the plan adopted, than its wisdom became palpable. Entire towns and districts yielded to the solicitations of the agents appointed by the government for carrying it into execution, so that at the end of two years, all was tranquillity, and you could travel in every direc

tion without escort of arms, except that of Acapulco, between which, and this city, [Mexico] the chieftains Guerrero, Asenio, and a colonel Bradburn of Virginia, that came with general Mina with about fifteen hundred men, had taken refuge and fortified an almost inaccessible mountain, from whence they made predatory excursions.'

For the purpose of reducing this party of insurgents, Iturbide was appointed to the command of the department of the south, and placed at the head of three thousand veteran troops, whose head quarters were at Yguala. This took place a few months after news had been received in Mexico of the revolution in Spain, by which the constitution was restored. This event created great alarm among the clergy and some other classes of people, who apprehended from it the destruction of their forms of religion. The constitution was not cordially acknowledged by the viceroy, and the reluctance, with which he submitted to it, disaffected many of his friends, and emboldened the Americans to renew their demand for independence. Iturbide had the penetration and the boldness to seize upon this crisis for securing the independence of the country, by a scheme that should unite in support of it the zealous defenders of the Catholic religion, the adherents of royalty, and the friends of liberty. He concerted his measures with the clergy, and secured their cooperation by assurance of of protection to their privileges and immunities. He secured also the cooperation of several of the governors of provinces, and on his arrival at Yguala, persuaded a great part of the troops under his command to join him in the undertaking, in the belief that the members of the government who were known to be opposed to the constitution, secretly favored it. He then communicated his design to Guerrero, Asenio, and Bradburn, who pledged themselves to support him.

Thus prepared, he made a public declaration of the independence of the kingdom, and swore it in a solemn manner at the head of his army at Yguala, Feb. 24, 1821, and at the same time, he seized and appropriated 'to the use of the nation a convoy of about a million of dollars, which fortunately for him, was proceeding to Acapulco, to be embarked on board a ship bound to Manilla. He published at the same time what is called the Plan of Yguala, consisting of twenty four articles, announced as the basis of the constitution to be established by the Cortes, when it should be assembled. The leading

articles of this plan, are the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion without tolerating any other; the entire independence of New Spain; that the government shall be a moderate monarchy with a constitution adapted to the empire; that king Ferdinand VII shall be emperor, if he will accept the appointment and come in person to Mexico to take the oath, and if not, some other member of the reigning family; that all the inhabitants of New Spain, without distinction, Africans, Europeans, and Indians are citizens of the monarchy, with eligibility to all employments, according to their virtues or merits; that the person and property of every citizen shall be respected and protected; that the clergy, secular and regular, shall preserve all its privileges and preeminences; that all officers, civil, ecclesiastical, and military, shall remain on their present footing, with the exception that those shall be removed, who decline entering into the plan; and that the army should be formed under the style of the army of the three guarantees, from the protection it undertook to give to the Catholic religion, to the independence of the empire, and to the indissoluble union between the Americans and Europeans. Iturbide sent a copy of this plan to the viceroy, inviting him and the government to assist in its establishment. He named the viceroy, the Conde de Cortina, and the president of the Royal audience to compose the regency, and reserved to himself the command of the national army.

It is supposed that the viceroy was inclined personally to accede to the proposal, but his council, consisting of the members of the various tribunals of which the government was composed, as well as the principal military officers, were unanimously in favor of maintaining the existing government. Apodaca refused his consent to the violent and cruel measures which were proposed, and offered an amnesty to all the insurgents except Iturbide. The field marshal Linan was appointed commander in chief of the royal troops, and a numerous staff and formidable army were committed to his charge.

Iturbide in the mean time sent a detachment of his army, which took possession of the town and castle of Acapulco, and marched with the remainder in the direction of Valladolid. The people in all parts rose to support the cause of independence. An army was formed in the provinces of la Puebla and Vera Cruz, by colonels Herrera, Bravo, and Santana,

which took possession of the cities of Orizaba, Cordova, and Jalapa. At the two former of these cities, the independents took possession of a large sum in specie, besides a very large quantity of tobacco, in the government depots, the proceeds of which had been relied upon by the government as its principal means of supporting the war. The army of Iturbide soon increased to the number of five or six thousand men. He took possession of several of the principal cities in the kingdom, and was joined by their garrisons. He abstained as much as possible from violent offensive operations, and from shedding blood. In the subsequent military movements, the independents were almost uniformly successful. A clear narrative of these operations is given by Mr Wilcocks. After a short period, the principal part of the royal army was ordered to Mexico for the defence of the capital, and the male inhabitants of the city, from sixteen years of age to fifty, were ordered to be enrolled as militia, without exception or distinction of persons.

While these events were transpiring, a strong prejudice had been excited in a portion of the community against the viceroy Apodaca, and a report was circulated that he was in secret correspondence with Iturbide. A conspiracy was formed against him, which on the 5th of July was carried into execution. The palace of the viceroy was assaulted and he was made prisoner. The political and military command was given to field marshal Don Francisco Novella, and it was announced by papers posted at the corners of the streets, that Apodaca had resigned in his favor. The new leader was a man of an exclusively military education, and not qualified for the station which he was compelled to assume. He created a body to assist in the administration of the government, called the Junta Consultiva, consisting of individuals who had assisted in placing the power in his hands. Their proceedings were violent and tyrannical in the extreme.

Iturbide besieged Puebla, the second city in the kingdom, with so powerful a force, that in a short time, notwithstanding the strenuous exertions of the government to preserve it, it capitulated. He then moved a part of his army, consisting of eighteen thousand veteran troops, all disciplined in the king's service, to the neighborhood of the capital. Novella, although urged to surrender the city, and assured that he could not rely on the fidelity of more than a third of the troops

that composed the garrison, was determined on making an obstinate defence. The calamities which were apprehended at this juncture were prevented by the fortunate arrival and prudent conduct of a new viceroy from Spain. The course adopted by this office is thus related by Mr Wilcocks.

Iturbide, after having rested a few days in Puebla, and partaken of the effusion of gratitude manifested towards him by the good people of that city, was on the point of leaving it, with the intention of fixing his head quarters near the town of Chalco, and directing from thence the attack that was to have heen made on Mexico, when he received a letter from lieutenant-general Don Juan O'Donoju, who had recently arrived at Vera Cruz, informing him that he had been named by the king of Spain, captain-general and political chief of the kingdom, and had accepted the appointment at the solicitation of his friends, the representatives of America in the cortes of Spain; that he had risked his health and life, and sacrificed his convenience, at a period when he intended to retire from the public service, without any other desire than that of acquiring the love and esteem of the people of New Spain, and without other sentiments than those of tranquillizing the disastrous inquietude that reigned in the kingdom; not by consolidating or perpetuating the despotism that existed, or prolonging the colonial dependence, nor falling into the errors or imitating the defects of many of his predecessors, in supporting a system of government, the tyranny and injustice of which arose from the barbarity of the age in which it was established, but by reforming the ideas of the misled, calming the passions of the exasperated, and pointing out to the people generally the mode of obtaining with security, and without the horrible sacrifice they were making, the happiness which the illustration of the era in which they lived had induced them to seek after, and which no rational person could disapprove; he also required Iturbide to appoint a place at which they could have an interview, and realize the sincere and ardent desire he had to prevent the evils and misfortunes inseparable to a state of hostility, until such time as the treaty they might conclude, founded on the basis of the plan published in Yguala, should be ratified by the king and cortes.

This letter of O'Donoju, with another that he wrote to Sor. Novella, were sent by turbide to the Mexican government, accompanied with a proposal for the suspension of arms, until such times as the definitive treaty should be signed in Cordova, the city named by Iturbide as the point of conference. Novella would, however, hear to nothing of the sort, and the letters were declared spurious, notwithstanding that Sor. Alcocer, a venerable curate of this city, who had been intimately acquainted with O'Donoju in New Series, No. 10.

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