History of Mexico (Bancroft)/Volume 4/Chapter 1
HISTORY OF MEXICO.
CHAPTER I.
EUROPE IN THE EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The Little Man from Corsica — He Makes All the World Tremble — General View of Politics and Society — Attitude of England, Prussia, and Austria — A Glance at Spain's History — Rulers for Three Centuries — Retrogressions and Reactions — Prime Ministers — Peace and War — England and France will not let Spaniards be Free — Position of the United States — Chronic Braggadocio — There are Soldiers and Heroes in Mexico as Well
At the opening of the nineteenth century Europe was in a state of unusual commotion. There had come from Corsica to Paris a bow-legged, olive-cheeked little man who had set the rulers of the earth and their wise men by the ears. They were exceedingly frightened, and knew not what to do. For this personage had set at work several hundred thousands of their subjects killing each other; to what purpose, it puzzled them to say, unless it was to show how to make dupes and donkeys of them all only donkeys are too sensible beasts to cut and mangle and murder each other in such a wholesale manner at the instigation of any one.
Louis XVI. was guillotined in 1793. His predecessor, after a life of debauchery with his Pompadours and Dubarrys, and under the intellectual libertinism of Voltaire and Rousseau, had died leaving a debt of four thousand millions of livres. After that was the tiers état, followed by the storming of the Bastille midst mobs and bloody revolution. Paper money was made. Hereditary titles were discontinued. Church property was seized. Christianity was abolished—though reëstablished before 1801—and reason was enthroned. The constitution was changed, and a species of bastard republicanism propagated. As the head of Louis Capet rolled upon the scaffold, insulted royalty rose throughout Europe. But France was still mad, and it was not until Robespierre was brought beneath the guillotine that the reign of terror was ended. And thus was opened the way for Napoleon Bonaparte.
Taking the popular side in the revolution, and with the aid of his matchless military genius, Napoleon was general of the army at the age of twenty-five. In 1796 he drove back the Austrians and conquered Italy. Venice fell the following year, and the cisalpine republic was formed out of the Milanese and Mantuan states. Egypt was attempted in 1798, but Nelson was in the Mediterranean and prevented the loss of India to Great Britain. The following year the First Consul's proposals of peace to England were decidedly rejected by George III. Austria's turn came again in 1800, and in 1801 the northern kingdoms were united in a league against England. In 1802 France regained her islands in the West Indies lost by Louis XV. to the English. The Code Napoléon was formed. Notwithstanding the peace of Amiens, in 1803, Great Britain was pricked into fresh outbreaks. Made emperor of France and king of Italy in 1804, Napoleon, who was so sadly disturbing the time-honored balances of power, now found united against him, England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden. The game of 1805 was played off Trafalgar and at Austerlitz, and at its close all Europe lay at the feet of the little man from Corsica. Prussia claimed his attention in 1806, Russia in 1807, Spain in 1808, and Austria in 1809-10. Here marks the highest point attained. In 1812 came the Russian campaign; in 1813 the French armies were driven from Spain; and in 1814 Napoleon was at Elba. Another flash of glory; then in 1815 Waterloo and St Helena, and in 1821—death.
Meanwhile England, having lost the fairest portion of her American provinces, and being deeply in debt from her many European complications and much fighting, was reduced to an unhappy condition. The tailors had great burdens to bear, which were placed upon them mercilessly by all the rest, manufacturers, land owners, and rulers. Everything was excessively taxed, while wages were reduced, sometimes one half. The slave-trade obtained. Forty thousand negroes were annually taken on board by English ships for their West India colonies, half of them perishing by the passage. In a word, manners were coarse and usages cruel. Prussia was badly broken by the war, losing large parts of her domains. There was some disaffection among the German people, but it was checked without difficulty by the strong arm of royalty. Francis and Prince Metternich ruled Austria with an iron despotism, preventing freedom of thought or speech, and holding over the press strict censorship.
With the centuries Spain has continued to decline, until it is many times thought that the bottom has been reached, but only after a little rise to find a lower depth. Yet, during a portion of the three imbecile reigns of the seventeenth century—Felipe III., 1598-1621; Felipe IV., 1621-1665; and Carlos II., 1665-1700—we find continued for a time the brilliant age of literature and art, elating from the rule of their predecessor. There are Luis de Leon, Castilian Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Quevedo; Calderon de la Barca, and other writers; and Ribera, Velazquez, and Murillo, painters. Meanwhile the army becomes greatly demoralized; the country is left almost defenceless; the naval strength is reduced to nothing; the merchant marine is next to nothing, the art of ship-building being lost, Italy, France, and England doing Spain's carrying; while pirates and filibusters ravage colonial waters, and industries and trade fall into the hands of foreigners.
The eighteenth century opens with a thirteen years' war for the succession, when the house of Bourbon crowds out the house of Hapsburg. Of the Bourbon princes before Joseph Bonaparte, are Felipe V., 1700-1746; Fernando VI., 1746-1759; Carlos III., 1759-1788; Carlos IV., 1788-1808; and Fernando VII., the same year. Following Bonaparte, 1808-1814, is Fernando VII. till 1833, Isabel II. till 1868, a brief period of republicanism, 1868-9, Amadeo of the house of Savoy, 1871-3, then more republican dictatorships, and finally the house of Bourbon again restored in the person of Alfonso XII.
Out of the necessary discipline incident to the war of the succession grows some improvement. Agriculture and industry are revived. Legislation is in some degree purified. The wings of the holy see are clipped, and the church stripped of part of its property and influence. Fernando VI., being small in body, weak in mind, full of fear and hypochondria, and withal of a kind and benevolent disposition, the country recuperates somewhat under his rule. Retrenchments are made. The inquisition is emptied. Some defences are restored, industry and commerce are cultivated, and other reforms instituted.
Carlos III. is an abler man and makes more mischief. Church and inquisition are still further checked and the Jesuits are expelled. Among the reformers of the period are Count Aranda, an Aragon grande of French proclivities and friend of Voltaire; Count Campomanes, a man of culture and literary activity, a patriot and friend of progress; and Count Floridablanca, who in 1777 succeeds Campomanes as prime minister. The last named is less bigoted than his age, though opposed to French radicalism; while restraining the influence of the church, he protects it. He is a man of talents and culture, less statesman than manager, and believing in autocracy and unquestioning obedience. But whatever the principles held in theory, put into practice through the agency of ignorant, indolent, and corrupt officials, they fall far short of their purpose. There is hostility with England in 1779-83. In 1781-2 Spain puts down an insurrection of the inca, Tupac Amaru, in Peru, and the thousand years' war with the Mahometans is terminated by the peace of Algiers in 1786.
With the accession of Carlos IV. ends the epoch of reform. Dismal indeed are the next thirty years, during which occur the grand humiliation at the hand of Bonaparte, and the loss of nearly all the transatlantic colonies. The king is a handsome, ignorant, good-natured imbecile; and his wife, Maria Luisa, an ambitious and passionate profligate, is the true ruler of Spain. Floridablanca and Aranda are alternately removed and recalled, finally to make way for Manuel Godoy, a young officer, and the queen's favorite, impudent, incompetent, ambitious, and thoroughly immoral, sycophant or conspirator according to the tide, but always villain. If politics, war, or intrigue become tiresome, he seeks relief in dissipation.
Under these baneful influences Spain sinks lower than ever. While the rulers are revelling in luxury and licentiousness, the poor throughout the land are crying for bread. Finances are wrecked, the army is rendered weak and worthless, and education and industry are again prostrated. Galicia and other provinces revolt, and presently the French are upon them, and Spain is little better than vassal.
The peace of Basel, 1795-6—as is called the frivolous farce which pretended to free the country of the French, while in reality placing the peninsula still more in their power, besides in its results completing the ruin of the navy, and preparing the way for the general revolt of the colonies—gives Godoy the name of Prince of Peace, with rich domains and other substantial gifts.
Spain still has many ships and regiments, but no sailors or soldiers. Off Portugal, in 1797, the Spaniards are defeated by the English, who sweep the Mediterranean and Caribbean seas, and sow discord among the colonies. During the past three years there has been 2,445,000,000 reals income, and 8,714,000,000 outgo. There is in circulation 1,980,000,000 paper money current in 1799 at forty per cent discount. Religion is everywhere present as the hand maid of vice. A peace is signed in 1801 between France and Spain, with Godoy as the creature of Napoleon. In thick succession other wars are followed by other ignominious treaties. In 1808 the French are in Spain; Carlos abdicates; Godoy flees before the fury of the populace; and Fernando VII., idle, incompetent, and faithless, a coward and a hypocrite, base, tricky, and a debauchee—these are some of the many epithets history applies to this monarch—is named successor.
After a royal puppet-play, with Murat as manager-general, during which Carlos is for a moment recalled, while Fernando abdicates, the English, thirty thousand strong, are in the peninsula. At Aranjuez the supreme junta sits under the presidency of Floridablanca. Then comes Napoleon to Spain; and for a time Joseph Bonaparte holds the reins of government. In 1810—Caracas, in Venezuela, breaking into revolt, and Buenos Aires shortly after—the cortes assemble at Cádiz. A constitution is drawn up in 1812, which, under the impulse of the universal progress of liberty, abolishes seignorial rights, torture, the inquisition, and most of the convents. It is almost republican in its tenor, too liberal for the place and the time, and so does not hold; and Spain still labors under the crushing weight of absolute monarchy.
Fernando, reinstated in 1813, swears to the constitution of 1812, intending never to keep it. There never was a Bourbon who was not a despot. Four epochs mark his reign: the transient tastes of power before and after Bonaparte; then to the Andalusian revolution of 1820, during which period the Jesuits are recalled, the party of the liberal constitution proscribed, certain notable Spaniards condemned to the galleys, and the power of the freemasons put forth in opposition to crown and clergy; the third from 1820—when the Spaniards rebel, and Fernando is forced by popular clamor to convoke the cortes, call from the galleys to the principal portfolios Herreros, Perez de Castro, and the two Argüelles—to the fall of Cádiz and the constitutional government in 1823, a congress of European powers at Verona having reëstablished the authority of the king, the national militia being meanwhile organized, the press declared free, and the inquisition abolished; and lastly, the decade preceding the king's death, during which despotism is revived, and money matters demoralized, expenses amounting to 700,000,000 reals per annum to be met by a revenue of 400,000,000.
But by this time America and Europe are pretty well separated politically, never again, thank God, to be united. What with conventionality, bigotry, despotism, and general decay in many quarters, the New World can do better alone, and after its own way. Upon the death of Fernando VII. in 1833, his daughter Isabel II. being but three years of age, the child's mother, Cristina, is named regent; but the late king's brother, Don Carlos, opposes with desolating war. With British aid, however, the queen triumphs in 1840. Still Spain is torn by detestable strife. Millions of miserable wretches must starve and bleed over the issue to determine which shall rule of two of the vilest specimens of the dominating class ignorance, superstition, deceit, and incestuous, idiot-breeding marriages can produce. Now and then the people make a noble stand for their deliverance, when as often France or England would come with armies and drive them into base obedience. There is revolution in 1854, after which a national junta is established. Isabel is deposed in 1868, and Amadeo, second son of Victor Emanuel of Italy, is elected king. After vainly striving to reconcile contending factions, in 1872 comes the Carlist war, and the following year Amadeo abdicates, when a republic is proclaimed. The failure of its forces against the Carlists, however, brings round monarchy again in the person of Alfonso, Isabel's son, in 1875.
Altogether this Fernando presents one of the most contemptible characters of history. "The conspirator of the escurial," he has been called, "the rebel of Aranjuez; the robber of his father's crown; the worm squirming at the feet of his enemy at Bayonne; the captive of Valençay, begging bits of colored ribbon from Napoleon while his people were pouring out their blood and gold to give him back his crown; the jailer of the illustrious statesman to whom he owed the restoration of that crown; the perjured villain who spontaneously engaged to be true to the constitution of 1812, and then conspired to overthrow it the day after he had sworn; the promoter of anarchy during the three years of constitutional government; the invoker of the Holy Alliance and the intervention of France; the author of innumerable proscriptions; the coarse voluptuary; Ferdinand leaves no memory but that of a man worthy of our profoundest scorn."
Thus we have seen how at the beginning of the present century all Europe was at war. The most intelligent, civilized, and Christian nations of the earth were hotly engaged in such senseless quarrels as would make a savage smile; and for lack of any other method of settlement, like savages they were falling on each other to kill, burn, or otherwise damage and destroy as best they were able. France in particular was pouring out her best blood and treasure at the caprice of a despot whose paramount aspiration was self-aggrandizement, and whose exploits were destined to plunge her in deep abasement. Even the pope himself about that time had been upon the war-path, sending out his armies with fire and sword where words failed, and all greatly to his discomfiture and humiliation.
To the principle of evil in human affairs mankind owes much. To war, a great evil, a beastly arbitrament, but the only ultimate appeal yet found by man with all his wisdom, America owes much. To the silly strifes of European powers America owes more than to any butchering done by her own hands. It was due to this preoccupation, and to the weakness thence arising, rather than to any extraordinary display of wisdom, patriotism, or power on the part of the colonists, English or Spanish, that their independence was achieved.
There are foolish wars, and there are necessary wars: foolish sometimes on both sides, always foolish on one side. Hundreds of wars there have been, and will be, which leave the combatants, after tearing each other like wolves for a time, exactly as at the outset. Resorting to war for freedom or the integrity of the nation is not the same as war for the arrangement of differences which after any amount of fighting can only be settled upon some basis of equity which has to be determined upon other principles than those of arms. It is better to fight than to be a slave. It is not well to fight simply for power or aggrandizement, since the issue is based on injustice, and is sure to be transient. It is not worth while to fight purely for the mastery, as it is foreordained that no man shall be master on this planet.
The United States had finished the war which gave them their freedom; and were now busy trying to raise money, frame a constitution, and organize a government, while turning an honest penny by furnishing supplies to the combatants who were still destroying themselves in Europe. When England and France each pronounced the ports of the other closed against commerce, and the former persisted in claiming; a right to search American vessels for deserters, the United States forbid the shipment of American products to Europe, and declared war against England. After indulging in some foolish fighting, uncalled for and resulting in no adequate benefit, though attended with much misery and loss of life, commissioners met at Ghent and adjusted their differences, which might just as well have been done before the war as after.
It has been the fashion, in various quarters, because the northern confederation of states has prospered more and reached a higher plane of distinction and power than the united provinces of Mexico, unduly to extoll the founders of the former, and ridicule the pretensions to patriotism, intelligence, and skill on the part of those who fought for the deliverance of the latter. It is pleasing to tell stories to children, and talk among ourselves of the superior courage and self-denying heroism of those who fought on our side in the dark days of American revolution, above those who fought against us; but it is a form of egotism in which I cannot indulge, unless the assertions conform to the facts of history, which in this instance they do not. Fortunately for the reputation of our early heroes, their associates and subordinates, our history is written by men of our own nation, primarily to feed our vanity; to accomplish which purpose that which is damaging to our side—in so far as is politic and practicable—is toned down or omitted, while that which is damaging on the other side is emphasized and exaggerated, and vice versa. If we would know the truth, we should sometimes look fairly into the character and deeds of some who were not citizens or soldiers of the United States.
Those who fought for our independence; those who suffered unrewarded and died unknown, as well as those whoes names are remembered and honored, and who live to-day in our hearts, deserve all praise. But that as a class they were superior to their opponents; that they were so greatly superior to those who fought for the same object in Mexico, as we have been taught to believe, is not true. Lecky, with many others, holds that they have been "very unduly extolled," and that "the general aspect of the American people during the contest was far from heroic or sublime;" while Washington himself writes in 1778 that "idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of most of them; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration, and almost every order of men."
Let us then learn to omit some portion of our self-adulation in speaking of ourselves, some portion of our spread-eagle and Fourth-of-July buncombe and bombast in speaking of our country, to practise a little less hypocrisy and humbug in our politics, to say nothing of bribery and other corruption which is quite rank enough in our republic to-day.
Europe was bad enough, as we have seen, without any accentuation; monarchies were bad enough, the chief recommendation of the rulers being that they made no pretensions to honesty or piety, or rather made their piety to suit their honesty. And now with this showing of the influence from which the people of the New World determined to free themselves, I will proceed to show how it was done.