CHAPTER X.
THE ARMY AND NAVY OF MEXICO.
We have already alluded, in the historical portion of this work to some of the fostering sources of the Mexican army and to the evil results its importance has produced in the country. The colonial forces designed for the maintenance of order and due subjection in New Spain, were chiefly sent from the old world until the wars in Europe required the mother country to hoard its military resources. These foreign stipendiaries for a long time sufficed to secure the loyalty of the emigrants; but as the country grew in importance and numbers, and as the Indians revolted against their task-masters, it became necessary from time to time to call out reinforcements from the colonists; and when foreign invasion was dreaded, these levies, as we have seen, were largely augmented from all parts of the viceroyalty.
The idea of military service was, accordingly, not altogether unfamiliar to the Mexican mind when the first insurrectionary movements occurred under the lead of Hidalgo; but when the violent outbreak threatened to degenerate into a war of castes, and to array the Indians against all in whose veins circulated Castilian blood, it became the duty of the settlers to cultivate that spirit and discipline which would, at least, preserve them from utter destruction. The succeeding war of independence converted the whole country for eleven years into a camp, and when the strife terminated in success, it was found that a people, whose natural temperament addicted them to military spectacles, had become habituated and enured to a military career.
When the war was over and the power of Spain effectually broken, the contest was transferred from a foreign enemy to domes-
