construed into an act of positive hostility, there was no security for the property of any one, in the event of Mina's success. It was true, indeed, that the Marquis of the Jaral had accepted the rank of Colonel in the Spanish service, and that, out of the funds supplied by him, the Government had raised a regiment, which bore his name. Still he had taken no active part in the war, and consequently he was one of those, whom Mina professed to have come to defend: he was a Mexican born, and one, too, who held an enormous stake in the country; and, on all these accounts, the seizure of his property was very generally considered as an unwarrantable act.
The success of Mina in the interior of the country was counterbalanced by the loss of the fort which he had erected at Soto la Marina, upon the coast, and which was of importance to him, not only as containing his dêpot of arms, and military stores, but as the only medium of communication with the United States. He left there, as I have already stated, a garrison of one hundred and thirteen men, under Major Sarda. On the 11th of June the place was invested by a division of two thousand two hundred men, with nineteen pieces of artillery, under the orders of General Ărrĕdōūdŏ, the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Internal provinces. On the 14th, a constant fire was kept up, by which the few guns which defended the mud-walls of the fort were dismounted; and on the 15th three general assaults were made, all of which were repulsed
