bind herself not to join the United States; and this Wise though tardy move brought an avalanche of abuse upon it. In June the Federalists rose, but the affair was badly managed and failed. Tornel, the arch-plotter, a general who never had a command, was sent to the northern army; and other turbulent men were imprisoned. But still the government merely drifted—blind, irresolute, vacillating, moribund; and the general public looked on with complete indifference. Going to sleep red and waking up green—for revolutions usually began at night—was no longer a novelty.[1]
In August the ministers resigned; "the chief offices of state were begging in the streets," wrote the correspondent of the London Times; and the men who finally took them, while personally well enough, had little strength and less prestige. By September the government stood in hourly fear of a revo—lution; but so little booty could be seen. that although the plots thickened, they were lazily developed, and amounted to nothing. Paredes, the Santannistas and the Federalists became constantly more threatening, however, and the administration more and more afraid to take any step whatever, good or bad. Nobody could guess what it would do to-day from what it did yesterday. The anarchy of weakness con—stituted the government. A triumvirate of Paredes, Tome] and Valencia was much talked of. Many prayed for some respectable despot, many for a foreign prince; and some of the more thoughtful suggested cautiously an American protectorate. "Sterile, deplorably sterile" has been the movement against Santa Anna, exclaimed the friendly Siglo XIX in October, describing it as "a moment of happy illusion." By this time the administration was powerless even at the capital; and on November 30 El Amigo del Pueblo, an opposition sheet, announced, "There is no government in Mexico." This, how ever. was premature; Before the dénouement of this tragi-farce the United States was to enter upon the scene; and as this new phase of the drama requires to he prepared for, we must here leave Herrera, for a brief space, in the midst of his difficulties[2]
Sterile indeed and most deplorable was the whole series of events that we have now followed One is glad to pass on; but let it be noted first that while circumstances promoted, they did not produce it. The Mexicans knew better, far
