neglecting to provide against Indian raids which had been frequent in Chihuahua, Durango, and Sonora. The situation was indeed critical; but amid so much trouble the government succeeded in placing the departmental revenues in such a good condition that even the opposition press found reason to eulogize the measures by which that improvement had been attained.
The first step taken by Minister Iturbe on his assuming the treasury portfolio, on the 2d of May, was to suspend payments,[1] with the view of applying all the receipts to the support of the army. The next step was to notify the metropolitan chapter that the Mexican clergy were required to contribute $2,400,000 of the forced loan decreed by congress, in monthly instalments of $200,000, of which this chapter's share was $98,000. The archbishop finally agreed to contribute a smaller, though still heavy, sum.[2]
The Santanists had by this time come to an understanding, and resolved to make Guadalajara the centre of a revolutionary movement to set aside the existing government; and regardless of the difficulties the country was under, from the disasters sustained by her arms at the seat of war, which had caused the deepest pain to all patriotic citizens, a pronunciamiento took place in that city on the 20th of May, under the leadership of General José María Yañez and other military officers, protesting against the law of the 26th of January.[3] All who opposed the republican system and the principles of the plan.were declared to be traitors. By the 6th article Santa Anna was proclaimed the leader of the great enterprise.[4] The government, fearing that the movement
- ↑ Méx., Col. Ley. y Dec., 1844-6, 359-64. An exception was made in favor of the hospicio de pobres of Mexico.
- ↑ The vicar had notified the minister that the total revenue of the archdiocese did not come up to $98,000.
- ↑ It had been preceded by one in Mazatlan under Col Rafael Tellez on the 7th of May.
- ↑ The preamble set forth that none of the constitutions set up, since tho suppression of that of 1824, had benefited the country; that some vile Mexicans
