of one of the most prominent leaders of the party, José María Cobos. In his manifesto published at Saint Thomas he clearly gives the views of his party, after the French had invaded the country, and they were republican.[1]
It has been asserted that the same persons who invited foreign intervention had hoped for aid from the United States government; and when it failed them, raised a large fund — not less than eight million dollars from Mexico alone — and proposed to a number of influential men in the United States to join then in establishing a stable government in Mexico. It has been further stated that a number of the most distinguished officers of the United States army were enlisted in the cause. A government, with probably an Iturbide at its head, but with the administration of affairs in the hands of United States citizens, was to be created.[2]
The Mexican monarchial scheme was not taken up at hap-hazard and at the eleventh hour by the French government. Billault, the minister, denied that it had originated with his government. In a speech of June 27, 1862, in the French chamber, he stated that numerous Mexicans[3] had declared themselves in favor
- ↑ He proposed to Almonte, then placed in power under French influence, to shape his policy on a conservative basis, 'sin mezela de monarquía extranjera, por la que nadie opinaba.' Romero, Intrig. Europ., 46-7.
- ↑ These facts were divulged by Sylvester Mowry, who added that a document embodying the statistics and plan of the enterprise, prepared by a leading man of New York, assisted by Gen. McClellan, C. P. Stone, himself, and several of the first men for talents, influence, and wealth, was laid before Napoleon III., who perused it with pleasure and profit. Success was certain; but the U. S. government, whose neutrality had been asked, interposed its authority, and the project was reluctantly abandoned. Flint's Mex. under Max., 31-6. Mowry, like Arrangoiz, would have the world believe that only the conservatives and their clerical allies, with perhaps a few of the less objectionable liberals, had anything at stake in Mexico worth protecting.
- ↑ Gutierrez Estrada, Padre Miranda, José Hidalgo, Muñoz Ledo, Almonte, and others. Most of them, if not all, had been in Paris a long time, and knew little or nothing of the real state of affairs in Mexico. They were not
its first number said that the conservative party abhorred and rejected every scheme tending to diminish or imperil the national independence. In the second number it advocated centralism in the form proposed in 1855; and in the sixth the language was most explicit: 'piensa que conviene al país la forma de gobierno republicana, representiva, popular, central.' Veritas, Nuevas Reflex. Cuest. Franco-Mex., 111-12.
