clerico-conservative element which had created him. To pursue further so fruitless a policy seemed therefore out of the question.
As early as January 1866 he began to consider a change;[1] yet when in March Ramirez, Esteva, Peza, and Robles[2] resigned, in face of the hopeless prospects, he still chose for their successors moderate republicans, in the persons of General García, Francisco Somera, a rich land-owner, and Salazar Ilarregui, lately commissioner in Yucatan, intrusted respectively with the portfolios of war, fomento, and gobernacion. Luis Arroyo, late minister at Washington, was given charge of foreign relations as under-secretary. Artigas was dismissed from the department of public instruction,[3] which, merged into that of gobernacion and the treasury control,[4] passed to J. M. Lacunza, president of the council, now made president of the cabinet. Several of these changes were dictated by economy. The conspiracy of July brought about the disimssal of Lacunza, Somera, García, and the older member Escudero;[5] and now a decided approach was made toward the conservatives, by appointing Teodosio Lares minister of justice;[6] the departments of fomento and gobernacion were combined. The effect of this departure was neutralized among Mexicans by the otherwise commendable surrender of the war and finance divisions to two Frenchmen, General D'Osmont and Friant, intendant-general of the army, and by the appointment of Father Fischer[7] as chief of his cabinet, who
- ↑ Asking Almonte in fact to suggest a new cabinet; but the general did not believe in his sincerity, and did not do so.
- ↑ The last three were made comisarios, and the learned Ramirez president of the academy of sciences, all receiving a decoration. See letters to them, in Arrangoiz, Méj., iv. 79-81.
- ↑ Receiving the post of abogado-general in the supreme court.
- ↑ M. de Castillo had charge of the treasury and foreign relations for a while. Among new comisarios were Bureau, Saravia, and Iribarren, and the generals Castillo, Portilla, Casanova, and Gutierrez received the military control of divisions 4, 5, 7, and 8.
- ↑ 'Sin darles aviso previo,' says Iglesias, Revistas, iii. 635, but Arrangoiz reproduces a courteous letter to Lacunza. Méj., iv. 72, 77, 112.
- ↑ Assisted by T. Marin, president of the Tribunal at Mexico.
- ↑ A German Lutheran, who after a varied life as colonist, notary, and gold--
