Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/51

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PARTY STRIFE.
31

erected defences on the Chiquihuite, and held conferences at La Tejería with Wyke and Saligny, while Gasset made incursions into the interior for supplies, and to drive off annoying guerrilla parties. In these incursions toward La Antigua, Anton Lizardo, and on the Medellin road, he had many of his men killed and wounded, and some prisoners also fell into the hands of the jarochos. Martial law was declared in the states of Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Vera Cruz, and Tamaulipas.[1] Till the arrival of the British and French fleets, on the 6th and 7th of January, 1862, the Mexican flag waved side by side with the flags of the allied powers.

Mexico, at this critical period, was not free from her usual disturbed condition. In Yucatan the partisans of Acereto and Irigoyen were tearing one another to pieces, utterly disregarding the war of races which daily added to the number of its victims.[2] In Tamaulipas local dissension prevailed, the field of hostilities being Matamoros. On the northern frontier the Indians were depredating. In Zacatecas there were disgraceful acts against the governor. In the state of Mexico, Tulancingo was assailed by a reactionist party; Cuernavaca was occupied by Vicario; Actopan by Campos. In Jalisco, Lozada made himself master of Tepic. Marquez and Mejía carried on hostilities in the sierra of Querétaro and San Luis Potosí. Zuloaga, the self-styled president, through his so-called minister, Herrera y Lozada, in a circular of December 13th, had said that if the foreign powers were aiming at the conquest of Mexico, it should not be permitted; but he would favor the intervention if

    eral days in Puebla for the want of the sum of $8,000, which with great difficulty he obtained from merchants. Rivera, Gob. Mex., ii. 627; Id., Hist. Jalapa, v. 484.

  1. The same measure was adopted for other states at different times as the enemy approached, and it was repealed when circumstances permitted it. Dublan and Lozano, Leg. Mex., ix. 365-616, passim.
  2. Full particulars, with causes, may be found in Navarro, Informe, 65-176; and extracts from official documents in Buenrostro, Hist. Prim. y Seg. Cong., nos 69-7, 511-19.