Mexico than the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in England. Its sum and substance is the proposal of a constitutional monarchy in Mexico, with a foreign prince (not named) at its head, as the only remedy for the evils by which it is afflicted. The pamphlet is written merely in a speculative form, inculcating no sanguinary measures or sudden revolution; but the consequences are likely to be most disastrous to the fearless and public-spirited author."

M. Gutierrez Estrada went to Europe and laid his views, in the course of the Forties, before the Courts of Austria, Bavaria, and Paris, but the great cataclysm of 1848 diverted attention from them just when they seemed about to be going to make some way, and the project of giving a ruler to Mexico slumbered for many a long year upon the European continent. At length it was taken up by the Emperor of the French, who, fancying that the United States were going to be broken up, thought that he saw an opportunity to put France at the head of a movement for regenerating the Latin race, and raising up a power in the New World which might cope successfully with the irrepressible Anglo-Saxon. We shall see presently that he had a peculiar interest in the Isthmus region of America, from an incident in his own early career; and I am afraid that persons high in the Imperial favour had interests to serve in Mexico, which had neither a romantic nor a political character. The ruler who seemed to him and to others who were active in the intrigue, best suited for the place, was the second brother of the Emperor of Austria, a brilliant and highlygifted Prince, possessing a very large share of all the accomplishments and all the virtues. He was married to a daughter of Leopold, who united the Orleans with the Coburg blood, and was a person of quite extraordinary merit. An English visitor to Mexico-one of the keenest and least likely to be dazzled by enthusiasm of contemporary mankind-thus describes them as they appeared to him when sojourning in their capital:

"With all his soul, and with all his might, he sets himself to do his best. Of charming manners, thoroughly frank, cordial, and gentlemanly, highly educated, widely travelled, so industrious that he begins his work every morning at four, and scarcely allows himself a moment's leisure, and never a moment's recreation, he presents the ideal of an Emperor trying to do his duty, and fitted no less by nature than by birth for imperial station. He is a thoroughly good man, and his goodness tells. The Mexicans cannot help liking and admiring him, and even those who detest the Empire have a kindly feeling for the Emperor. But it would be idle flattery not to add that he has his faults. He is too impetuous, and too much under the influence of those of his advisers who substitute an intense attention to details, and an adhesion to the bureaucratic traditions of Continental Europe, for wide views of policy, and an accommodation of the system of government to the real circumstances under which the Empire is placed. He is also in one sense too good for Mexico. He does not make allowance enough for people of a different stamp and grade of civilisation, and is too keenly alive to the failings of Indianized Spaniards. Unfortunately, both for him and for themselves, those of his subjects whom he offends bear his displeasure far too passively. They are mortified, but they do not venture to show their mortification. If, when a minister found his opinions rejected, his work thrown aside, and his official capacity treated as something too babyish to deserve even the semblance of consideration, he were to insist on resigning, he would do something to raise himself and his nation in the eyes of the Emperor. When he first went over, the Emperor was honestly prepared to be altogether a Mexican, and to govern through his subjects, and almost every measure which has been taken to conciliate the Mexicans and to soothe their pride has been due to the personal inspiration of the Emperor himself. But he has not been able to stand the trial of finding that Mexicans are Mexicans, and the disappointment caused by discovering

how deficient they are in the qualities which mark a good governing and dominant race has made him, perhaps, a little unjust to the many amiable and praiseworthy traits of their character. The Empress, too, has evidently had her share in the disappointment which her husband has felt. No one can help admiring her. In any country, even if she were not an Empress, she would scarcely find a rival for grace, dignity, refinement, and nobleness of look and bearing. She has conferred on Mexican society an inestimable advantage, for it has now at its head a lady whom all ladies can, without jealousy or misgiving, acknowledge to be indisputably and absolutely their superior. But she has had, it is said, or fancies she has had, great cause of complaint against some of those whom she has admitted to her society, and she has not hesitated to show her displeasure. Too high-minded to stoop to local favourites, and too honourable to set foreign friends over the Mexican ladies of her Court, she has retired into an isolation that is almost complete; and as she is far too able a woman not to possess and exercise a great political influence, it is possible that some of the steps by which, in spite of his ardent desire for their welfare, the Emperor has in some measure separated himself from his subjects, might be traced to the counsel or suggestions of the Empress."

You remember the early days of their expedition, the high hopes of many, the whispered warnings of a few, amongst whom in this country Mr. Kinglake was the most conspicuous. Gradually the news grew better and better, till it was at its best. Then the tide began to turn. Complication followed complication, and disaster, disaster, till the dark and terrible end in the month of June 1867.2

In the autumn of last year, Juarez, whose fortunes during the success of the Empire had sunk to the lowest ebb, but who

1 "Mexico"-reprinted from the Saturday Review.

2 The best account which I have seen of the whole of this tragedy is contained in a Lecture delivered at Bridgnorth by Sir John Acton.

had clung tenaciously to his legal position as the constitutional President of the Mexican Federal Republic, and had lived to see the wheel come full circle, was once more elected President, the term for which he was previously elected having come to an end. He broke off all diplomatic relations with those countries which had recognised the Mexican Empire, and therefore, of course, with our own. We have now, then, no mission in Mexico, but Lord Stanley, who, by a memorable answer made last year to an excited questioner, on his own side of the House, had shown that the pity and horror caused by the execution of Maximilian had not blinded him to the strong legal position of Juarez, showed by an answer to Mr. Kinglake given at the very end of the Session, that no obstacle would be thrown by us in the way of a return to a normal state of things.

During the past year Juarez seems to have had his hands full enough, revolts breaking out in different parts of the country, and the usual insecurity of life and property prevailing. What will be the end of it all, or whether there can be any end, except the absorption of Mexico into the North American Union, it is very hard to say; but Europe, we may be very sure, will not again interfere to give a new chance to this most miserable of countries. An English company is engaged in forming a railroad from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico, which has got as far at least as Puebla, if not further, and when finished will be some help towards the creation of a strong Government; but that is but one good influence amongst a thousand evil

ones.

A very interesting letter, dated September 28, appeared in the Times, signed by a British resident in Mexico, who declared that he had resided there for the last four years, and had been a witness of all the events which have occurred. This gentleman, who unfortunately did not give his name, speaks in the highest terms of the conduct of the Juarists after they captured the city in June 1867. He says that the notables who had taken a leading part in supporting the empire were only im

L

prisoned for a few months and fined; that complete liberty of conscience and of the press had been maintained, and the constitution of 1867 rigorously adhered to. He further testifies that since Juarez triumphed there have been no forced loans, no exactions; that the insurrections of which we hear through the New York press are mere local risings against unpopular governors, and that the feeling dominant in Mexico since she recovered her freedom is an exaggerated sense of national dignity, highly unfavourable to any projects of annexation, which some people imagine to be slumbering in the minds of American statesmen. Further, he assures us that since the suspension of diplomatic relations, the interests of British subjects resident in Mexico have received the fullest protection from the native authorities, and that the Finance minister acknowledges, in principle, the claim of the bondholders, although he rejects the arrangements entered into by Maximilian's Government.

Till the recent interruption of diplomatic relations, which will, it is to be hoped, only be temporary, we were represented in Mexico by a minister at the capital, and by consuls or inferior consular officers at the very important silver mining towns of Guanaxuato and Real del Monte, both well described by Mr. Bullock; at San Blas, a wretched village on the Pacific coast, and Mazatlan a more important place, not far from it, which was brought into disagreeable notoriety by the insult, or supposed insult, lately offered there to the British flag; at Tepic in the interior, not far from San Blas; at the eastern sea-ports of Matamoros, Tampico, and Vera Cruz; at Orizaba, the beauty of which dwells in the recollection of all travellers, and whose celebrated peak is the first Mexican object which is apparent to vessels approaching from the Atlantic; at Zacatecas; at San Luis Potosi, and at Merida in the remote peninsula of Yucatan.

CENTRAL AMERICA.-We now pass to a region for which nature has done even more than she has for that through