was true or not. When it is positively known that everything continues in the same or rather in a worse condition than before, public discount, hitherto restrained by illusory hopes, will be plainly manifested. Of those hopes are probably those given by Rouher in the French corps législatif, that by the 1st. of January, 1865, the expeditionary corps in Mexico would be reduced to 25,000 men, who would also withdraw soon, although no term was fixed. The minister affirmed, notwithstanding, that they would remain but a short while in the country, when the traitor army is being increased and organized, and where the Marquis of Montholon has declared with more than French thoughtlessness, in his official correspondence, that everything has terminated favorably for the empire, opposed by but a few armed bands of robbers. When the real state of affairs is known, we shall see what Napoleon will do, remembering, while we watch his fickle proceedings, two very important facts revealed in our last correspondence, that his intellect is on the wane, and that Eugenie, the clergy's fanatical fool, exerts more influence over him every day.

"Respecting the Mexican empire, it will be well to examine the different eventualities it may encounter. The first and decidedly its most desirable one is that the French army should remain in the country. But this arrangement, though it will lend efficient support to the throne, will, on the other hand, cause endless complications from the want of funds for the most urgent of the public expenditures. We should not forget that from to-morrow, July 1, all the disbursements belonging to Mexico and those of the French expeditionary corps are to come from the Mexican treasury. It is to be presumed that the latter will be attended to in preference, even though it should be necessary to leave the principal branches of the administration in the completest neglect. All that can be collected, however, will not suffice for the simultaneous expenses of the auxiliary troops and the transport service. In a short time there will be breaches of the compact, and we cannot say what will be done then, such an occurrence not being comprehended in the Miramar convention. First one deficit and then another, until the empire dies of inanition, unless it should perish of something else before.

"Its defunction will be more rapid should it soon miss its only element of vitality—that is, foreign assistance. The days of its ephemeral existence will then be fewer because the ultra reactionary party (the only one that upholds it) is impotent alone, as our history repeatedly proves, to surmount the difficulties of the situation, or even to oppose much resistance. This party, a galvanized corps that will remain utterly motionless as soon as the volaic pile that gives it life be withdrawn, is to-day more than ever despised and known to be a nullity. We see, therefore, that in the only two cases possible the result will be the same, the only difference being the length of time. In what we have said regarding events near at hand, any one will be able to prove our remarks. Until the day of fulfilment arrives we must follow the clue of the events that are to prepare it.

"Our last advices from Mexico are of the 19th instant. So far there was no cabinet, nor any announcement of the Austrian's political programme. The sub-secretaries of state still performed their functions of a secondary order under the direction of the portfolioless Velazquez. Endeavors were being made to induce some of the liberals of the extinguished moderate party to accept posts under the new government. We understand that these endeavors will be fruitless, those invited refusing to commit an act of the blackest treason, which would admit of no excuse. Their refusal will force Maximilian over to the side of the only people who care for the duration of his reign; and the same will happen with respect to his politics, which the force of necessity will change from contemporizing and fusionist at first, into exclusivist and reactionary under pain of having to adopt none at all, and of carrying out his promised abdication.

"From the beginning of his reign the flatterers of the Austrian prince have not hesitated to give him the title of great, reserved by history for the eminent men to whom nations owe great benefits, or who have at least immortalized themselves by their uncommon actions. The so-called emperor of Mexico has done, and has been able to do, nothing to deserve so distinguished a surname. We do not know what will in future be his proper appellation in view of his acts. For the present, taking into consideration his good and bad qualities, he should be called Maximilian the Early-riser, Maximilian the Devout, Maximilian the Candid, Maximilian the Usurper.

"The Mexican empire is the fruit of an abortion. Rickety, emaciated, and ill-combined, it will have a sickly life and an early death.

SIR: I have had the honor of receiving your note of the 9th instant, transmitting, for the information of this government, a copy of the printed sheet called "The Foreign Question," issued at the city of Monterey, Mexico, and containing a trustworthy account of the political events which have occurred in the republic of Mexico during the month of July, 1864.

Thanking you for your considerate attention, I tender to you renewed assurances of my consideration.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Señor MATIAS ROMERO, &c., &c., &c., Washington, D. C.

Mr. Romero to Mr. Seward.
[Translation.]

MEXICAN LEGATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Washington, 12th of January, 1865.

MR. SECRETARY: I have the honor to transmit to you, for the information of the government of the United States, extracts from a political review published in the city of Chihuahua on the 31st of October, 1864, which contains an impartial and correct account of the public events which have transpired in the northern states of the Mexican republic during the said month of October and the previous one of September. I also enclose with this note another review recently published in New York, which contains important news from the city of Mexico, the former capital of the republic, and which shows the true state of affairs at the present time in the part of the country occupied by the French. With the same object I accompany an important letter written from Vera Cruz to a French paper published in New York.

I avail myself of this occasion to reproduce to you, Mr. Secretary, the assurances of my most distinguished consideration.

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, &c., &c., &c.

M. ROMERO.

[Enclosure No. 1.]

"THE FOREIGN QUESTION."

Our last correspondence from Mexico, which scarcely reaches the early part of August, relates various notable cases demonstrating the absolute dependence of the so-called sovereign of that country on the French authorities.

The revocation of the contract by virtue of which the Seminario Consiliar was made the property of a Spanish subject had not been carried into effect, although it was done by Maximilian. The opposition of the French minister had been stronger than the imperial will, obliged, as it is, to submit under the tutelage in which his position places him.

An embargo being issued against Mr. Alfred Balbot, he resisted by force its execution, assisted by some French zouaves. Remonstrance was made for this attempt upon the administration of justice; but a becoming decision had not been obtained, the authority of the judge being entirely disregarded, only because the party interested was a Frenchman, and he relied on the protection of his countrymen, the veritable lords of that portion of the republic subjugated by the intervention, and where there are no laws, nor tribunals, nor any other guarantees save those they feel inclined to allow.

The guerilla Guzman, being sentenced to death by one of the French courtmartials, which are now disposing at pleasure of the lives of the Mexicans, some influential persons from Guanajuato interested themselves in saving his life, and asked Maximilian, by telegraph, to pardon him, which he did. Bazaine knowing this, opposed the revocation of the sentence given by the court, and the socalled emperor of Mexico, instead of insisting on the fulfilment of his order-as his dignity demanded-tried to obtain from the French general as a favor to relent in his opposition. We are ignorant of the denouement of this disgraceful incident.

In order to put an end to the grievous burden of the tax of one-tenth of eight per cent. which has been levied in order to defray the expenses of the French officers, his Imperial Majesty ordered that a proper decree should be drawn up for the purpose, revoking the previous one, and that it should be sent to the press for publication. Bazaine heard of it, and without any regard whatever to Maximilian, without condescending even to see him in person in order to induce him to suspend his determination, proceeded himself to the printingoffice to which the decree had been sent, in order to prohibit its being printed; and the decree was not issued, and the emperor patiently bore an outrage of so much magnitude.

These circumstances are eloquent enough of themselves, to spare us anything more than the simple narration of them, in order to present in all its deformity the abject and miserable subjection in which the interventionists, from the emperor down, find themselves to the bold adventurer who allows himself all these liberties, because he knows that on his assistance exclusively depends the existence of an order of things contrary to the national will, and because he is concerned with men who have lost every sentiment of honor.

So well convinced are all men now of the truth of this, especially as far as Maximilian is concerned, that in order to give in one word an exact idea of the sad part which he is acting, he is now designated by two ingenious nicknames. The French call him the Archdupe; the Mexicans, the Empeorador, (a man making things worse.)

In order to lay the foundation of the treasury of his empire, we do not know by any means what advice has been given him by the famous committee on finance, appointed for the purpose, and composed, in a measure by the direct

choice of the interventionist government, of strangers, ignorant of the statistics of the country, and of Mexicans who are also very far from being considered as very skilful financiers. We suppose that with the accession of the other members who are to be nominated by the departments, the populous committee will proceed to enter upon the discharge of the duties intrusted to them, in accordance with the terms of an intricate regulation, countersigned by the assistant secretary of the body, Don Martin Castillo, who has had the disgrace of being adorned, by Napoleon III, with the legion of honor.

No doubt it was thought to avoid the scandal produced by the assassinations of the court-martials, by the declaration that in the Mexican empire the French military code was in force, which had already been applied in all the cases that had occurred. The very fact of its being considered necessary to make this declaration will serve to show that the previous application of the French code has been, even in the eyes of the interventionists themselves, an assault upon the sovereignty of the country, borne indeed with patience, and in virtue of which penalties have been imposed entirely unknown in our legislation. The inopportune remedy that it has been sought to apply to an evil so serious, will only result in strengthening the conviction, for which so many other proofs abound, of the fact that the so-called Mexican empire, wherein Napoleonic laws prevail, and where tribunals of Napoleon himself are established, is in reality nothing else than a French colony.

Of the great measures by which the regeneration of Mexico is being effected, one of the chief is that of the obligation of hearing mass, as if the civil government should interfere in the religious actions of the governed. Desiring, nevertheless, to conciliate the command of the church with official duties, it has been ordered that officials should be present on Sabbath and other holy days also at their offices, for which the phrase has been used that they should attend to business (vaque al trabajo,) a gallicism by which we are very forcibly made to understand that it is sought even to extend the French intervention to the beautiful Castilian language.

The other administrative measures that have come to our knowledge are the creation of the general treasury, under the likewise Frenchified name of central chest, and the appointment to a diplomatic mission of D. Pablo Martinez del Rio, to whom the rights of Mexican citizenship were previously granted. The elevation of this new subject of the empire, the only act as yet known to be performed by the minister of foreign affairs, Ramirez, can be characterized simply as scandalous, when we remember that the individual thus honored, a native of South America, and an English subject for many years, belongs to a commercial house that has had a very direct hand in the serious grievances that have been endured by the national exchequer, in virtue of one of those diplomatic treaties by which foreign ministers have exerted so terrible and baleful an influence.

The heirs of the ancient titles of nobility of the epoch of the vice-regal gov ernment have commenced to resume those aristocratic distinctions, Don Antonio Hurtado, Conde del Valle, figuring among the first nobles. The presentation is already announced of various pretenders to titles and pensions, as descendants of the Emperor Montezuma. Those who know the history of the acquisition of the pompous titles which it is now proposed to restore, may be moved to smile at the pretensions and baubles of a ridiculous aristocracy, whose origin is in almost all cases derived from a very low extraction. With these laughable titles, the new ones will come to sport which Maximilian will undoubtedly confer upon his courtiers, with the aggravating circumstance that the recent nobility will be, not simply ridiculous, like the ancient one, but detestable and hateful, as emanating from infamy and treason.

In regard to the eternal question relative to ecclesiastical affairs, a noisy discussion has taken place between the Sociedad and the Estaffete. The former

of these periodicals, in accordance with its old and fanatical ideas, continued its opposition to all the reforms proper to the enlightenment of the age, although in practice it had already retrograded, being a thousand leagues away from the energy which it displayed as the organ of the party of reaction, when it was the liberal government of Mexico that decreed and carried into effect the salutary innovations, since sustained by General Bazaine, and which it is believed will be likewise accepted by Maximilian. The Estaffete, remarkable to a degree that no other paper is for the versatility of its editor, has, in matters ecclesiastical, reached the ground of good principles, although certainly disposed to combat them anew to-morrow, in case it should so suit the protectors who support him with so much generosity, that Barrés receives every month a thousand dollars of the revenue of Mexico.

In order to become acquainted with the provinces of his empire, Maximilian proposed in last August to undertake a journey, which, indeed, he did as far as Leon. Although he had intended to proceed further, it appears that some bad news which he received did not permit him to do so. We know that on the 15th of September he was at Dolores, where he delivered a speech, at half past eleven o'clock at night, from a window of the house of Hidalgo. This act of mockery on the part of the adventurer, who thus thought to manifest his feelings. in favor of Mexican independence, while he is in fact serving as an instrument in the hands of the crowned despot of France to deprive us of the precious benefit bequeathed to us by the immortal curate whose house he profaned, will serve to confirm the idea that the empire, and everything connected with it, is a miserable farce, which would only appear in a ridiculous character if the imperishable traces of its existence, which it is leaving everywhere, were not marked with blood.

In Mexico, also, the anniversary of our glorious emancipation was celebrated with sacrilegious solemnity. To the great disgust of the conservatives, who have always sought to place the 27th of September on a level with the 16th, a circular was issued by the so-called imperial government, prescribing that the feast of the 27th should not be celebrated. For the ceremonies of the 15th and 16th, there were particular places set apart for the court and the family of Iturbide, in the Cathedral, in the theatre, and in the public square, where Charlotte, in the absence of Maximilian, proceeded to lay the first stone of the monument consecrated to independence, as a new instance of the Austrian hypocrisy. A decree was likewise to be issued, establishing a house equally called by the name of Independence House, as if this were compatible with foreign domination.

Convinced that his government cannot be established except under the protection of French bayonets, the archduke has sought, in concert with Bazaine, to take advantage of the brief time that the expeditionary army in its actual strength is yet to remain in the country, in order to subject to the foreign yoke some of the States of the republic which have preserved themselves free from this plague, and especially to employ himself in destroying the national government, whose existence is a constant protest, and the most eloquent of all, against the supposed conformity of the Mexican people with the new order of things, proceeding from the will of Napoleon. In order to execute the above-mentioned project, the expeditions against Oaxaca and Monterey were undertaken and conducted at the same time that the ruin of the army of the centre was to be procured by the means of treason, when force of arms had been found impotent to conquer it.

*

In that of the centre, not only were the treacherous means fruitless that were employed to seduce it into following the defection of Uraga, but also, on the very contrary, the praiseworthy result of measures so treacherous only purified the valiant defenders of the good cause, who, after the resistance which they have offered to the attempts at seduction made at the most critical moments of