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DECLINING PRODUCE

CHAP. XXV.

A viceroy appointed by the Cortes arrived inMexico just as the authority of those who com-missioned him had been disowned in that country.A general who had led the Spanish armies, Itur-bide, placed himself and the troops he com-manded at the head of a revolution. The vice-roy could not resist, and he either joined oraffected to join with them, but was removed bydeath before his designs could be developed.

The power fell into the sole hands of Iturbide ,who attempted to retain it under that kind ofrepresentative government w'hich, whenever theexperiment has been attempted, has utterly failedof success. He was nominated president, andafterwards emperor; he abdicated, banished him-self, returned again to try his influence, and onlanding was paid the penalty of his folly by thehands of military executioners.

In the seven years that have passed since thatevent, a variety of projects of constitutions havebeen tried, a variety of rebellions have been raised,and in spite of loans originating in the knaveryacting upon the folly of Europeans, bankruptcyhas ensued, and scarcely a symptom of order, andnone of prosperity, has yet appeared.

This slight historical sketch of the events inMexico for the last twenty years seemed ne-cessary, in order to explain the causes of thedefalcation in the produce of the mines of that