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Rh Mexico from dependence on the mother-country. He devised what is known as the "plan of Iguala," so named from the little town near Acapulco where it was first set forth. Three ideas are embodied in this plan—first, Mexican independence; second, the abolition of caste; third, the maintenance of the Roman Catholic Church. The country was to be governed by a junta, or council, until there could be imported from Europe a king whose blue blood would command the respect of all parties.

Priests and monks were now in love with Mexican independence. Church property had been confiscated in Spain, and there was good reason to fear that the vast estates, jewels, money and plate of the Church in Mexico would soon go the same way if the ties which held the two countries together were not sundered. Indeed, the Spanish Cortes had already commanded the Mexican prelates to disgorge their ill-gotten gains. It may well be supposed that Iturbide's response to the viceroy's orders aroused the slumbering hopes of every revolutionist in the land. With the eight hundred men with whom he started and thousands more who joined him on the way, the gay young general came marching into the capital with banners and music, and once more the war-cry of Hidalgo rang out through the streets of Mexico.

Iturbide found the Cortes torn with the dissensions of three parties, each eagerly claiming his support. A few urged a return to the old Bourbon principle of one-man power; other royalists insisted that, whoever was king, Mexico should have a constitutional government; and others, again, wished to throw overboard all these monarchists and establish a republic, taking the United States