Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/308

300 When he was penned up in some city on the borders or hiding in the wilderness, if he could not do anything else, he would keep alive the wavering faith of friends abroad and write words of dauntless courage and sublime trust in the future of his country. For two years and a half while Juarez and his cabinet were in the State of Chihuahua they had no communication with their many friends in the South and the West except through Señor Romero, their faithful minister in Washington.

The liberals averaged a battle a day for a whole year. Unaided and unrecognized save when a friendly cheer came now and then from some sister-republic at the North or the South, Mexico's battle for freedom was fought alone. In our war for independence France came to the rescue and turned the scale. Poor Mexico! Ridiculed, upbraided, despaired of, yet when was there ever a braver, truer struggle for liberty than was hers? Thrilled by the voice of a few patriot-statesmen —themselves poor and hunted like deer in the forest, yet determined to break down the barriers to the nation's progress— six millions of people who could neither read nor write, with the fetters of paganism still clinging to them, and with burdens of poverty and debt which found no helper, arose against their enemies and successfully grappled with the craft and greed and despotism of Rome, and the well-trained soldiery of France, and the timidity and ambition of would-be leaders.

No trumpet that Juarez blew ever had an uncertain sound. With that tenacity of purpose which is so characteristic of his race, the salvation of the republic became with him a master-passion. At one time, when enemies in disguise were urging him to yield to the mediation of England, he saw in their proposition a compromise with