Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/394

374 the constitutional laws of 1836 shall remain without force.

3d. A convention shall be convoked, establishing the new constitution, upon the basis fixed in the Constitutive Act, which will begin to be in force directly.

4th. The elections of the members of the convention, will be verified according to the laws by which the deputies of the Constituent Congress were directed.

5th. His actual Excellency, the President, will form a provisional government, he being the chief, until the foregoing articles begin to take effect.

6th. No one shall be molested for political opinions manifested since the year '21 until now: consequently the persons, employments and properties of all who have taken part in this or in the past revolutions shall be respected.

7th, That the first article may take effect, the government will facilitate all that is necessary to both parties,"

The government have refused these second propositions; and at the same time make known to the Mexican world that various deserters from the opposite party assure them, that the pronunciados, including the principal chiefs, are occupied in destroying everything within the palace—that the general archives and those of the ministers, are torn in pieces, and that the despatches are taken to make cartouches, and so on. They end by accusing them of being all united with the most noted robbers and public highwaymen, such as a Ricardo Teo, a José Polvorilla, a Roman Chavez, a Juan Vega, a Rosas,