Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/161

 Noria, repudiating the existing powers, and proposing to retain military command until the establishment of a new order of things."

A bloody war of more than a year followed, in which the Porfiristas were utterly routed. Diaz, amnestied, presented himself at the capital, and was affably received by Lerdo, who assured him, on the part of the Government, that he might live tranquil without fear of persecution or harm. "Nothing," breaks forth our historian, in enthusiasm about these times, "gives a better idea of the constancy and elevation of the Mexican character, a heritage from its Spanish ancestry, than what passes in our wars, both civil and foreign. It appears that defeats but serve as stimulus and fresh aliment to the fray." Upon what possible theory these ambitious chiefs have always made their partisans so ready to be slaughtered for them, is a speculation which I shall not go into. Porfirio now remained quiet till 1876, when he issued the Plan of Tuxtepec, and rose against Lerdo, who had succeeded Juarez. He captured Matamoros by a bold stroke of strategy; was himself captured on shipboard; and escaped from the Lerdists by leaping into the sea, through the connivance of an American purser, whom he afterward made consul at St. Nazaire. After a series of such-like adventures his persistence won the day, and Lerdo took to flight. "Don Sebastian" Lerdo is spoken of as probably the most scholarly and accomplished President the republic ever had. He had been a school-master, however, and tried to govern the country in the pedagogue spirit to which he had been used. He lost favor, too, by his lack of military talent, and fled when his fortunes were by no means desperate. The country people were strongly on his side at first, but this singular thing happened—that, finding him unable to protect them