Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/84

 character, in 1847. It is said that as Shields was charging on that to the right, after the fall of the castle, Scott, fearing his imprudent haste, sent to detain him. The aide had got as far as the preliminary "General Scott presents his compliments, and begs to say——" when Shields, apprehending the message, cut him short with, "I have no time for compliments now," and hurried on, and got into the city before he could be overtaken.

Do the Mexicans bear us a grudge for all that? They seem just now to have amiably forgotten it, and far be it from me to revive such memories in a boasting spirit. There is a behind-the-scenes to it, here, upon the ground. It is pathetic, and by no means calculated to produce complacency, to read in the small history studied in the schools the Mexican account of what took place. The almost unbroken series of defeats from which they went up, without hope of success, to the slaughter are frankly admitted. The country was torn by internal dissensions. The generals went back from the field to put down or sustain governments, refused to aid one another in their operations, and availed themselves of the troops given them to seize upon power, instead of lighting the Americans. There were not less than eleven changes of government, chiefly violent, during the short course of the war. In February and March of the year in which, in September, the invaders made their entry there had been fighting in the streets of the capital for well-nigh a month between two presidents, neither strong enough to put the other down. Want of courage is not a Mexican failing. It was want of leaders, unity, everything that gives steadiness in a great crisis.

The land ostensibly aimed at by the so-called Improvement Company follows the Calzada of the Reform for a considerable part of its length. It lies vacant, except