Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/193

Rh defying the best sentiment of all classes of the people, defying humanity itself, he issued a decree which would have revolted Cortés himself. He ordered that all persons found in rebellion against his pretensions should be shot as outlaws. This appalling order sealed his own doom. The mercy he showed to Mexico, Mexico showed to him. It was a noble impulse which induced our Government to plead for his life on condition that he should leave the country whose soil, as a pretender to a crown, he had no right to touch. It would have been better heeded had Mexico been able to recall to life those whom, loving their native land, and justified in resisting foreign invasion, he had relentlessly sent to unhonored graves.

Could Mexico have hoped for much under a ruler who sought to force a monarchy upon a people who had heroically established a republic; from a prince whose exemplars were Napoleons; whose first step after his enthronement was the betrayal of those who had enthroned him, whose second was an order for the massacre of political opponents? What is there in the traditions of crowns won by invasion, maintained by treachery,