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274 Cortes met, and three distinct parties were soon organized amongst the members. The Bourbonists, who wished to adhere to the plan of Iguala altogether, and to have a Constitutional monarchy, with a Prince of the House of Bourbon at its head. The Republicans, who denied the right of the army to pledge the nation by the plan of Iguala at all, and wished for a Central or Federal Republic: and the Iturbidists, who adopted the plan of Iguala, with the exception of the article in favour of the Bourbons, in lieu of whom they wished to place Iturbide himself upon the throne.

Upon the merits of the respective creeds of these parties, I shall make no comments: each probably thought that it had good reasons for adopting that which it did adopt, and each, certainly, hoped to derive considerable advantages from the triumph of its own.

The Bourbonists soon ceased to exist as a party, the Cortes of Madrid having, by a Decree dated the 13th of February, 1822, declared the Treaty of Cordova "to be illegal, null and void, in as far as the Spanish Government and its subjects were concerned," thereby precluding the possibility of the acceptance of the crown of Mexico by a junior member of the Royal Family. The struggle was thenceforward confined to the Iturbidists and the Republicans, between whom a violent contest was long carried on,—the Congress accusing the Regency, audits President, of wasteful expenditure, and Iturbide as