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Rh loudly accusing the Congress of an intention to destroy "the most meritorious part of the community"—the army, by not providing funds for its support. These bickerings were increased by the introduction of a project in the Congress, for reducing the troops of the line, from sixty, to twenty thousand men, and supplying the deficiency by calling out an auxiliary force of thirty thousand militia. This measure was most strenuously opposed by Iturbide, but was, nevertheless, carried by a large majority, in the beginning of April. From that moment his friends saw that his influence was on the wane, and that if they wished ever to see him upon the throne, the attempt must be made before the memory of his former services was lost. Their measures were concerted accordingly. No men of rank were employed in carrying them into execution, but recourse was had to the Sergeants, and noncommissioned officers of the garrison, who were, in general, much attached to Iturbide's person. These men, headed by one Pio Marcha, the first sergeant of the Infantry regiment No. 1, and seconded by a crowd of the leperos, (lazzaroni) by whom the streets of Mexico are infested, assembled before Iturbide's house on the night of the 18th of May, 1822, and proclaimed him emperor, under the title of Augustin the First, amidst shouts and Vivas, and firing, which lasted through the whole of the night. The old and stale manœuvre of pretending to yield, reluctantly, to the will of the people, was repeated upon this