Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/292

276 of their population and resources. I was much pleased with the eagerness with which many questions of local importance were discussed at General Calderon's table, where I met most of the members of Congress on the day that the sessions were opened. They were chiefly landed proprietors; not, perhaps, of very refined education, (for, under the guardianship of Spain, there were few Mexicans to whom that advantage was not denied,) but of much simplicity of manners, and possessing a practical knowledge of the evils, by the removal of which their own interests could be best promoted.

The most important question that has yet come before the Legislature of La Puebla, has been the claims of the Church for the arrears of interest due on money lent on mortgage, to the landed proprietors of the State, before the Revolution, which they have been prevented from paying by the general ruin of their estates during the civil war. From the great influence of the Church in La Puebla, and the determination which it at first evinced to insist upon the full extent of its dues, the discussion was attended with considerable difficulty; nor would it have been found easy to reconcile such opposite interests, had not the apprehension of an appeal to the Supreme Congress, on the part of the landholders, induced the clergy to consent to a composition, by which something is sacrificed by both parties, and thus the common loss pretty equally