Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/26

16 lie scattered over the plains at West Point, bearing the inscriptions "Vera Cruz," "Contreras," "Chapultepec," "Molino del Rey," and "City of Mexico," and some of which have older insignia, showing that they were originally captured by Mexican patriots from Spain in their struggles for liberty; together with every captured banner or other trophy preserved in our national museums and collections, be gathered up and respectfully returned to the Mexican people. For, to longer retain them and pride ourselves on their possession, is as unworthy and contemptible as it would be for a strong man to go into the street and whip the first small but plucky and pugnacious boy he encounters, and then, hanging up the valued treasures he has deprived him of in the hall of his residence, say complaisantly, as he views them, "See what a great and valiant man I am, and how I desire that my children should imitate my example!" If it is peace and amity and political influence, and extended trade and markets, and a maintenance of the Monroe doctrine on the American Continent that we are after, such an act would do more to win the hearts and dispel the fears and suspicions of the people of Mexico, and of all the states of Central and South America, than reams of diplomatic correspondence, and endless traveling trade commissioners and formal international resolutions. Society is said to be bound by laws that always bring vengeance upon it for wrong-doing—"the vengeance of the gods, whose mills grind slow, but grind exceeding small." What penalty is to be exacted of the great North American Republic for its harsh treatment and spoliation of poor, down-trodden, ignorant, superstitious, debt-ridden Mexico, time alone can reveal. Perhaps, as this great wrong was committed at the promptings or demand of the then dominant slave-power, the penalty has been already exacted and included in the general and bloody atonement which the country has made on account of slavery. Perhaps, under the impelling force of the so-called "manifest destiny, a further penalty is to come, in the form of an equal and integral incorporation of Mexico and her foreign people into the Federal Union. But, if this is to be so, the intelligent and patriotic citizens of both countries may and should earnestly pray that God, in his great mercy, may yet spare them.

In 1861, Louis Napoleon, taking advantage of the war of the rebellion in the United States, and regarding (in common with most of the statesmen of Europe) the disruption of the Great Republic as prospectively certain, made the suspension by Mexico of payment upon all her public obligations, a great part of which were held in Europe, a pretext for the formation of a tripartite alliance of France, England, and Spain, for interfering in the government of the country; and in December, 1861, under the auspices of such alliance, an Anglo-French-Spanish military force landed and took possession of Vera Cruz. From this alliance the English and Spanish forces early withdrew; but the French remained, and soon made no secret of their intent