Page:The Fall of Maximilan's Empire.djvu/93

Rh was within the marine league from the shore at the time of the seizure (as some termed it), many American journals denounced the affair and called upon the government to take proceedings against the government of Mexico to cause the restoration of Santa Ana and his secretary within the jurisdiction of the United States. Other appeals were made also, one being on the distinct ground that the creditors of the general in the United States had large pecuniary interests in the safety of his person. His financial status certainly seemed in a complicated condition, and many different stories were rife regarding him. Some journals suggested that he was the victim of a well-arranged conspiracy by which large sums of money were fraudulently obtained from him ostensibly to fit out an expedition to reinstate him in power in Mexico, but really for division among the conspirators.

Regarding the legitimacy of the "Virginia's" proceedings it is certainly strange that she neither took in nor discharged cargo at Sisal, although that was presumably the object of her touching there, and this with other things seemed to point to the possibility of her having been chartered specially by Santa Ana for a filibustering expedition, and that she was not on one of her customary, peaceable, commercial trips. A discussion of that question, however, would lead into deeper water than this story was intended to navigate.