Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/141

112 this hemisphere continued to be discussed in the Mexican press. "Republics of South America," cried La Aurora de la Libertad, for example, "your existence also is in danger; prepare for the combat;" and it was easy to believe that official appeals for assistance, in the event of actual invasion, would not fall upon deaf ears.

And there were still better grounds, it was reckoned, for expecting aid from abroad In the first place, holding more or less honestly that we had trampled on the law of nations, the Mexicans persuaded themselves that every civilized country would feel an interest in their cause. The justice of our case against the United States, declared the official Diario, will be recognized at once by all governments to which "public faith and honor are not an empty name." This view was encouraged in Europe. The cause of Mexico, said the Liverpool Mail, is that of all just and honest governments. The Mexicans have good ground to complain, proclaimed the sympathetic Journal des Débats, for "they have been tricked and robbed."

Covered with so liable a sentiment as devotion to the cause of justice, more practical considerations could be expected to exert their full influence. In Mexico as well as in the United States, the monarchies of Europe were believed to view with jealousy the success of our republican institutions. Our policy of "America for the Americans," which the British minister, Ward, had turned against Poinsett at Mexico, was contrary to the interest of every commercial nation beyond the Atlantic. The United States, exclaimed Le Correspondant of Paris, assumes to exclude Europe from the affairs of that continent — as if Europe had not had rights and possessions there before the United States began to be! as if the United States did not owe its existence to Europe as if the ocean could change the law of nations; and leading journals in London expressed similar indignation.

As the whole World understood, great Britain had not yet forgiven us for becoming independent, and viewed with great repugnance our extensions of territory, our commercial development and our control over raw cotton; and it was obvious that she would be glad to stop our growth. Sooner or later. warned the British press, the course of this monster will have to be checked. Guizot, the premier of France, regarded the