Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/258

240 representative. Scott was placed by his orders under a military obligation to drive the government from Querétaro, and though he granted a de facto truce, thinly disguised by occupying a few places and intimating a desire for new instructions, a positive despatch might at any hour end that state of things.

Yet day after day passed. The Mexican government and commissioners felt obliged to stick at everything and to confer often by letter. January 8 Anaya's term expired by limitation; and, as Congress had not assembled, his predecessor became once more the provisional executive. Four days later an abortive insurrection at San Luis Potosí frightened the timid Peña nearly out of his wits, for it seemed like the prologue of a revolution, and he demanded.that before signing a treaty he should have sufficient American funds to provide adequate support against malcontents; but at length his commissioners, insisting that such a proposal would be indecorous, eliminated this difficulty. Finally the government stopped short at the financial consideration. It asked for thirty millions, and our commissioner, in view of the expenses already caused by the protraction of the war, would give but fifteen. On the twentyninth of January, therefore, Trist, in very considerate but very positive language, officially declared the negotiation ended.

By arrangement, however, Doyle informed the Mexican commissioners that enough time to communicate once more with Querétaro would be given. Through the same channel they received a hint from Scott, that he would protect the authorities against the dreaded revolution, should a treaty be signed, but would otherwise have to dislodge the government, and thenceforth hunt it like a deer on the mountain. Doyle talked with British directness and good sense. The commissioners brought all this pressure to bear on their government. It yielded; and, on the second of February, at the suburb of Guadalupe Hidalgo, seat of the most venerated shrine in Mexico, in the profound secrecy that had shrouded all these negotiations, the treaty was at last signed.ref>12

By its terms Mexico appeared to sacrifice, independently of Texas, an immense area; but she really suffered little, for she had no grip — and deserved to have none — upon California and New Mexico. Indeed she had found those distant regions merely embarrassing. Nor did she really cede any territory.