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106 a portion of the customs-funds, with which the foreign loans ought to have been paid.

This is the result produced by the withdrawal of the French co-operation before the appointed time.

I will say a few words more as to these results. Your excellency will understand that a powerful argument is contained in the fact that a large portion of the Mexican nation accept the French intervention, and likewise accepted and is now supporting the empire, in spite of their republican principles, which are those they were brought up in; for with the idea the intervention and the empire was connected that of good faith, order, and impartiality of government, and, consequently, that of the independence of the Latin race in the New World. This, at least, has been the way in which the grand conception of the Emperor Napoleon has been understood here.

Up to the present time, the emperor and the intervention have played a satisfactory part. The disorder in the financial department (which we are now considering) had disappeared, the payments were punctual, the revenue was no longer exposed to the speculations of stock-jobbery, and the loans subscribed in Europe were contracted in due form. If, after having exhausted the resources produced by these loans (as is the case), the emperor finds himself unable any longer to meet expenses, and is compelled to enter upon the old path of disorder, all the good effected by the new system will be undone, and the hopes which had been founded on it will become at least problematical. The final result may be obtained, but the fresh sacrifices and expenses that it will require will be prolonged and multiplied to an extent that no one can now foresee.

The alternative for your excellency is: either to impose a slight burden on the French treasury, in order to accomplish a work undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon himself, which is a work both grand in idea and useful in itself; or, to refuse to do it, and, consequently, to throw upon this very same treasury the necessity of a far more profuse outlay and more costly sacrifices.

The enterprise cannot be abandoned; will your excellency terminate it at a small expense? or will you leave to your