Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/719

Rh dissipations of the capital, which caused serious dissension in his family, resulting in frequent ebullitions of his imperious temper. He had already squandered most of his ill-gotten fortune before the constitution was promulgated in Mexico; and his impoverished condition was the very one which might be expected to influence a man of his character to accept proposals that offered him an opportunity of winning rank, honors, glory, and wealth. Overtures were therefore made to him; and in order to further his own projects, he pretended to enter into the plans of the malecontent party, and offered his services to the viceroy, who at this time was himself inclined to ignore the constitution, and contemplated maintaining the form of government as established by the laws of the Indies. Iturbide was aware that the object for which he was wanted was impracticable; but his aim was to secure a command, and to give the first impulse to a revolution which he hoped afterward to control as suited himself. The plan came to naught, however, through Apodaca being obliged to proclaim the constitution; but Iturbide did not fail to perceive that the very promulgation of the new system made a revolution inevitable, and accordingly formed his plans to direct it.

Clandestine meetings of different political parties were held in numerous places, and a great variety of opinions was expressed. The Spaniards mostly favored the constitutional system, or a modified form of it adapted to the conditions of the country. Among the Mexicans more diversified views prevailed; and though all wished for independence, they were divided both as to the mode of securing it and the form of government to be adopted. With regard to the first point, the extermination of the Spaniards, their expulsion from the country, and the more moderate