Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/828

812 beside those of Hidalgo, Morelos, and Bravo. Independence as finally achieved was the work not of an individual. Iturbide would have failed at the outset had not circumstances combined to aid him. When he proclaimed the plan of Iguala, he would inevitably have been crushed had Liñian obeyed the viceroy's orders. But he was left unmolested. Military chiefs in every part of the country then took up the work, and in all the principal provincial capitals independence was consummated without his presence. Apodaca's inactivity made the rest easy, and finally O'Donojú's liberalism opened to him the gates of Mexico. But it must be admitted that spasms of political sagacity were displayed by Iturbide, and that he acted with consummate skill and sound judgment on occasions. He knew well the public mind, and seized upon the right moment to arouse its feelings. Thus it was that his elevation was rapid and almost bloodless.

With a brief summary, I close this volume on the Mexican revolution. It was the transition period from political and intellectual despotism into the elemental conditions of a free nation. The evils afflicting the colonial existence were what might be expected from relations between a jealous and exacting mother country and a rich dependency, aggravated, by opposing interests and geographic position, such as exclusive control of desirable offices, due to partiality and suspicion of loyalty; oppressive restrictions of trade and industries, due to selfishness and greed; and irritating class distinctions, due partly to the comparatively inferior rank of emigrants to that at least of the men sent to govern them. But these abuses and wrongs had here attained a far greater extent under Spanish pride and narrow-mindedness than in the English colonies, owing to the admixture of settlers with the aborigines, and the growth of a new race, which under the oppressive subordination of