Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/835

Rh and legislator, and sought to rule the people as he had his regiments. Disregarding tact, he blundered into despotism. None had forgotten his past career, his cruel warfare against the revolution, and his greed as a governor, the Spaniards also disliking him as an ambitious creole. The newly risen party availed themselves of royalist errors and weakness to step in and secure the fruit of a ten years' struggle; but the old leaders who had yielded before the rush of their success stood resolved on their course. They would use that party in their turn, snatch back the prize, and carry out the great project momentarily interrupted.

The diversity of races with different feelings and interests, fostered by geographic distribution and separate guerrilla wars, inclined the people naturally to a republic, one of federal form, for which the despotism of Iturbide gave fresh zest. This diversity stamped also the political attitude, seldom bold and strong in policy, but procrastinating yet impetuous, suspicious and vacillating, and with a tendency to cover ulterior designs by plausible projects and methods in consonance with the secretive aboriginal trait and the Spanish regard for form. Hidalgo and Rayon used the mask of Fernando to propitiate a large class; Mina did the same with the constitution of 1812; and so the dissimulation varied in relations with different sections and leaders. Morelos made a frank avowal of purpose, but it came inopportunely. Iturbide took a middle course, although still disguised; but his was rather a coup-d'état.

Those who like Alaman give undue prominence to the revolution of 1821 overlook that it was based essentially on the feelings and hopes of the people, wrought to a culminating point by their long efforts. The moment was ripe—independence was inevitable, as Iturbide admitted—and so made by his predecessors in the field. Without that preparatory work, the