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Rh They were therefore allowed to resign on the 17th of May. But the action, which four months previously might have been beneficial, produced no good effects now. The congress had expected much from the firmness of the cabinet, so often proclaimed as it had been in divers ways. It was thought that the ministers would not leave their posts till they had triumphed, or Santa Anna had been persuaded to tender his submission. Their present action was a disappointment, and the states were disgusted with the undignified course of the chambers.

When General Calderon abandoned the siege of Vera Cruz he left 800 men under Rincon on the puente nacional to keep Santa Anna in check; the latter, however, got the better of Rincon, cutting off his communications with the main body of the government army. Rincon having retreated to Los Órganos, Santa Anna went to the hacienda El Encero, and an armistice was agreed upon and signed at Corral Falso on the 13th of June, with the object of holding conferences on the puente nacional, to treat of peace, on the 6th of July. Nothing resulted therefrom, however, except a promise on Santa Anna's part to undertake no operation against the government troops during forty-eight hours reckoned from the morning of the 13th.

The failure of these, negotiations resulted from Santa Anna's refusal to accept any proposition from