Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/617

Rh Santa Anna, whom he soon abandoned in favor of Herrera. As minister of war, he lost no opportunity to promote his own aims for the succession, notably by a persistent pursuit of his former conservative allies.

He took possession of the presidential chair on January 15, 1851, and at once managed to attract the ridicule of the opposition by petty regulations for the public offices, and for visitors and persons having business at the palace. While introducing no material change in the policy of Herrera, which was practically his own, he transferred the portfolios for relations and justice to Yañez and Aguirre, two well-known lawyers, and placed General Robles Pezuela in charge of the war department, retaining only the finance minister Payno.

The finance problem remained as ever the most difficult and troublesome, partly from the constant changes in laws and administration, which gave no time for a thorough reorganization, partly from the lack of men at the proper moment fitted to plan and carry out the reform, and most of all from the want of harmonious and intelligent coöperation between the executive and the legislative body and general and state