Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/666

 

political situation at the opening of 1854 was insufferable. War had become chronic. Half a century of internal dissension, with occasional foreign invasions, was not enough, it seems; for now it is renewed, or rather continued, the little misunderstanding with the United States not being allowed long to interfere with time-honored customs and current throat-cuttings. Puffed with vanity and blinded by flattery, Santa Anna had come to regard himself a god; he fancied he could regulate thought with bayonets. He had inklings of an intended movement against him in Guerrero, to guard against which he sent Colonel Rafael Espinosa as military commandant to Acapulco. This department, for the liberal ideas

(646)