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206 down the Indian to kill him for loving home and liberty; only in the present instance the Indian was arrayed in the garb of the same European civilization which the other thought himself better capable of administering. Unpretentious, and with the patience and tenacity of his race, Juarez was prepared to meet any hardships and seek any refuge, intent only on the cause he had undertaken and the object for which he had aimed. To meet the French in open field at present seemed indeed suicidal, and he proposed rather to save the issue by distracting the enemy with desultory and rapid movements in small parties, especially east and west of his own position. The withdrawal of Brincourt, and the retrograde concentration of other bodies in different regions, lent confirmation to the rumor of a speedy French evacuation, under pressure from the northern republic, and to a revival of republican operations in all parts, as we have seen, under men like Diaz, Escobedo, Corona, Régules, and Alvarez, who now figured respectively as commanders-in-chief of the eastern, northern, western, central, and southern armies, with Ignacio Mejía for minister of war.

Although disappointed in the long-expected coöperation from the United States, the republicans felt grateful for the sympathy there so widely extended. Many feared their too active interference in view of the late disastrous loss of territory, and preferred the diplomatic and pecuniary aid which had so long helped to maintain them, and which now was forcing their main foe to fall back. A loan of thirty millions had just been placed in New York, with a success that in