Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/472

 466 meet him, was defeated on the 9th of October, and on the 13th the gallant garrison was relieved from danger by the pursuit and dispersion of the besiegers. Mexico was yet full of soldiers, which, if collected together, might have been made into a formidable army; but leaders and followers were demoralized, and no successful attempt was made. Bands of guerillas infested the country,—those daring and desperate horsemen who, acting individually or in small bodies, annoyed the army by suddenly swooping out of their places of concealment, murdering and plundering without mercy, and then escaping to their strongholds. These were now pursued relentlessly by the Americans, and their principal haunts broken up, though they for a long time proved a terrible scourge to the line of communication.

The most difficult matter now before the American commander was to conclude a permanent peace. A commissioner, Mr. Nicholas Trist, had been sent out by our government, with full powers to treat with the Mexicans for honorable peace. He had made overtures to them at different times, when they might have accepted them without a sacrifice of national honor; but these they rejected.

Now we were in a position to dictate such terms as we chose; but the difficulty was, to find a government with which to treat. The country was ours by right of conquest; but the United States, as a great nation, fully alive to the demands of the enlightened age in which these events were transpiring, forbore from committing any act that would irritate a noble though conquered people. It had been the policy of the commander-in-chief to allow no act of aggression to be committed; personal property had been respected; even the supplies for the army purchased and paid for.

[A.D. 1848.] A government was finally discovered with