Polk, as we have seen, while devastating Mexico, was at all times sighing for peace. His presses teemed with the most brutal plans for " conquering peace."
" We must now," said one of them, " destroy the city of Mexico, level it with the earth on which it stands, serve Puebla, Perote, Jalapa, Saltillo, and Monterey in the same way, and then increase our demands till we insist on the perpetual possession of the Castle of Juan d'Ulua, as a ke}^ to the commerce of the Gulf of Mexico. This course would save hundreds of lives. Occupy all the seaports on the Gulf and the Pacific for revenue for the payment of the expenses of the war. Such a course would compel the Mexicans to sue for peace."
Said another : " Unless we distress the Mexicans, carry destruction and loss of life to every fireside, and make them feel a rod of iron, they will not respect us." Mr.
Polk's own organ, the official Union, declared : " Our work of subjugation and conquest must go on rapidly and with augmented force, and, as far as possible, at the expense of Mexico herself. Henceforth, we must seek PEACE, and compel it by inflicting on our enemies all the evils of war."
These barbarous sentiments, which were rife through the land, were aggravated in atrocity by the lying pretext on which they were urged. We, an invading foe, were to murder by wholesale, and level cities to the earth, to procure a peace that was ours the moment we ceased to assail the Mexicans. Did we choose to recal our armies, we well knew our enemy had no means of revenging the wrong we had done her. Mexico was fighting solely in self-defence, and the only peace we desired, the only peace we were ready to conquer, was the cession of tliv territory for which we had commenced the war.
Not only were the general precepts of justice and humanity thus set at defiance, but pains seemed to be taken to attract public admiration for