Whether the President ever got much of the forced contribution from the clergy, I cannot say. At any rate, they have turned him out since; and for a very poor government have substituted mere chaotic anarchy, as Mr. Carlyle would call it.
While the siege was going on, all the commerce between Vera Cruz and the capital was interrupted, and, of course, trade and manufacturing felt the effects severely.
Nothing shews the capabilities of the country more clearly than the fact that, in spite of its distracted state and continual wars, its industrial interests seem to be gaining ground steadily, though very slowly.
The evil of these ceaseless wars and revolutions is not that great battles are here fought, cities destroyed, and men sacrificed by thousands. Perhaps in no country in the world are “decisive victories,” “sanguinary engagements,” “brilliant attacks,” and the like, got over with less loss of life.
Incredible as it may seem to any one who knows how many civil wars and revolutions occur in the history of the country for the last four or five years, I should not wonder if the number of persons killed during that time in actual battle was less than the number of those deliberately assassinated, or killed in private quarrels.
Cheap as Mexican revolutions are in actual bloodshed, we must recollect what they bring with them. Thousands of deserters prowling about the country, robbing and murdering, and spreading everywhere the precious lessons they have learnt in barracks. We know something in England of the good moral influence that garrisons and recruiting sergeants carry about with them; and can judge a little what must be the result of the spreading of numbers of these fellows over a country where there is nothing to restrain their excesses! As for the soldiers themselves, one does not wonder at their deserting, for they are in great part pressed men,