power, or simply speculators who bought their commissions as a sort of illegitimate Government Annuities. The continual rebellions or pronunciamientos have increased the number of officers still further. Comonfort’s notion of degrading all the officers of the rebel army was a new and bold experiment. A very common course had been, when a pronunciamiento had been made anywhere against the then existing government, and a revolutionary army had been raised, for an amalgamation to take place between the two forces; intrigue and bribery and mutual disinclination to fight bringing matters to this peaceful kind of settlement. In this case, it was usual for the rebel officers to retain their self-conferred dignities.
I think this body of soldierless officers is one of the most troublesome political elements at work in the Republic. The political agitators are mostly among them; and it is they, more than any other class, who are continually stirring up factions and making pronunciamientos (what a pleasant thing it is that we have never had to make an English word for “pronunciamiento”). Several times, efforts have been made to reduce the Army List to decent proportions, but a fresh crop always springs up.
In the “lowest depth” of mismanagement to which Mexican military affairs have sunk, the newspapers still triumphantly refer to countries which surpass them in this respect, and, at the time of our arrival, were citing the statistics of the Peruvian Republic, where there are a general and twenty officers to every sixty soldiers, and as many naval officers as seamen.
These officers are not subject to the civil administration at all, whatever they may do. They have their fuero, their private charter, and are only amenable to their own tribunals, just as the clergy are to theirs. To the ill effects of the presence of such armies and such officers in the country, we must add the continual interruptions to commerce arising from