An historical Sketch.—Truth seldom spoken of Santa Anna.—Santa Anna's early Life.—Causes of the Revolution.—The Virgin Mary's Approval of King Ferdinand.—The Inquisition imprisons the Vice-King.—Santa Anna enters the King's Army.—The plan of Iguala.—The War of the two Virgins.—Santa Anna pronounces for Independence.
Before commencing our journey to the interior, we must break the thread of our narrative by a brief biographical sketch: for this town is the birth-place, and here began the public career of that man whose life has become the history of his country. With him the Mexican Republic began, and with him it has been terminated. In 1822 he was first to proclaim a Republic in the Plaza of Vera Cruz; and when I stood in the Plaza of the city of Mexico, in the winter of 1854, I heard him proclaimed absolute ruler of a state which had already ceased to be a Republic. This was not the first time that he had been raised to absolute authority in Mexico, but the third time that this had occurred in his checkered career—a career that resembles more the vicissitudes in the life of a hero of Spanish romance than the memoirs of a living politician.
SANTA ANNA.
Santa Anna is a man of whom the truth has seldom been spoken; for no man can raise himself from a humble position to be the embodiment of all the powers of the state without creating a host of enemies; nor can a man be long in possession of absolute authority without raising up a tribe of flatterers. To the one, he is every thing that is shocking to humanity; while to the other he is the perfection of all the moral qualities. This scurrilous manner in which all political discussions are carried on in Mexico, has always furnished a ready apology for the