assemble hastily in the metropolis. The abdication was, however, twice refused on the ground that congress, by accepting it, would necessarily sanction the legality of his right to wear the crown; nevertheless, that body permitted his departure from Mexico, after endowing him liberally with an income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, besides providing a vessel to bear him and his family to Leghorn in Italy.
Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete entered the capital on the 27th of
March, and were chosen by the old congress which quickly reassembled, as a triumvirate to exercise supreme executive powers until the new congress assembled in the following August. In October, 1824, this body finally sanctioned the federal constitution, which, after various revolutions, overthrows, and reforms, was readopted in the year 1847.
On the 14th of July, 1824, a vessel under British colors was perceived on the Mexican coast near the mouth of the Santander. On the next day, a Polish gentlemen came on shore from the ship, and, announcing himself as Charles de Beneski, visited General Felix la Garza, commandant of the district of Soto la Marina. He professed to visit that remote district,