In every aspect of his character, we must regard him as one altogether inadequate to shape the destiny of a nation emerging from the blood and smoke of two revolutions,—a nation whose political tendencies towards absolute freedom, were at that time, naturally, the positive reverse of his own.
Death sealed the lips of men who might have clamored for him in the course of a few years, when the insubordinate spirit that was soon manifested needed as bold an arm as that of Iturbide, in his best days, to check or guide it. Public opinion was decidedly opposed to his sudden and cruel slaughter. Mexicans candidly acknowledged that their country's independence was owing to him; and whilst they admitted that Garza's zeal for the emperor's execution might have been lawful, they believed that revenge for his former disgrace, rather than patriotism, induced the rash and ruthless soldier to hasten the death of the noble victim whom fortune had thrown in his lonely path.
