Whilst these internal contests were agitating the heart of Mexico, an expedition had been fitted out at Havana composed of four thousand troops commanded by Barradas, designed to invade the lost colony and restore it to the Spanish crown. The accounts given of this force and its condition when landed at Tampico, vary according to the partizans by whom they are written; but there is reason to believe that the Spanish troops were so weakened by disease and losses in the summer of 1830, that when Santa Anna and a French officer,—Colonel Woll—attacked them in the month of September, they fell an easy prey into the hands of the Mexicans. Santa Anna, however, with his usual talent for such composition, magnified the defeat into a magnificent conquest. He
was hailed as the victor who broke the last link between Spain and her viceroyalty. Pompous bulletins and despatches were published in the papers; and the commander-in-chief returned to the capital, covered with honors, as the saviour of the republic.
There is an anecdote connected with the final expulsion of the Spaniards from Mexico, which deserves to be recorded as it exhibits a fact which superstitious persons might conceive to be the avenging decree of retributive providence. Doña Isabel Montezuma, the eldest daughter of the unfortunate Emperor had been married to his successor on the Aztec throne, and, after his wretched death, was united to various distinguished Spaniards, the last of whom was Juan Andrade, ancestor of the Andrade Montezumas and Counts of Miravalle. General Miguel Barragan, who afterwards became president ad interim of Mexico, and to whom the castle of San Juan de Ulua was surrendered by the European forces—was married to Manuela Trebuesta y Casasola, daughter of the last Count of Miravalle, and it is thus a singular coincidence that the husband of a lady who was the legitimate descendant of Montezuma, should have been destined to receive the keys of the last stronghold on which the Spanish banner floated on this continent! 1