THE MILITARY IN MEXICO BEFORE AND AFTER THE REVOLUTION—CONFIRMATION OF ARMY—ITS POLITICAL USE.—CHARACTER OF MEXICAN SOLDIERS—RECRUITING—TACTICS—OFFICERS.—DRAMATIC CHARACTER OF ARMY—RECRIMINATIONS.—CONDITION OF THE ARMY AT THE PEACE.—ARMY ON THE NORTHERN FRONTIER—MILITARY COLONIES.—CHARACTER OF THE TRIBES.—FORTRESSES—PEROTE—ACAPULCO—SAN JUAN DE ULUA.—REORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY—TABULAR VIEW OF MEN AND MATERIEL.—NAVY—EXTENT OF COAST ON BOTH SEAS.—NAVAL ESTABLISHMENT—VESSELS AND OFFICERS.—EXPENSES OF WAR AND NAVY.
WE have already alluded, in the historical portion of this work to some of the fostering sources of the Mexican army and to the evil results its importance has produced in the country. The colonial forces designed for the maintenance of order and due subjection in New Spain, were chiefly sent from the old world until the wars in Europe required the mother country to hoard its military resources. These foreign stipendiaries for a long time sufficed to secure the loyalty of the emigrants; but as the country grew in importance and numbers, and as the Indians revolted against their task-masters, it became necessary from time to time to call out reinforcements from the colonists; and when foreign invasion was dreaded, these levies, as we have seen, were largely augmented from all parts of the viceroyalty.
The idea of military service was, accordingly, not altogether unfamiliar to the Mexican mind when the first insurrectionary movements occurred