it is often difficult to determine which predominates. They meet dangers with intrepidity when they proceed from natural causes, but they are terrified by the stern look of a Spaniard. That stupid indifference about death and eternity, which many authors have thought inherent in the character of every American, is peculiar only to those who are yet so rude and uninformed as to have no idea of a future state. Their singular attachment to the external ceremonies of religion is very apt to degenerate into superstition, as happens with the ignorant of all nations of the world; but their proneness to idolatry is nothing more than a chimera formed in the brains of ignorant persons. The instances of a few mountaineers are not sufficient to justify an aspersion upon a whole people. To conclude the character of the Mexicans, like that of every other nation, is a mixture of good and bad, but the bad may be easily corrected by a proper education, as has frequently been demonstrated by experience. It would be difficult to find anywhere youth or a body of people more willing to receive the light of the Gospel than were their ancestors."

I will add that the modern Mexicans are not in all respects like the ancient; as the Greeks of these days have little resemblance to those who lived in the days of Pericles. The ancient Mexicans showed more fire and were more sensible to impressions of honor. They were more intrepid, more active, more industrious, but they were at the same time more superstitious and cruel.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Adjustment of American Claims-Order for the Expulsion of Americans from California Rescinded-Various Negotiations-Anecdote of Santa Anna's love of Cock-fighting.

Or matters connected with the Legation it is not fit that I should speak, except of those which have been made public by the government. The commission for the adjudication of the claims of American citizens against the government of Mexico adjourned in February or March, 1842. The awards which that commission made in favor of American citizens amounted to about two millions of dollars. The Mexican government had, by the terms of the convention which established that commission, the alternative of paying the awards either in coin or their own treasury notes at their option. The market was already flooded with this depreciated government paper, and new emissions were daily made. The market value of these treasury notes was about thirty cents on the dollar, and if this additional two millions had been thown on the market, they would have depreciated still more; the owners of these claims knew this, and were anxious to make some other arrangement. The awards were not sent to me until October. I demanded the money; but it was a mere form, for every one knew that the government neither had the money nor the means of raising it, and coercion was out of the question as they would have availed themselves of the alternative of the treaty and given the treasury notes, which would

only have been changing the evidence of the debt, and to a less advantageous form. In a week, however, I made a new convention with the government, by which the claimants have received fifteen per cent of the principal of their debt, and about nineteen per cent of interest—which is twice as much as the market value of the whole of the claims when I went to Mexico-which was less than twenty cents on the dollar. If I have not been misinformed, one of these claims, and a large one, was sold for six cents on the dollar, and many others at the same rate. I wrote to some of the claimants in all our large cities, advising them not to sacrifice their claims, and I also said the same thing to the Secretary of State, and requested him to make it public, which I believe he did.

By the new convention which I negotiated, there was saved to the persons interested, from eighteen to twenty per cent-the export and transportation duties, eleven per cent freight and insurance to Vera Cruz, at least five per cent, in that country of highway robbers and revolutions, and two and a half per cent for the commissions of the agent who received the money. All of these things were altogether just, but they had not been provided for in the former convention-and that which I negotiated was wholly on my own responsibility. I thought that it was no more than fair that the government of Mexico should pay the commissions of the agent, because if the whole amount of two millions had been paid at once, any one would have received and remitted it for one third of the commissions which would have been charged when there were twenty different instalments running through a period of five years. If the money had all been paid at one time, a government vessel would have been ordered to take it to the United States without charge.

All the instalments which fell due whilst I remained in Mexico were paid. A small portion of the two last was not paid until perhaps a month after it was due, and the money was immediately sent to Vera Cruz, and shipped from there as soon as it could be counted.*

There were eighteen claims submitted to the commission at Washington, and which were not finally decided; the American commissioners adjudging in all of them about a million of dollars to the claimants, and the Mexicans allowing nothing. These cases, for want of time, were not decided by the umpire, Baron Roene. There were seven other cases which were not considered by the commissioners for want of time, and because in one of them the Mexican Government did not furnish all the documentary evidence which was required.

I was anxious to have made provision for the settlement of these cases at the time that I negotiated the Convention of January, 1843, but my government thought otherwise. In November, however, of that year, I received instructions to negotiate another Convention for the settlement of these claims. I would gladly have avoided the responsibility of this second convention if I had looked only to personal considerations, but the Mexican government was at that time under serious apprehension of a collision with England, and I knew that so advantageous an opportunity would not again occur. I succeeded, but with difficulty, in obtaining every concession which I had been instructed to ask, and on some points more, with the single exception

* The persons interested in these claims are more indebted for the payment to Mr. Emilius Voss than any other person. As imputations have been made against this gentleman, it is but just to say of him, not only that he is an accomplished merchant and an upright man, but that in all high and honorable qualities he has no superior in Mexico or anywhere else.

of the place of meeting of the new Commission, which I agreed should be Mexico instead of Washington. The former commission had met at Washington, and it seemed to me nothing but fair that this one should meet at Mexico. I know of no rule that such commissions shall assemble in the country of the claimant; the legal rule in controversies between individuals is the reverse. The forum is in the country of the defendant. But this new commission was not alone for the settlement of the claims of American citizens or the government of Mexico, but also the claims of Mexican citizens upon the government of the United States, so that the equities were at least equal; but the Mexican plenipotentiaries offered that if I would concede to them the point of the commission meeting at Mexico that I might name the umpire, to which I at once acceded. I could not see any great importance as to the place where the commission. met, the more especially as nearly all of the seven claims which alone were to be submitted to this commission depended upon documentary evidence entirely, and all these documents were in the public archives of Mexico. And, as it was certain that the Mexican and American commissioners would disagree upon all of these claims, I did regard it of primary importance who should be the umpire. If that umpire had been, as he would have been (if Mexico had selected him), some one of the presidents of the South American Republics, there never would have been any controversy as to what vessel should bring the money home. I knew of the sympathies as well as the antipathies. of race, but the Senate of the United States thought otherwise, and disapproved of that clause of the convention. I think that all the parties interested will have occasion to regret that decision; I am sure that all those will, who are interested in the eighteen cases submitted to and not