Bustamente, and Santa Anna. When Santa Anna arrived in Cuba, he met Bustamente there, returning to Mexico. If he had gone to New Orleans he would have met Gomez Farrias. Although Bustamente had been banished but a few months before my arrival in Mexico, I can with truth say that I never once heard his name mentioned but with respect. This is not a little singular, when it is remembered that his successful rival was then in power, and there was no form of adulation which he did not hourly receive. Bustamente's career has been by no means a brief one, beginning, as it did, in the war of independence. Yet that whole career is unstained even with an imputation of a cruel, a dishonorable, or an unpatriotic act. All concede him patriotism, valor, and disinterestedness. At the period of his overthrow, fifty thousand dollars of his salary was found to be due him, which he had not drawn, leaving it to be appropriated to the always pressing exigencies of the government; and he left the country so poor as to be forced to sell everything he possessed, even down to his walking cane, which was offered to me by the who had purperson chased it. Among the Romans it was regarded as the highest honor of one who had filled high stations, that he died so poor as to be buried at the public expense. It is much more honorable to one who has been President of Mexico, where the total absence of all responsibility affords so many temptations to peculation.

All the contracts made by the government for clothing, arms and munitions for the army, loans, and in short for everything, are made privately by the executive, and with none of the restraints and securities which exist among us. And this fact alone is sufficient to show the wide door which is opened to every species of fraud and peculation. I remember that in one of my accounts as minister, one

item of three dollars was not fully vouched, and it was disallowed. Instead of being offended, I was really gratified, and the more proud of my government, where so exact a system of responsibility existed, and which was so rigidly enforced.

All that I have said of General Bustamente may with equal truth be said of Gomez Farrias, with the addition that he is a man of a very high order of talents and extensive attainments.

For high endowments, and spotless purity of character, public and private, Gomez Farrias would be a rare man in any country. The only fault ever imputed to him is that he is too much of an "exaltado;" that he carries his ideas of liberty to an extent impracticable in Mexico; or in other words, that he is too great an admirer of our institutions, and endeavors to assimilate those of Mexico too much to them.

General Almonte is known to many in this country, and wherever he is known, it would be superfluous to say that he is in all respects an elegant and accomplished gentleman, virtuous, brave, and honorable. I have heard some of the Texans who were at the battle of San Jacinto say that the Mexicans who were saved on that occasion, owed their lives to General Almonte. The desperate onslaught of the Texians with their wild yells, glittering bowie knives, and clubbed rifles, was a thing to which the Mexicans were so entirely unacustomed, that they were thrown into a state of perfect panic. They would not fight, and the thought never occurred to them to lay down their arms, or otherwise make a formal surrender. The Texans, of course, continued the slaughter; for after the charge of the Texans, it ceased to be a battle. In this state of things, Almonte said to the officers who stood around him-"Gen

tlemen, you see that our men will not fight, they are panicstricken; let us get them together and surrender them," which he did, and thus put a stop to the massacre. He it was who saved the life of the woman, the only survivor of the sanguinary scene at the Alamo, and afterwards furnished her with a horse, and the means of going to her friends. He was Secretary of War in the administration of Bustamente, and a very recent experience has shown how large a fortune may be realized by the incumbent of that office. Almonte, however, left the office with a large portion of his salary due him, and was so poor that he supported himself until he was appointed Minister to the United States, by delivering popular lectures.

I trust that I commit no indelicacy in stating a fact universally known in Mexico; if I thought that it would in any manner be so regarded by General Almonte, I would on no account do it. He is the son of General Morelos, the name most honored and enshrined in the heart of every Mexican, as it well deserves to be. Hidalgo and Morelos were the principal authors of the revolutionary movement of 1809; they were both Priests. Morelos in command of the patriot army had a brilliant career of victories, but was at last vanquished by a superior force, and made prisoner and shot. His life was as pure as that of Aristides, and he died with all the dignity of Socrates. Like Socrates, too, the means of escape were offered him, which he rejected. I have seen his portrait in the house of General Almonte, and elsewhere; he is always represented in the uniform of a Mexican General, but with a priest's mitre, instead of the military chapeau on his head.

Mr. Cuevas, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, I knew slightly; he had much reputation in Mexico for talents, and is a very worthy and most agreeable gentle

man, with the admirable manners of all Mexican or Spanish gentlemen, a point in which they are unequalled. The striking characteristics of their manners are naturalness, cordiality, frankness; as an American lady in Mexico well expressed it, a "refined frankness," which never transcends the bounds of strict propriety, and a perfect repose equally removed from timidity and too great boldness-what the French so well express by their words "beau tranquille,” a quality of which I think they possess very little themselves.

Of General Herrera, I only know that he is an old General of good character and talents, but so far as I am acquainted remarkable for nothing.

Señor Echavari, who is, or very lately was Minister of Finance, is, I believe, only distinguished for great wealth, and a great hatred of all foreigners.

In this sketch of conspicuous men in Mexico, perhaps a good Catholic would complain that I had not noticed any of the dignitaries of the church. I met on two or three occasions at large dinner parties at the President's, the Archbishop of Cesarea. I never could ascertain exactly the office and functions of the latter, but took it for granted that they were very high from the fact that he was the only person of that character except the Archbishop of Mexico, who was an invited guest on these formal and state occasions. The foreign ministers were seated nearest "the salt," and those high functionaries of the church were, propter dignitatem, seated in the same neighborhood; we were, therefore, very much thrown together. The Archbishop of Mexico is a stout, healthy looking and very agreeable old gentleman, the personification of a burly and jolly priest. He is a man of learning and well spoken of by every one. I took a great fancy to the Archbishop

of Cesarea and I believe that it was in some degree mutual. I might almost say with the romantic German girl who met another over a stove, at an inn on the roadside, that at the first sight we swore "eternal friendship to each other." When I was about to leave the room he came to me and asked where I lived, and said that he intended to call upon me. I begged that he would not do so, but allow me to make the first visit (for that is the custom in Mexico), the stranger making the first call upon the resident. But the next day, the good old man called at my house, and as I happened not to be at home he would not leave his card, but told my servant that he would call again as he did not wish me to regard his visit as one of mere form. This, of course, brought about a great intimacy between us, and I often visited him at his country house on the borders of the city. I shall never forget the pleasant hours which I have spent there, nor cease to remember the venerable and good old man with gratitude and affection. He is a man of learning, especially on all matters connected with the church and its history. He spoke with great satisfaction of the Puseyite movement, and said that sooner or later we must all come to it, that the Catholic was the only true church, and that the Puseyites were good enough Catholics for him. When I called to take leave of him he was more than ever kind to me; when he parted with me he said to a canonigo who was present, we must constantly offer up prayers for this man, he is too good a man to be a Protestant. I did not say the converse to him, whatever I may have thought, but I trust that I am neither so bigoted nor prejudiced as to believe that there is any Christian Church, whatever may be its forms of faith or worship, which does not number amongst its members men as good and virtuous as those whose religious opinions conform to my own.