moter distance, beyond the lake of
Chalco, lay the city of Mexico itself.

From that point a strange sight presented itself. The whole of the
wretched class of people called Leperos, the Lazzaroni of New Spain, had
evacuated the city and suburbs, and with their wives and children had
taken up their station upon the Ajotla road, their legions extending as
far as the chain of volcanic hills which on that side of the great Mexican
valley, serve as outposts to the Tenochtitlan range.

"Madre de Dios!" cried Guerero to his officers, as they came up. "Now for
three thousand muskets, instead of five hundred, and Mexico would be
ours."

"_No se_," replied an old brigadier-general, "I do not know that."

"_Io lo se_," said Vicente Guerero, "_I_ know it; but as things now are,
it certainly is impossible. They have two regiments of infantry, only
Spanish infantry to be sure, but with the best colonel in the service; and
five militia regiments. Yet, give me three thousand muskets and Mexico
should be ours. The Leperos are waiting for us."

He paused for a moment and seemed to reflect.

"Pshaw!" added he to his officers, "it cannot be done, Senores! But
_paciencia!_ before we are ten years older, Mexico shall be free."

And without vouchsafing another glance either to the city or the Leperos,
this remarkable man turned away in the direction of the Hacienda.

BRITISH HISTORY DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.[39]

No effort of genius, or industry, can make the history of England, during
the eighteenth century, equal in interest to that of either the
seventeenth or nineteenth centuries. By the eighteenth century is meant
the period of it ending in 1792: the subsequent eight years begin a new
era--the era of Revolutions--which properly belongs to the nineteenth. It
was essentially a period of repose. Placed midway between the great
religious effort which, commencing in the middle of the sixteenth, was not
closed in the British Islands till the end of the seventeenth century, and
the not less vehement political struggle which began in the world with the
French, or perhaps the American Revolution, and is still in uninterrupted
activity, it exhibits a resting-place between the two great schisms which
have distracted and distinguished modern times. It wants the ardent zeal,
intrepid spirit, and enthusiastic devotion, of the former epoch, not less
than the warm aspirations, fierce contests, and extravagant expectations
of the l