ot allow them to listen to
justice. They acted in Mexico as their ancestors had acted in the
Netherlands. It is the chief characteristic of the Spaniard, that, in
dealing with foreigners, he always assumes a Roman-like superiority,
without possessing the Roman's sense and shrewdness. The treatment of
the Capuans by the Romans, as told by Livy in his narrative of the
Hannibalian War, might be read as a history of the manner in which the
Spaniards ever treat "rebels"; and never did they behave more cruelly
than they behaved toward the Mexicans in the last days of the viceroys.
This fact is to be borne in mind, when we think of the sanguinary
character of Mexican contests; for that character originated in the
action of the Spaniards during their struggles with the Patriots. The
latter were not faultless, but they often exhibited a generosity and a
self-denial that promised much for the future of their country, which
promise would have been realized but for the ferocious tone of the
warfare of the old governing race. The Spaniards were ultimately beaten,
but they left behind them an evil that marred the victory of the
Patriots, and which has done much to prevent it from proving useful to
those who obtained it at great cost to themselves and their country.

The defeat and death of Morelos proved fatal, for the time, to regular
opposition on the part of the Patriots, and it was not until the arrival
of Mina in Mexico that they renewed the war in force. This was in April,
1817; and Mina was defeated and put to death in seven months after he
landed. At the beginning of 1818, the viceroy Apodaca announced to the
home government, "that he would be answerable for the safety of Mexico
without a single additional soldier being sent out to reinforce the
armies that were in the field." Had he been a wise man, the event might
have justified this boast; but as he was neither wise nor honest, and as
he sought to restore the old state of things in all its impurity, his
confidence was fatal to the Spanish cause. The Spanish Constitution of
1812 had been proclaimed in Mexico in the autumn of that year, and its
existence kept the Liberal cause alive. So long as the Patriots had any
power in the field, Apodaca, though an enemy of the Constitution, dared
not seek its destruction; but after the overthrow of Mina, when he
believed the Patriot party was "crushed out," he plotted against the
Constitution, and resolved to restore the system that had