loody events of Cerro Gordo have
plainly shown the Mexican nation what it may reasonably expect if it
is no longer blind to its real situation--a situation to which it
has been brought by some of its generals whom it has most
distinguished and in whom it has most confidence. The hardest heart
would have been moved to grief in contemplating any battlefield in
Mexico a moment after the last struggle. Those generals whom the
nation has paid without service rendered for so many years, have, in
the day of need, with some honorable exceptions, but served to
injure her by their bad example or unskillfulness. The dead and
wounded on those battlefields received no marks of military
distinction, sharing alike the sad fate which has been the same from
Palo Alto to Cerro Gordo; the dead remained unburied and the wounded
abandoned to the clemency and charity of the victor. Soldiers who go
to battle knowing they have such reward to look for deserve to be
classed with the most heroic, for they are stimulated by no hope of
glory, nor remembrance, nor a sigh, nor even a grave! Again,
contemplate, honorable Mexicans, the lot of peaceful and industrious
citizens in all classes of your country. The possessions of the
Church menaced and presented as an allurement to revolution and
anarchy; the fortunes of rich proprietors pointed out for plunder of
armed ruffians; and merchants and the mechanic, the husbandman and
the manufacturer, burdened with contributions, excises, monopolies,
duties on consumption, surrounded by officers and collectors of
these odious internal customs; the man of letters and the
legislator, the freeman of knowledge who dares to speak, persecuted
without trial by some faction or by the very rulers who abuse their
power; and criminals unpunished are set at liberty, as were those of
Perote. What, then, Mexicans, is the liberty of which you boast? I
do not believe that Mexicans at the present day want the courage to
confess errors which do not dishonor them, or to adopt a system of
true liberty--one of peace and union with their brethren and
neighbors of the North. Neither can I believe the Mexicans ignorant
of the infamy of the calumnies put forth by the press in order to
excite hostility against us. No, public spirit can not be created or
animated by falsehood. We have not profaned your temples, nor abused
your women, nor seized your property, as they