Article 7. The effects of immigrants, their working and brood animals, seeds, agricultural implements, machines, and working tools, will enter free of custom-house and transit duties.
Article 8. Immigrants are exempted from military service for five years. But they will form a stationary militia for the purpose of protecting their property and neighborhoods.
Article 9. Liberty in the exercise of their respective forms of religious worship is secured to immigrants by the organic law of the Empire.
Article 10. Each of our Ministers is charged with carrying out such parts of this Decree as relate to his department”.
Maury prepared a memorandum to accompany the decree, a set of regulations forty-two in number, and some general remarks on the mineral wealth, climate, general geographical features, and agricultural opportunities to be found in Mexico. The immigrants were to be divided into two classes: Class A were those who had lost all in the war, while Class B were those who were not in straitened circumstances. The first class were to receive a free passage to Mexico and fare at the rate of a real a mile to certain lands of the public domain which had not as yet been under cultivation, 160 acres to be allotted to a single man and 320 to a man with a family “with pre-emption right to as much more in each case”. The other class were to buy lands from the government, which had been more or less under cultivation, and also private haciendas, both at about one dollar per acre.
That Maury enjoyed the utmost confidence and respect of the Emperor and Empress is revealed in this letter referring to his treatment at the palace of Chepultepec: “There were present the Empress, and one of her ladies, four German naval officers, and a Mexican—all were of his household, I believe. It was mail-day for Europe; the Emperor had been busy at the palace writing, he told me, seventeen letters for the steamer. I got there a moment before he did, so he went into the sitting-room which joins the Empress’s chamber. He opened her chamber-door and said, ‘Carlotta, here’s Mr. Maury’. She came out immediately and commanded me to be seated, the Emperor and the other gentlemen standing. Presently her lady-in-waiting came in; I rose, but she touched me gently on the arm and said, ‘The Emperor wishes you always to be seated’. The lady stood also. In a few minutes dinner was announced. The Emperor led off, and we all followed in single file. As I passed through the door, one of the aids—a baron—whispered in my ear, ‘On the Emperor’s left’. The dinner—excepting the wines, the number of servants, and the liveries—reminded me very much of those Lucy Ellen (Mrs. Maury’s sister-in-law) used to give us in our summer visits to Fredericksburg.
“After dinner—say three-quarters of an hour—we, the gentlemen, led by the Emperor, went into the smoking-room. Gilt cigars were handed round; the Emperor did not smoke. Here he drew an armchair up into the corner, and seated me again, he and the others standing until their cigars were nearly finished. Then he took a seat, and commanded the others to be seated. Dispatches were handed him, some of which he handed to me to look into. Presently he dismissed the gentlemen, and said, ‘Mr. Maury, you have something to say to me?’ ‘Yes, sire; I can’t manage immigration through the Ministers. I must transact business with you directly, and not through them; nor must they have anything to do with it’. ‘That’s what I intend’, said he”. A short time afterwards colonization was placed entirely in Maury’s hands and unlimited power to draw on the treasury was also intrusted to him; this indeed was a mark of great confidence.
During the latter part of October, Maury’s son Richard with his wife and young son came to Mexico to assist his father and also to prepare himself to take over the work in his absence, for Maury was then planning to make a visit to England to meet his wife and his four younger children. Mrs. Maury had been unwilling to come to Mexico,—indeed to leave Virginia at all; but she at last consented to go to England where the children might enjoy better educational advantages. Maury and his son worked along energetically on the immigration project, but he had already begun to have his doubts as to its success. This feeling of uncertainty was caused, not by the lack of immigrants but by the unreadiness of the Mexican government. It was not prepared to offer them lands on any terms, and many first-rate men from various parts of the South, who had been looking for homes, had gone away in disgust. The fundamental reason for failure should not, indeed, be laid at Maury’s feet. But by this time the instability of the Mexican throne had begun to betray itself in the slowness of action and the lack of decision of the Emperor. “The indecision and weakness of Maximilian”, writes Stevenson, “prevented his taking full advantage of the opportunity then offered to strengthen the empire. The delay caused by a vacillating policy discouraged the would-be colonists, and before long the flood of immigration was checked”.[21]
Still some progress continued to be made. On Maury’s recommendation, General Magruder, formerly of the Confederate States army, was placed in charge of the land office, under whom was to be a large number of surveyors, most of whom were former Confederates. Among the other prominent men who had come to Mexico in the summer of 1865 were: Generals Kirby Smith, Shelby, Slaughter, Walker, and Terrell of Texas; Governor Price of Missouri; Ex-Governor Isham G. Harris and General Wilcox of Tennessee; General Hindman of Arkansas; Governor Reynolds of Georgia; Judge John Perkins, Colonel Denis, and Pierre Soulé of Louisiana; and Major Mordecai of North Carolina. Across the frontier had been brought horses, artillery, and everything that could be transported. Both large and small bands of Confederate soldiers had come over into Mexico, and some 2000 citizens had left the United States with the intention of colonizing Sonora in Northern Mexico, though Maury had no connection with this undertaking.
He did, however, send General Price, Judge Perkins, and Governor Harris as a commission to examine lands near Cordoba in the state of Vera Cruz. They handed in a very favorable report, and here a colony, named the “Corlotta” in honor of the Empress, was planted. Of its prospects Maury wrote enthusiastically: “In the olden times Cordoba was the garden spot of New Spain. There stands on one side, and but a little way off, the Peak of Orizaba, with its cap of everlasting snow, and on the other the sea in full view. These lands are heavily in debt to the Church, and as the Church property has been confiscated—not by the Emperor, though—Max. took possession of these lands for colonization. The railway hence to Vera Cruz passes right through them; and I am now selling these lands to immigrants, as fast as they can be surveyed, at $1.00 the acre on five years’ credit. There are about forty of our people already there. Perkins has bought himself a house and has sent for his family; so has Shelby, and so have a number of others. Mr. Holeman of Missouri, an Episcopal clergyman, with his family—nice people—has been engaged by the settlement as pastor and teacher. I am going to reserve land for a church, cemetery, and school-house. Thus you see, my sweet wife, colonization is a fact, not a chimera. By the time these lands are paid for they will be worth, even if no more settlers come to the Empire, $20, $30, or even $100 the acre, for they produce everything under the sun, and yield perpetual harvests”.