Memorias para la Historia de la Revolucion de Centro América. Por un Guatemalteco. Jalapa, 1832. 16mo, 257 pp. The authorship of these memoirs was attributed by well-informed men, namely, Morazan, ex-president of Central America, and the distinguished statesman and diplomate of that country, Lorenzo Montúfar, to Manuel Montúfar, who had been chief of staff of the first president of the republic, Manuel José Arce. The work begins with the geography and political and ecclesiastical divisions of the country, accompanied with data on each of the states and territories; namely, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Poyais, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala, and Chiapas, together with some remarks on mining and other industries, military defences, and financial condition. The political portion, as the author himself acknowledges, is loosely put together, and lacks many necessary details, which he attributes to absence from home when the first sheets went to the press. He claims, however, to have impartially and correctly narrated the events of Cent. Am. history from 1820 to 1829. This to some extent is true; nevertheless there crops out in places class-bias, particularly in describing the events from 1826 to 1829, by the ideas which prevailed in the moderado, otherwise called servile, party, in which he was affiliated and serving, and for whose acts he, like many others, was driven into exile after the defeat of that party on the field of battle.
Manuel José Arce, Memoria de la Conducta Pública y Administrativa de ... durante el período de su presidencia. Mex., 1830. 8vo, p. 140 and 63. This work purports to be a defence of his administration by the first president of the republic of Central America, against what he calls the slanders heaped upon his name by those who rebelled against the government and the nation, with documents bearing on the revolts, the whole having been prepared while the author was in exile. The book is a disconnected, disjointed patchwork, incomplete in its various records of events, and indicates, as does Arce's career, a weak character. A number of meaningless and inapt quotations from the old classics and from law-books help to confuse the narrative still more.
[VI-1] Most of them had been agents of Milla, and contributed to the overthrow of the state government. A number had moved to Guatemala, Salvador, and elsewhere. The most prominent in the list were the ex-provisor, Nicolás Irias, and Pedro Arriaga. The latter was sent out of the country from the port of Omoa. He had been Milla's chief agent and adviser, and brought about the destruction by fire of Comayagua, his native place. This will account for his hostility in after years to liberals, and for his active coöperation with the despots of Guatemala. Montúfar, Reseña Hist., i. 190.
[VI-2] The pretext for the movement was to resist a moderate tax established by the legislature; the real object was to bring on a reaction.
[VI-3] The friendship existing between Barrundia and Molina, from the earliest period of their political life, previous to the independence, became weakened, threatening a disruption of the liberal party. The disagreement was increased by Molina's opposition to the federal government remaining in Guatemala.
[VI-4] The same who made the revolt of Xalpatagua, murdered Gen. Merino at San Miguel, and was defeated at Gualcho.
[VI-5] Marure, Efem., 26.
[VI-6] Forty-one of them, including the clergyman Antonio Rivas, were sentenced to military duty in the castle of San Felipe for five years. Father Rivas, after serving out his term, said that he was an innocent victim and a martyr of religion, and prayed upon the liberals all the maledictions of the 108th psalm. Montúfar, Reseña Hist., i. 196.
[VI-7] Composed of the citizens Nicolás Espinosa, José Antonio Larrave, Manuel José de la Cerda, and Jacobo Rosa.
[VI-8] Barrundia did not want the position, and did not work for it. He wished Morazan to be elected. Morazan had in his favor the prestige of a victorious general. He was somewhat in the position of Bonaparte when he returned from Egypt. Valle was recognized to be the best informed man of Central America; none could compete with him in literary or scientific attainments. In politics he was always an opponent of the aristocracy, who execrated his memory, and even impudently pretended to deny his literary merits. But we have seen elsewhere that he was not, like Barrundia, an uncompromising opponent of all governments not based on democracy and republicanism. He compromised with the Mexican empire, was a deputy to the imperial congress, where he made a brilliant record, and became a minister of the emperor, who sent him to prison when he dissolved the congress. After the emperor's overthrow, Valle maintained that the provinces of Central America were free to act their own pleasure. He was a popular man, but Morazan's victorious sword eclipsed all else just then. Id., 268.