“On the 16th, he called the army to return public and private thanks to God for victory; and on the 19th, for the better preservation of order and suppression of crime, he proclaimed martial law. Thus protected by the American army, the citizens of Mexico were more secure from violence, and from the fear of robbery and murder, than they had ever been under their own flag.”

Nor does this statement appear to be overdrawn. An English writer[[83]] on Mexico, who was in the country the two years following the war, dates the commencement of an improvement in this degraded people from the American invasion. “Nothing,” says he, “could exceed the jealous suspicions with which the Mexicans formerly regarded other nations, more particularly perhaps the people of the United States. The hatred and rancour with which the very name of American was mentioned while hostilities were in progress, were immeasurable. But at the present time kindly feelings are being fostered with a large proportion which will lead to happy results for both countries.

“In respect of the broad principles of commerce, productions and restrictions, the intercourse of Mexico with other nations has at present led to but few salutary results. Exclusiveness and shortsighted suspicion still remain the governing features of their commercial policy; liberality, innovation, and improvement, being carefully guarded against. Foreign productions of importance are excluded as ruinous, and the country is effectually protected against honourable traffic, though left open to the lawless proceedings of swindlers and smugglers of every grade.

“When the Americans marched upon the interior of the country,” after gaining every battle on the outskirts, said an intelligent Mexican, who had been seized upon by the American army and compelled to serve as a guide, “the most horrible ideas of their cruelty and rapacity were set afloat. As they drew near the capital, we were given to understand that there was no torture nor disgrace to which they would not subject the inhabitants, if they conquered us. The priests made themselves particularly busy in influencing the minds of the people in every part of the city against them, and members of the secular clergy went from house to house of the wealthier classes, to arouse their zeal against the invaders, and to procure sums of money for the benefit of the cause. It was generally believed that our enemies were neither more nor less than a kind of monsters, permitted by heaven to visit us as a judgment upon our crimes and neglect of the holy church.

“‘For my own part such a dreadful idea of our enemies had taken possession of me, that I could neither eat nor sleep; I was like one bereft of his senses; every avenue of my mind seemed closed but that of fear. Sleeping or waking, I was haunted by the image of our invaders, and I was in the act of making a precipitate retreat at the moment I was surrounded by several hostile soldiers. But, above all, was a popular horror associated with the American generals. The people were taught to believe them the most atrocious impersonations of cruelty and rapacity which it was possible to imagine. It was reported that they had sworn to hang every Mexican who should fall into their hands, and that they had approached the capital with the most malicious determination to wreak their vengeance upon it.’ The Mexican prisoner related, therefore, that when he found himself in the hands of such dreaded foes he was in momentary expectation of being shot or hanged, and could not at first understand why his execution was delayed. Still more was he astonished when he beheld the American generals themselves. Instead of fierce tyrants with bloodthirsty visages, as he had been taught to regard them, he beheld, he said, two agreeable-looking, fair men, with paternal countenances and amiable manners. General Scott made a good impression; but General Taylor attracted by his unassuming dignity and awed by his firmness.

“‘I am sure,’ continued this narrator, ‘that many of my countrymen have a great respect for the people of the United States; they have reason for it. Their officers were kind instead of cruel to us; they spared our houses and our property; they were just to our storekeepers. Indeed, in many respects, our city has had cause to regret the period when they went away.’ The cruelties of the Mexicans in this struggle were of the most unsparing character; every American or Texian who was captured was killed in some ruthless manner, their dead and mangled bodies being left to be recognised by their friends. It was their practice,” says Mr. Mason, “to extort by the most brutal threats and unlicensed conduct, the money and property of individuals unfortunate enough to be in their vicinity, or failing this to outrage their families, or sacrifice them to their mean revenge. They exhibited the utmost baseness and duplicity in all attempts at compromise and interchange of prisoners; and they stripped and plundered the bodies of the American dead left on the field of battle, burning and disfiguring them in the most brutal manner.

“The generosity of the American general shines in happy contrast with these deeds of their enemies. A large party of wounded Mexicans were left in the hospital totally unprovided for on the retreat of Santa Anna’s army from Buena Vista, where the Americans gained a signal victory in February, 1847, and which in fact made them masters of the northern provinces of Mexico Proper. In the disastrous flight which followed this defeat, hundreds of the wounded were left by the wayside to be drowned by the waters, even before death, and numbers who had escaped unscathed in the battle, perished on the march in the agonies of thirst and hunger. On General Taylor becoming acquainted with the fact, he despatched such medical assistance as he could spare, together with between thirty and forty mules laden with provisions, to their assistance. This, it is said, being only one instance out of many that might be recorded to the credit of the Americans.” And no more than what is right; for the Americans, though chargeable with an aggressive spirit in many cases, with a greed of territory and a lust of colonisation, like their old Anglo-Norman ancestors, were yet Christians, and it is by this Christianity alone, which the conqueror must never forego, that the citizens of the United States will in process of time extend themselves over the whole of the western hemisphere.

We have heard above the testimony of a Mexican to the character of the American invaders. And as regards the moral state of Mexico, we will give an average statement of the amount of crime for one year in the city of Mexico, the population of which is but little above 130,000:

MALES.FEMALES.TOTAL.
Robbery1,8005902,390
Quarrelling and Wounding2,9371,8054,742
Bigamy, etc.421203624
Homicide18042222
Incontinence, etc.7537112
Forgery11314
Throwing Vitriol411758
Lesser Crimes7343411,075
9,237

Besides which, about 900 dead bodies are found in the streets and suburbs annually, the cause of which is never known and rarely inquired into. In the above list of crimes is found vitriol throwing, which probably is new to some of our readers, but is so common in Mexico, as the above author assures us, that its appalling evidences are frequently visible in the streets; and not only among the lower classes, but among the wealthy, who have fallen victims to the demoniac vengeance of these ignorant and brutal people.