constitutional President was Benito Juarez. He was a full-blooded Indian, but a man of character, energy, and extraordinary attainments. Although Miramon, the leader of the Church party, had been completely defeated and had fled from Mexico, leaving the party without organization, yet plotting did not cease. Juarez and the Liberals about him had some honest and statesmanlike purposes, but they had not the power to restore order or to correct abuses. England, France, Spain, and the United States had claims against Mexico amounting to more than eighty million dollars, but Mexican finances were in a chaotic state. The annual governmental expenses alone exceeded the revenue by nearly a million dollars. In July, 1861, the Mexican Congress sought temporary relief by passing an act suspending for two years the payment of all foreign debts. This brought matters to a crisis.

The question as to how to compel Mexico to respect her obligations had often been discussed. England, France, and Spain now decided to take matters into their own hands. Aside from the grievances complained of by these powers, each had its notion of the probable results of intervention. Spain had not yet become fully reconciled to the loss of her American colonies, and she thought of a throne for a Bourbon prince. England very reasonably believed that no intervention should go beyond the point of seeking redress for actual injuries.' France had several aims which will soon be noticed. On the 31st of October, 1861, these three powers signed a convention in London, by which they agreed to demand jointly from Mexico "more efficacious protection for the persons and properties of their subjects, as well as a fulfilment of the obligations contracted toward their Majesties." Article second of the convention read:

1 2 Earl Russell's Speeches and Despatches, 484.

"The high contracting parties engage not to seek for themselves, in the employment of the coercive measures contemplated by the present convention, any acquisition of territory nor any special advantage, and not to exercise in the internal affairs of Mexico any influences of a nature to prejudice the right of the Mexican nation to choose and to constitute freely the form of its government."

Toward the end of 1861 naval ships of Spain, France, and England sailed for Vera Cruz with the avowed intention of taking possession of the custom-houses of two or three of the Mexican ports, for the purpose of satisfy ing the claims of their respective governments.

Within a few weeks after the arrival of these ships, and before the allies had done much more than seize Vera Cruz, the English and the Spanish leaders became dissatisfied with the actions, and suspicious of the intentions, of the French. The English and the Spanish forces withdrew in April, 1862, after an agreement had been reached with Mexico as to the claims of their governments. The triple alliance was dissolved, and the French were left with a free hand.

The three European powers had not only agreed among themselves not to prejudice "the right of the Mexican nation to choose and constitute freely the form of its government," but they had invited the United States to join them in compelling Mexico to respect her obligations. It was in the midst of the excitement over the Trent affair that the United States had to deal with this problem. To protest against the action of the powers would have made it easy for Great Britain to obtain the sympathy, and perhaps the support, of France and Spain in case of a war on account of that incident. Moreover, the precise significance of the Mexican expedition was not yet known. So Seward indicated that the

1 1 H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 100, 37th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 136, 137.

United States would stand aloof. They declined to become a party to the London convention, chiefly for two excellent reasons: they preferred to adhere to the traditional policy, which forbade alliances with foreign nations; and, secondly, they did not feel inclined to resort to forcible remedies for claims at that time, when Mexico was deeply disturbed by factions within and by war with foreign nations.' In the same communication in which these reasons were set forth, Seward volunteered the statement that

"the President does not feel himself at liberty to question, and he does not question, that the sovereigns represented have [the] undoubted right to decide for themselves the fact whether they have sustained grievances, and to resort to war with Mexico for the redress thereof, and have the right also to levy war severally or jointly."

From beginning to end the Mexican expedition was the strangest scheme of the Second Empire. Like many of the enterprises of Napoleon III., if not too grand for formulation before execution, it was, at least, too absurd for explanation subsequently. His political aims really took precedence to what were known as French "grievances.' The Italian war had left him many perplexing questions. Austria bore him much ill-will. The Pope had not forgotten how Napoleon III. had injured his temporal power. The French Republicans threatened to interfere with the so-called grande politique impériale. Leaving out of consideration the promptings of Napoleon's illbalanced ambition, the Mexican revolution seemed to present just the opportunity to appease Austria, to induce the Holy Father to smile benignly, and to reduce the Republicans at home to a patriotic hush or to an odious opposition. Nor was commercial France forgotten. As the United States were occupied in a great civil war,

1 Doc. 100, p. 189.

Napoleon thought he saw a chance to prevent their preponderance in trade in the western hemisphere, by laying in Mexico the foundations of French supremacy, so as to turn the tide of race predominance in the Americas in favor of the Latins, as he said.

After the English and the Spanish retired from Vera Cruz the French soon showed that they had never intended to be bound by the London convention. In the most summary manner France presented her ultimatum to Mexico in the shape of a claim for twenty-seven million dollars: twelve millions were demanded as an indemnity for injuries that French subjects claimed to have suffered, but France would not deign to itemize the claims; and the remaining fifteen millions were for government bonds which the revolutionary Clerical government of Miramon had given to Jecker, a Swiss banker, for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash, by the aid of which it had been hoped that the constitutional government of Juarez might be overthrown. Payment being an impossibility, as the French well knew long before, they began a forced march toward the City of Mexico. On approaching Puebla the vanguard lost two thousand men. At the town itself they met with a most humiliating repulse. Thereupon large reinforcements were called for, and in a few months the French army amounted to about thirty-five thousand men. In May, 1863, Puebla finally fell into the hands of the French, and early in June they triumphantly entered the Mexican capital.

It was plain that Napoleon intended to overthrow the Mexican republic. The commander of the expedition, General Forey, and the French Minister, Saligny, took matters into their own hands. They selected a junta, or provisional government, composed of thirty-five members, who chose three Regents as an executive head, and later named an Assembly of Notables of two hundred and fifteen persons. With hardly an exception, the members

of this improvised government were enemies of the constitutional President, Juarez. In accordance with the programme, the Assembly met in July, 1863, and without debate, and with only two voices in the negative, voted that an empire should be established; that the throne should be offered to the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, brother of Francis Joseph; and that if he should decline it, the Emperor of the French should be asked to fill the vacancy. Maximilian expressed his willingness to accept the offer if a Mexican plebiscite should result in his favor, and if he could obtain from other sources guaranties of the protection of Mexico. During the next year the imperial army, composed mainly of French soldiers, forced many of the smaller cities and villages of Mexico to surrender to the new government. By the spring of 1864 all doubt had been settled in the mind of Maximilian, and his scruples in favor of a national plebiscite were satisfied without an actual vote. On the day Maximilian finally accepted the crown, April 10, 1864, a convention was entered into between France and the new imperial government, by which Mexico agreed to pay the French claims and the past and future cost of the intervention, under certain conditions; and France practically guaranteed to Maximilian her military protection.' In June, 1864, Maximilian I. made a brilliant entry into the City of Mexico. His pious and sentimental mind was filled with generous thoughts, for he really hoped to regenerate his adopted country. But his throne rested on the shoulders of the French troops.

It was late in March, 1862, when the Department of State received its first definite information of the aims of the French. This was about the time McClellan com

13 Dip. Cor., 1864, 74, 75.