Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/246

208 MEXICO. Iturbide was allowed to choose his own escort to the coast, and selected General Bravo for the purpose, by whom he was accompanied to Antigua, (near Veracruz,) where a ship was freighted by the Government to convey him to Leghorn. He embarked on the 11th of May, 1823. A new Executive was immediately appointed by the Congress, composed of Generals Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete, by whom the affairs of the country were conducted, until a new Congress was as- sembled, (in August, 1823,) which, in October 1824, defi- nitively sanctioned the present Federal Constitution. Many persons have attributed Iturbides conduct, during the latter part of his career, to pusillanimity ; but this is a charge which is repelled by the whole tenor of his earlier life. I am myself inclined to ascribe it partly, to a wish not to occasion a Civil war, and partly, to a lurking hope that time would prove as fatal to the popularity of his rivals, as it had been to his own ; and that the eyes of his countrymen would then be directed towards himself, as the only means of preserving them from anarchy. Such, at least, appears to have been the impression with which he returned to Mex- ico in 1824, when he was outlawed by the Congress, and shot, upon landing on the coast, by General Garza ; a mea- sure, the severity of which, after the services which Iturbide had rendered to the country, can only be excused by the im- possibility of avoiding, in any other way, a civil war. His partizans in the Interior were still numerous, particularly on the Western coast, and had he once succeeded in penetrating into the country, with such men as Victoria and Bravo to oppose him, it is difficult to say how long the contest might have been protracted, or where the effusion of blood would have stopped. Iturbides family now resides in the United States, upon a provision assigned to it by the Mexican Congress. The par- tizans of the father were entirely personal, and his son has few, or no adherents : he is not, however, yet allowed to return to the territories of the Republic.