being shot on the spot; but more moderate measures prevailed, and he was allowed a legal trial by a council of war. Doubtless influenced by all his real services at the head of the national army, which in time past he had conferred upon his country, and through untiring efforts in his behalf by his friends and family, this council did not condemn him to death, but a sentence was passed upon him of exile for eight years. He returned to St. Thomas, much impoverished by this last attempt against good government, and broken with years and failure.
At the end of his time of exile, or perhaps, indeed, before its expiration, he returned quietly to the city of Mexico, and died there on the 20th of June, 1876, in his house in the Calle de Vergaza. He was over eighty years old, blind, lame, poor. His last days were embittered by his sensitive conviction that his great deeds were not appreciated by his country. He was buried in the city of Guadalupe, without honors or recognition by government, who, naturally, it may be supposed, retained their fear of rousing the populace even by so dead a lion.
A family connection of Santa Anna has written a life of him, in which fulsome justice is done to his good qualities. He says, and perhaps with reason, that had he died immediately after the loss of his leg in driving the French from Vera Cruz "this benemerito mutilado had surely left not one single personal enemy."
With great gifts of bravery and military skill, and with a love of his country it is but fair to allow
