Not content with encroaching on territory and resources, the traders here did not scruple to provide the rebels with arms, ammunition, and other effects. Indeed, all their war supplies came from this source, and were paid for by spoils from the northern settlements, and partly by dye-woods and other products. Yucatan had protested against this infringement of treaty, and obtained satisfactory assurances; but the capture by the Indians, in the spring of 1848, of Bacalar, the great entrepôt for trade in this direction, tended to a disregard of promises, and traffic in war stores and other effects increased, with the assistance of imposing flotillas and caravans, which conveyed the merchandise to secret depôts throughout the peninsula. Mexico joined in protesting before the British minister, who merely referred the matter to England, where again it passed through the usual dilatory channels, affording the colonial authorities an additional excuse for countenancing not only contraband trade, but actual coöperation with the rebels.[1]
It was proposed by the Yucatec government to reоccupy Bacalar and cut off this pernicious traffic, which tended to sustain the revolution, creating at the same time a diversion by so promising a movement in the rear. Colonel Cetina accordingly left Sisal in April 1849 with 800 men by steamer, and obtained possession of the town, which he fortified, and began to take steps for suppressing illicit commerce. Pat proved equal to the emergency, however. Incited by the blow at their main source of revenue, 4,000 of his followers obeyed the summons to rise against the invaders. Bacalar was closely invested, and although Cetina held out well, his operations were so circumscribed as to extend to little beyond defence. Malarial fever and desertion crippled him, and a relief ex-
- ↑ Меx., Меm. Мin. Rel., 1850, 8-9.
the vain effort made ten years later by the court of St James to obtain a transfer of Spanish territorial claims shows that the occupation was not accepted as unequivocal. Méx., Mem. Min. Rel., 1879; Peniche, Hist. Rel. Belice, 5 et seq.
