the French camp; and wishing to do service even as private soldiers, organized themselves into a battalion, called the Legion de Honor, and made General Taboada their commander. To counteract the bad feeling of the policy observed by Forey and his agent Billard, Almonte issued a proclamation to assure his friends that he would remain with the French until the intervention produced the beneficial effects intended when the London convention was signed October 31, 1861.[1]
Many complaints having reached Napoleon's ears, Billard was restored to the military service, and Saligny, toward the end of January 1863, assumed the position left vacant.
Meanwhile the days darkened at the capital. Heavy taxes were decreed, also a loan of thirty million dollars wherewith to erect defences in the city, and to furnish supplies to Ortega's army.[2] The government had been over a year without customs revenue from Vera Cruz. The French received mules and supplies from the United States; but war material, so much needed by Juarez' government, was not allowed to be exported thence.[3] Congress, on the 10th of December, decreed that French prisoners should be treated by the Mexicans as Mexican prisoners were treated by the French.[4]
The people manifested a determination to sacrifice everything for freedom and independence. Ortega's plan of defending Puebla was approved, and Comon-
- ↑ This manifesto hears date Jan. 12, 1863. Arrangoiz, Méj., 107-10. The conservatives lost early in this month one of their chief men, in the death of Haro y Tamariz at Orizaba. Zamacois, Hist. Méj., xvi. 343.
- ↑ A personal tax of three reales, when not paid in coin, had to be made good with work in the fortifications. This tax, yielding more abuses than money, was substituted by a loan of $600,000. Negotiations were begun in New York to raise the 30-million loan. Rivera, Gob. de Méx., ii. 633. Dublan and Lozano, Leg. Mex., ix. 527-9, 565, 575, 578-81, 588-9, 636, 654; Diario Debates, 3d Cong., i. 135-8; Diario Ofic., Oct. 10, 1868; La Voz de Méj., Dec. 30, 1862.
- ↑ U. S. Govt Doc., 37th Cong. 3d Sess., Sen. 24, 389-90.
- ↑ Buenrostro, Hist. Seg. Cong. Constituc., 349-50; reiterated by the president Aug. 16, 1863. Méx., Últ. Notas Diplom., 17-31.
