resents his compliments

"I have no time for compliments just now," roared out Shields, and spurred
briskly onward to escape the unwelcome orders which he felt were coming.
Soon he had led his men into the suburbs of the city, while Worth and
Quitman charged inward over the neighboring causeways with equal
impetuosity.

A strong force was quickly within the streets of the city, assailed by
skirmishers firing from houses and gardens, who could be reached only by
forcing a way in with pickaxes and bars. Two guns were brought in by
Worth's column and planted in position to batter down the San Cosme gate,
the barrier to the great square in the city's centre, and which fronted
the cathedral and palace. Quitman and Shields had to fight their way
through as hot a fire, and as they charged inward found themselves before
the citadel, mounting fifteen guns. At this point a severe loss was
sustained, but the assailants held their own, mounting guns to attack the
citadel the next morning.

These guns were not used. Before daylight a deputation of the city council
waited on General Scott and announced that the army had evacuated the
city, and the government officials had fled. It was not long afterwards
before the Stars and Stripes were floating over the National Palace and in
the great plaza.

Fighting continued for a day longer between the Americans and about four
thousand soldiers and liberated convicts, who fought with desperate fury
for their country and were not put down without considerable loss. On the
morning of September 16 the army of the United States held undisputed
possession of the famous old capital of Mexico. Fighting continued,
however, elsewhere for some months later, and it was not till the 2d of
February, 1848, that a treaty of peace was signed.

WALKER THE FILIBUSTER, AND THE INVASION OF NICARAGUA.

On the 15th of October, 1853, a small and daring band of reckless
adventurers sailed from San Francisco, on an enterprise seemingly madder
and wilder than that which Cortez had undertaken more than three centuries
before. The purpose of this handful of men--filibusters they were called,
as lawless in their way as the buccaneers of old--was the conquest of
Northwest Mexico; possibly in the end of all Mexico and Central America.
No one knows what wild vagaries filled the mind of William Walker, their
leader, "the gray-eyed man of destiny," as his admirers called him.

Landing at La Paz, in the southwe