s highly favored by circumstances, or singularly endowed
with intellectual qualifications, could be of little service to the
clerical party. He fell, as we have seen; but the clerical party
remained, and, having continued to flourish, is at this time, it is
probable, stronger than it was in 1822. It is owing to this party that
the idea has never been altogether abandoned that Mexico should resume
monarchical institutions; and every attempt that has been made to favor
what in this country is known as consolidation has either been initiated
by it or has received its assistance. That we do not misrepresent the
so-called clerical party, in attributing to it a desire to see a king in
Mexico, is clear from the candid admission of one of its members, who
has written at length, and with much ability, in defence of its opinions
and actions. "Had it been given to that party which is taxed with being
absolutist," he says, "to see such a government in Mexico as the
government of Brazil, (not to take examples out of the American
continent,) their earnest desires would have been accomplished. It is
therefore wrongfully that that party is the object of the curses
lavished upon it." This is plain speaking, indeed,--the Brazilian
government being one of the strongest monarchies in the world, and
deriving its strength from the fact that it seeks the good of its
subjects. The blindest republican who ever dreamed it was in the power
of institutions to "cause or cure" the ills of humanity must admit,
that, if Bourbon rule in Mexico could have produced results similar to
those which have proceeded from Braganza rule in Brazil, it would have
been the best fortune that the former country could have known, had Don
Carlos or Don Francisco de Paula been allowed to wear the imperial crown
which was set up in 1822. With less ability than Iturbide, either of
those princes would have made a better monarch than that adventurer. It
is not so much intellect as influence that makes a sovereign useful, the
man being of far less consequence than the institution. Even the case of
Napoleon I. affords no exception to this rule; for his dynasty and his
empire fell with him, because they lacked the stability which comes from
prescription alone. Had Marlborough and Eugene penetrated to Paris, as
did Wellington and Bluecher a century later, they never would have
thought of subverting the Bourbon line; but the Bonaparte line was cut
off as of course when its chief w