mexicohermilitar01robi

VI
PREFACE.
have, however, rendered all that relates to Mexico important,
and absolve me from any apology of this kind.
I might make many acknowledgments of the sources
whence I have drawn information of things, which occurred
too long ago for me to have been a contemporary, or at least
to have remembered them. Among the facts I have thus
been enabled to present to the reader, are included no small
portion of the life of General Guadalupe Victoria, from Ward's
" Mexico," and a part of the history of the castle of San Juan
de Ulua, from the "Life in Mexico" of Madame Calderon de
la Barca.
I have carefully read all the books of travels I could obtain,
and also many minor sketches, for the most part anonymous
a sheaf of letters in French and German, I have also been
kindly permitted to examine, and from them have drawn
many hints.
The additional chapter will be found principally a collation
of official documents, which it was believed would give a
better idea of the present war than any sketch which could
be crowded into so small a space as I was restricted to, when
the course of my story had brought me to the days in which
they occurred.
Many of the opinions inculcated in this book, especially in
relation to the peculiar ecclesiastical position of Mexico, may
seem paradoxical j and it may not, therefore, be improper to
state distinctly and precisely the idea sought to be conveyed.
I have wished to show that it would not be less reasonable
for the Roman Catholic to attribute to the Reformed churches
the dogmatism and the crudities of many of the current isms
of the day, which fritter aw^ay most of the essentials of faith,
than is a disposition sometimes evinced to hold the Roman
Catholic church responsible for the countless Indian super-
stitions engrafted in Mexico on its traditions.
There are many other points to which I would be pleased
to refer, but as it is impossible to touch on all, I will end
at once, dedicating to my countrymen these records of their
enemies. F. R.
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