The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-22 00:00:00

MEXICO.

A letter from Mexico, dated Sept. 13, says
have so little confidence in the present courier arriv-
ing in time for the French packet I shall do no more
than send you a short account of what has taken
place since the date of my last.
Juarez and his party have sustained a severe loss
in the death of Zaragoza; he was seized with typhus,
which is raging to a frightful extent in the Mexi-
can camp, and expired on Saturday last. Zaragoza
had acquired a high reputation by repulsing the
French in their attack on the " Cerro de Guade-
loupe" on the sth of May, and possessed the confidence
of his troops to a greater extent than any other Mexi-
can General. The opinion of his countrymen is
summed up in the following lines, printed in large
letters, and posted at the corners of all the streets:—
" He died unconquered, and in the page of history
neither God nor man can tarnish his glory." What-
ever may have been his qualifications as a general,
he was undoubtedly a man of energy and courage, and
what is more to his credit, I cannot learn that his con-
duct has ever been tainted by deeds of cruelty. ,
Gonzals Ortega has succeeded to his command, but
whether he will be retainel in that position seems
more than doubtful. Some say that Comonfort has
been applied to, others that Uraga has been sent
for. The former is not like to accept of any com-
mand under Juarez, having already allied himself
with Fidauri and Doblado ; and the latter, although
a military man of some repute, cannot be expected
to do much against the veterans of France with a
force of 8,000 or 9,000 men, badly paid, worse fed,
and composed almost entirely of raw recruits. In
spite of all these disadvantages, Juarez seems bent
upon resistance. Puebla has been strongly forti-
fied, and upwards of 2,000 men are daily employed
upon the earthworks around this city. To man
these earthworks,
extending as they do over a
circuit of some ten or twelve miles, would require
at least 30,000 men, and as the Government
scarcely possesses as many hundreds, it is difficult
to see what good can result from this useless expen-
diture of money and labour. Much dissatisfaction
has been created of late by the different proprie-
tors of estates being obliged to send all their
labourers to work at these fortifications, supply-
ing them with tools and paying them at the rate
of ls. 6d. per day. Many of the papers suggest
that foreigners should be made to work, and it may
come to this at last. It is still confidently asserted
that upon the approach of the French the upper
lake will be let out and the city laid under water.
An order of the President was published a few
days back directing all the priests to lay aside
their distinctive dresses, and appear in ordinary
costume. As most of these men, since the confisca-
tion of their property, have no means of providing
themselves with lay habiliments, the order is con-
sidered as oppressive and unjust. I informed you,
in one of my previous communications, that the Go-
vernment had determined upon nationalising, or,
in other words, appropriating all the property be-
longing to schools, hospitals, and other charities.
Some of these establishments have already been
disposed of, much to the scandal of the inhabi-
tants, and only a few days back the Collegio de
las Nines, a very large establishment for the edu-
cation of young women, was ordered to be sold.
Nothing can warrant such an act of spoliation, and
it is only surprising that the people tamely submit
to it. Almost all the charitable institutions with
which this capital abounded were founded by Spa-
niards, and were mostly of a private nature; the
act, therefore, is the more arbitrary and the less jus-
tifiable; in fact, it can be viewed in no other light
than an attack upon a species of property which has
always been held sacred in every other part of the
world.

I have just been furnished with the following ac
count of the murder of M. Collenot at his hacienda,
about a league from Cordova, by a party of Carava-
jal's men. M. Collenot was formerly manager of
some ironworks in the neighbourhood of this city,
and was nephew of M. Legrand, the gentle-
man in whose house Capt. Aldham was so hospita-
bly received and so kindly attended to.
"On the 12th of August some 50 or 60 soldiers
entered the courtyard of the hacienda. Mr. Col-
lenot had not time to ask them what they wanted,
when one of the men, without the least provoca-
tion, shot him through the chest. Mortally
wounded, and having only a few miuutes to live,
he had strength enough to rush to the apartment of
his wife, with the hope of saving her. She fortu-
natelyescaped into the woods, notwithstanding that
the miscreants fired several shots at her. Collenot,
seeing the wife safe, took his gun down, had just
strength enough to fire on the assassins, and fell
dead. His body was horribly mutilated. The
state of the poor wife when she found that her
husband had been thus barbarously murdered may
be imagined but cannot be described."
The case has been brought to the knowledge of
Baron Wagner, but it is not likely that any repara-
tion will be obtained, or that the Government will
even dare to reprimand the officer who sanctioned
and witnessed this barbarity.
to-day it is confi-
dently 3,000 French troops landed at Vera Cruz
th the lattert
ass
asserted
rnde
d
o thatlas G
t month,ener a and
General
Forey, with 4,000
more, arrived off that port on the 7th or Bth. The