The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-15 00:00:00

ARMY AND NAVY OF MEXICO.
The following is an extract from Mr. Macgregor's
volum' Ong isswd by order of Parliament., having been
recently presented by command of her MBksty) on the

States of'Alexiew From the present conaitioV of at:d

pr:;c.Tedingi in that country, the subjoined observations
and statements are of interest :--

The will of the army has actually formed what may
be termed the only public opinion in Mexico ; for the
military commander who has been the most fortunate
in obtaining the control over a major part of the army,
has been the most succecsful in carrying out a pronuncia-
mcnio, and in overturning the Government of the day.
The constitution or formation of this army is described
by all authorities, and especially by the late American
Minister, Mr. Thompson, in no favourable character.
This army has, to a great degree, been formed and is
recruited by sending forth armed detachments into the
mountains and wilds to capture aborigines. These are
actually brought in chains to some military head-
quarters. Mr. Thompson says :
" Droves of miserable and more than half-naked
wretches are seen chained together and marching
through the streets to the barrack►, where they are
scoured and then dressed in a uniform made of linen
cloth or of serge, and are occasionally drilled ; which
drilling consists mainly in teaching them to march in
column through the streets. Their military bands are
good, and the men learn to march indifferently well—
but only indifferently well—they put their feet down as
if they were feeling for the place, and do not step with
thatipaunty, erect, and graceful air which is se beautiful
in well-drilled troops. As to the wheelings in well-
trained troops, like the opening and shutting of a gate,
or the prompt and exact execution of other evolutions,
they know nothing about them. There is not one in
ten of these soldiers who has ever seea a gun, nor one
in a hundred who has ever fired one before he was
brought into• the barracks. It is in this way that
the ranks of the army are • generally filled up ; in
particular emergencies the prisons are thrown open,
which always contain more prisoners than the army
numbers, and these felons become soldiers,- and some
of them officers. Their arms, too, are generally
worthless English muskets, which have been' con-
demned and thrown aside, and are purchased for
almost nothing and sold to the Mexican Government.
Their powder, too, is equally bad ; in the last battle be-
tween Santa Anna and Buaantente, which lasted the
whole day, not one cannon ball in a thousand reached
the enetny---they generally fell about half-way between
the opposing armies. I do not' think that the Mexi-
cans are deficient in courage ; or it might be more pro-
perly said, that they are indifferent to danger or the pre-
servation of a life which is really so worthless to the
most of them. But with the disadvantages to which I
have adverted, the reader will not be surprised that in all
the conflicts with our people, in which they have been
more or less engaged for the last 30 years, they have
always been defeated."
A Mexican officer, in admitting that cavalry alone were
not able to break a well-formed square of infantry, as-
serted that in this respect the Mexican, cavalry had in
this the ad►antage over all others ; that the cavalry
armed with lassoes rode up and threw them over the
men forming the squares, and pulled them out, and thus
made the breach.

"The Mexican army," says Mr. Thompson, " and
more particularly their cavalry, may do very well to
fight each other, but in any conflict with .our own or
European troops, it would not be a battle but a massacre.
What then must be the murderous inequality between
a corps of American cavalry and an equal number of
Mexicans? The American corps, from the superior
size of their horses, would cover twice as mach ground,
and the obstruction offered by the Mexicans on their
small and scrawny ponies would scareely cause their
horses to stumble in riding over them; to say nothing of
the greater inequality of the men themselves, five to one
at least in individual combats, and more than twice that
in a battle. The infantry wonld be found even more
impotent."
Mr. Thompson observes that there are in Mexico
"more than two hundred Generals, most of them with-
out commands. Every officer who commands a regiment
has the title of General, and is distinguished from Gene-
rals who have no commands by the addition of ' Gene-
ral effectivo.".rhe rata of pay is not very different from
that of our own army. Each officer and soldier, how-
ever, is his own commissary, no rations being issued ;
and they are well satisfied if they receive enough of
their pay to procure their scanty rations, which was very
rarely the case, except with Santa Anna's favourite
troops, whom he always kept abaut his person, and this
made it their interest to sustain him. In one of the last
conversations which I had with him, I told him that the
army would remain faithful to him just so long as he
could pay them, and no longer, and that I did not see
how it was possible for him to pay them much longer.
" The result proved the truth of both predictions, and
that, I have no doubt, was the cause of the revolution
which overthrew him. Shortly before I left. Mexico, an
officer in the army came to the city and settled his ac-
counts with the war department, and received a certifi-
cate that 1,500 dollars were due to him ; after hawking
it about amongst the brokers, he sold the claim for 125
dollars, which was five cents. on the dollar."
He considers that the Mexican men (Indians in parti-
cular) have no more physical strength than the women
of the United States. They are of diminutive stature,
unaccustomed to exercise or labour. Marauding bands
of Comanches penetrate several hundred miles into '
Mexico, levy black mail, carry off horses, catttle, and
captives. He says that there are not at this time (1846)
less than five thousand Mexicans, slaves of the Co-
manches, and of all our western tribes are the most
cowardly. The I)..lawares frequently whip them five

to one.
" That which is in all respects the greatest nuisance
and the most insuperable barrier to the prosperity of
Mexico is the army. They will tell you there that it
amounts to fifty thousand men, but they have never had
half the number. I have no doubt that the accounts at
the department of war exhibit nearly the number stated,
but a large proportion of them are men of straw—ficti-
tious names fivudulently inverted for the benefit of the
officers who pay them. They are paid every day, or
rather that is the law, but the pay is just as fictitious as
the muster rolls."
Mr. Brantz Mayer gives the following statement of
the army of Mexico:—
" I may state that the forces have been ccnsiderably
augmented, and in all probability amount to 40,000 men.
In 1840 the Mexico army was composed of—Fourteen
generals of division; twenty six generals of brigade.
Artillery—Three brigades on foot, one brigade mount"
five separate companies. Engineer corps—One director-
general, three colonels, six lieutenant-colonels, one ad-
jutant, fourteen captains, sixteen lieutenants, ten sub
lieutenants. Sappers—One battalion. Plana Mayer
del Ejercito—This was composed of the general-in-chief
and a number of colonels, lieutenant•colonels, cap.
tains, &c., &c. Permanent Infantry—Eight regi-
ments of two battalions each, each battalion of
eight companies, each company of 112 men, officers,
included, or in all 14,336 persons.. Active Infantry—
Nine regiments. This body differs from the preceding,
national Government ; or, in other words,
ial militia, well drilled. Total number
or permanent infantry, in being liable to service only
—Eight regiments, each
t
g
when h
iseas
sort of n
required s
regiment composed in all of 676
mtrl
we6e,onli
regiment
ptaPhneei reems:
composed.
ga hn naooteff
h4Ctwo ao vsa6lrgyuadrons, each squadron of
6.
t
Thirty-five separate com-
panics in various places throughout the republic. Active
Cavalry—Six regiments of' four squadrons, each squadron
of two companies. Navy—The navy of Mexico consists
schooners. and or
two
threesteam-frigates, two bris, three
gunboats."

HT IN MATAMOROS.
a majority of which have flat roofs.
liphse n
At leastANG
two-thirds of the population of Matatnoroi
tops
of
sleep in the open air in the cow t-yards and upon the
for retiring arrives, which is generally
speaking much earlier than in the large cities of the
United States, they pull their cots out into the court-
yard, (every house of any size here has a large yard in
t he houses,
hour
the rear), and two or three dozen, male and female,
sleep in one inclosure. Those who have not.cots or the
means of procuring them, make a very comfortable bed
upon the bricks—with which most of those yards are
pave ]. The great majority of the Mexicans rise early,
frequently before the sun, but they sleep again in the
evening, from three until about half-past five o'clock. In
fact, they are as regular in their siesta as you are in your
dinner, and when returning from my dinner, there are
sevel or eight houses the front rooms of which are
strewed with cots (bedsteads are used only as ornaments
here) upon which senor, senora, senoritas, and all the
little eras are napping off at a beautiful rate. Amongst
the over-particular people of your country, a lady would
no more think of sleeping in a room fronting a thorough-
fare with the window blinds open, than she would of
flying. But hete, bless you, they think nothing of it.
Why here, a young senorita will come to the window,
and converse with a gentleman of her acquaintance with
nothing on but n chemise, and think no more of it than
a Camp-street gentleman would do of goieg into a
house with his coat off. I can relate to you a little inci-
dent that occurred in my presence., and in which I
figured somewhat, to show you how little hold affected
modesty has token with the natives:—
In the court-yard of the house in whieh . I occupy a
room, there are from 60 to 90 persons, including the
owner's family and his domestics, two other families
with their domestics, with those who rent stores and
rooms from him, and there are very many who do that,
considering that his building occupies a whole square,
seven-eighths of whom sleep in the yard or upon the
roof of the house. Men,
women, and chi] !ren sleep
within a few feet of each other as if they were one fa-
mily, and frequently they have never spoken together.
A senora will pull off all her upper garments, and lay
down upon her cot within six or eight feet of a gentle-
man, without seeming to know or care whether he is
within that many miles. you must not infer from this
that such are bad women, for if you do you will be fre-
quently wrong. It is the manner in which they have
been educated, and the fault is in a lack of modesty,
nothing else.
One night between 11 and 12 o'clock; when all were
asleep in this yard, a heavy shower of rain came on,
and you never saw such a scampering as there was for
the rooms. The early part of the night was remark-
ably . warm and sultry, and an unprecedented number
had gone out to seep in the open air, and some six or
seven Americans had gone on the top of the roof, which
they reached by a light ladder from the yard. The
first few drops of rain admonished me to be up and
moving, and I had just got my cot into my room, and
was returning for some clothing I .had dropped in my
hurry, when I observed a senorita pulling away at the
ladder and endeavcaring to remove it quickly com-
prehended her meaning, and as quickly went to her
assistance.

We removed the ladder just
in time to prevent
well drenched young man from descending. The
others quickly came up to the edge' of the roof with
the same intention, and begged us to furnish them the
means of descending ; but no, we were inexorable.