Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-03-31
FROM MEXICO.
Assassination of the Belgian Envoy.

Assassination OF the Belgian Envoy.
The New York Worlds correspondence
from the City of Mexico, March ), gives the
following particulars of the assassination Of
one of the Belgian ENJOYS by banditti on
the 4th inst:
A sad, and, in its sad and political conse-
quenees abroad, a startling event took place
yesterday, about ten miles this side of Rio
Frio.
Two diligences yesterday left the capital
at the usual hopr of 8 A. NJ. for Vera Cruz.
The first of these was special vehicle,
containing the members Of the mission sent
to Mexico few weeks since by the new
King Leopold H., of Belgium. In the Sc
cond were the passengers by the regular mail
of the day, among them Capt. Turner, of the
American steamer Manhattan, on which the
Belgian party had engaged their passage on
their way home The diligences always stop
about 10 A. NJ. at Rio Frio for breakfast, and
the road for some fifteen miles before reach
ing that point is particularly dreary and
lonely, winding up to Rio Frio, the highest
point between the coast and capital, through
a waste of sand and pretty heavy pine
woods.
About ten miles this side Of Rio Frio the
passengers, many of whom had been walk
ing to ease the mules, got back into the We
hicles. Capt. Turner, who had been con-
versing offthe road with Capt. DHuart, one
Of the Belgians, a fine young officer, and an
aid-de-eamp of the Count OF Flanders, was
invited by him to leavethe second diligence,
and take seat by his side on the imperial,
or outer seat OF the first. Pleading desire
to take second nap as his excuse for de-
clining, the American got back into his own
place-and unconsciously thereby, in all
probability, saved his own life. For, not
FIVE minutes afterward, the report Of rifles,
fired in rapid succession, was heard, and the
startled passengers of the second diligence,
from one of whom | have just had my ae-
count of the affair." looking out, saw the
first diligence stopped in the road, two of its
inmates loading and firing from behind the
shelter OF the wheels, and three individuals
on foot walking swiftly away up the hillside,
under the pine trees, with their guns on their
shouldersi
Fastening forward, they found the young
DHuart, but amoment before full of life and
spirit and buoyant antieipations of de-
lightful homewaTd trip, stretched lifeless on
the top of the diligence. A mimic ball had
passed directly through his head. By his
side lay another of the mission, Lieutenan:
Marechal, dangerously wounded in the
shoulder, and also by a mimic ball. The
Belgian envoy to General Forey, although
he sprang out of the diligence at the
first Ere, and returned shot for shot, had hap
lily escaped.
No attempt was made to interfere further
with the party, who proceeded on their way
sadly enough to Rio Frio. A telegram was
instantly sent to Mexico, on receiving which
the Emperor Macmillan, accompanied by
his own surgeon and small escort, set out
at once on horseback for the scene of the dis
aster. The city and the palace are, of course,
in great ferment over the news, and it is
difficult TO comprehend at once the motives
which can have provoked the cowardly and
apparently wapton assassination. The muir
derers do not appear 10 have been robbers of
the ordinary description; and, as the ENJOYS
upon whom the attack was made we're in no
wise political envoys, it is not easy to see
how any faction here can have expected to
be benefited by the crime, unless, indeed,
there be something in the suspicious already
loudly expressed, that the clerical party now
thoroughly hostile to Macmillan may have
planned this atrocity for the purpose of
bringing odiqm and distrust upon himself
and his experiment of empire in Belgium,
where, with the advent Ct Leopold II, the
clericals are supposed to have come back, lg
to be coming back to favor.
As yet, however, 1 repeat, all is in the
dark as to the origin and the perpetrators of
this shocking deed. The robbery on Satur-
day morning, near Puebla, of diligence
$4,000, in charge of an Austrian
lieutenant and two men, is more compre-
hepsive and common place affair; but it
serves, at least, to show how dreary pieoe |
Of work it is to keep order and establish Sc
curity in a country which has no crossroads,
and along highway which more resembles
the bed Of river torrent or the path of tor
nado than a means of communication be-
tween great and opulent eities.