Ministry of Exterior and Interior Relations

Most Excellent Sir--The enclosed printed documents will impress upon Your Excellency the events that occurred here in the capital subsequent to my previous note. The supreme congress issued an amnesty decree, the most ample and generous that could be conceived, the details of which have been worked on for many hours to realize it and make it effective, as the government's constant purpose has been to avoid bloodshed and to employ leniency and gentleness to attract those who have gone astray.

But such noble conduct has been absurdly interpreted by the rebels as weakness, when the executive office has more than enough means with which to bring the four mutinous National Guard regiments to order; suffice it to say, to be convinced of this truth, that the rest of the National Guard, which exceed twelve regiments, the regular army and the artillery, a weapon which the rebels lack, remain faithful. The government has thus far allowed those misguided Mexicans time for reflection, confident that they would retrace their steps and upon further contemplation draw back from the abyss into which they are rushing, and to which they want to carry the nation afflicted by the circumstances in which it finds itself because of the foreign war brought upon it, for the purpose of despoiling it of its nationality and independence.

But unfortunately, far from this, the rebel chief's responses, especially the last one, which I do not have time to transcribe for Your Excellency at present, but promise to do so at the first opportunity, are audacious in the extreme: he does not even recognize amnesty as a law: he sees the sovereign congress as a band of criminals, and calls the Chief of the Executive his coryphaeus. Your Excellency will thus understand by this, that all means of control have been sought: that its duties to command the respect of the majesty of the nation are sacred: that in observance of them it has to act with necessary energy, and it will now do so, the blame resting with those that have tenaciously and blindly committed the infamous crime of treason that they have not wanted to abjure, despite the indulgence with which they have been treated.

It is because of the people, the means, all the tendencies, and manifested shamelessly in the rebels' plan, the true objective of which is to return to the state of affairs in effect after December 6 1844, that the Republic is in the situation in which it finds itself. Then, the men that intended to suspend the congressional sessions were cursed, and today, those who feign being most horrified and scandalized over that fact, are the ones that are inciting mutiny, asking through armed force that the legislative and executive powers cease their duties; luckily, either it was or it was not a crime back then to threaten the national sovereignty, or it is now, and even more incomparably serious, because the moral body, the Congress, is always the same, and the circumstances of the republic are in truth quite different. Where were its foreign enemies in the year '44, and where are they now. . .?

What is really wanted is to do away with liberal principles; to direct us willfully and deceptively toward a monarchy: the illustrious general Santa-Anna, who was called to save the homeland, is not recognized and is left in the most horrible and unprecedented abandonment. How can the supreme government attend to the courageous men who have gone to pursue the foreign enemies, launching themselves into the desert? National sovereignty neither should nor can be allowed to succumb: nor is it possible for the executive power to tolerate being disowned by an armed faction? Who, then, besides this faction will answer to God and men for the terrible consequences that their crime, declared previously by the law as treason to the homeland, will cause?

The Supreme Government hopes, then, that in light of such palpable truths, and such weighty considerations, Your Excellency and all the worthy Mexicans in that State under your command, will indignantly reject the suggestions that the rebels of this capital could put into practice to mislead some gullible Mexicans. They are resorting to a desperate measure: the rest of the National Guard and the regular army remain faithful to the constitution, to the sovereign congress, to the government and the legally established authorities, as I have expressed to Your Excellency. A single strong blow would be enough to bring down the rebels; but this blow would be bloody, and as far as it has been and is possible we want to spare Mexican lives, to consecrate them on the homeland's altar, fighting against our foreign enemies.

The undersigned believes that he will communicate soon to Your Excellency that the traitorous sedition of the few rebels in the city has ended; reiterating to you in the meantime, his assurances of most esteemed consideration.

God and Liberty. Mexico, March 1st of 1847.

Ygnacio Sierra y Rosso