“After dinner—say three-quarters of an hour—we, the gentlemen, led by the Emperor, went into the smoking-room. Gilt cigars were handed round; the Emperor did not smoke. Here he drew an armchair up into the corner, and seated me again, he and the others standing until their cigars were nearly finished. Then he took a seat, and commanded the others to be seated. Dispatches were handed him, some of which he handed to me to look into. Presently he dismissed the gentlemen, and said, ‘Mr. Maury, you have something to say to me?’ ‘Yes, sire; I can’t manage immigration through the Ministers. I must transact business with you directly, and not through them; nor must they have anything to do with it’. ‘That’s what I intend’, said he”. A short time afterwards colonization was placed entirely in Maury’s hands and unlimited power to draw on the treasury was also intrusted to him; this indeed was a mark of great confidence. During the latter part of October, Maury’s son Richard with his wife and young son came to Mexico to assist his father and also to prepare himself to take over the work in his absence, for Maury was then planning to make a visit to England to meet his wife and his four younger children. Mrs. Maury had been unwilling to come to Mexico,—indeed to leave Virginia at all; but she at last consented to go to England where the children might enjoy better educational advantages. Maury and his son worked along energetically on the immigration project, but he had already begun to have his doubts as to its success. This feeling of uncertainty was caused, not by the lack of immigrants but by the unreadiness of the Mexican government. It was not prepared to offer them lands on any terms, and many first-rate men from various parts of the South, who had been looking for homes, had gone away in disgust. The fundamental reason for failure should not, indeed, be laid at Maury’s feet. But by this time the instability of the Mexican throne had begun to betray itself in the slowness of action and the lack of decision of the Emperor. “The indecision and weakness of Maximilian”, writes Stevenson, “prevented his taking full advantage of the opportunity then offered to strengthen the empire. The delay caused by a vacillating policy discouraged the would-be colonists, and before long the flood of immigration was checked”.[21]