"This pestilence of robbers," she says, "which infests the Republic, has never been eradicated. They are, in fact, the outgrowth of the civil war. Sometimes, in the guise of insurgents, taking an active part in the independence, they have independently laid waste the country, robbing all they met. As expellers of the Spaniards, these armed bands infested the roads between Vera Cruz and the capital, ruined all commerce, and without any particular inquiry into political opinions, robbed and murdered in all directions. Whatever measures have been from time to time taken to eradicate this evil, its causes remain, and the idle and unprincipled will always take advantage of the disorganized state of the country to obtain by force what they might gain by honest labor." Frequent crosses by the roadside were marks of murders committed by these highwaymen, yet the Mexican robbers had the reputation of being kind and considerate bandits. She relates, as a proof of their occasional moderation, that some ladies "were travelling from Mexico with a _padre_, when they were met by a party of robbers, who stopped the coach, and seized every thing, amongst other articles of value, a number of silver dishes. The _padre_ observed to them that as the plate did not belong to the ladies, but was lent them by a friend, they would be obliged to replace it, and requested that one might be left as a pattern. The reasonable creatures instantly returned one dish and a cover. "Another time, having completely stripped an English gentleman and his servant, and tied them both to a tree, observing that the man appeared distressed at the loss of his master's shoes, they politely returned and laid the shoes beside the gentleman."