Torn by their unceasing dissensions at home, the unfortunate Mexican nation now brought upon themselves complications from abroad. The Government of Juarez, having triumphed over the Conservatives, had been installed in the capital amid popular enthusiasm. But what was the state of the country over which it ruled? Sources of public revenue were paralysed or hypothecated; there was not a dollar in the treasury; and private enterprise and the activities of ordinary wealth were ruined. Funds must be obtained in some way; and an Act of Congress was passed in July, 1861, suspending the payment of Mexico's foreign debts. This grave step laid Mexico open to the most serious charges in European capitals, and her action was stigmatised as repudiation and robbery, especially in London, where the first Mexican loan had been contracted in 1823. This act of the Mexican Liberal Congress was naturally painted in its worst colours by the reactionary representatives of the Conservative party in Europe, who, desirous of bringing back a priestly and monarchical _regime_, thought this an opportunity and motive for compassing it by means of European intervention. In justice to Mexico at that period it must be chronicled that repudiation of her debts was not intended; only suspension in her temporary distress. But the reprehensible Act of President Miramon, in violating the British Legation and seizing $660,000 belonging to the British bondholders, in November, 1860, had not been forgotten. Maximilian--the picturesque and melancholy-appearing figure: the ill-fated monarch of an unnatural New World empire--was the culminating figure of Mexico's internecine warfare and questionable financial acts. The story of Maximilian stands out from the pages of Mexico's history in pathetic colours, wringing a sigh from us as we scan its pages, or halt a space in the museum of Mexico's capital before the gilded tawdry coach of the ill-fated Austrian, which is preserved there in musty ruin. For up rose Napoleon III., pricking up his ears at this suggestion of a monarchy in America; and, urged by him, the tripartite convention by France, Spain, and England was brought to being in London, October, 1861, whose purpose was--or, at any rate by the British and Spanish--intervention and the enforcement of the just claims of their bondholders against the defaulting Mexicans. Sailing from Europe, the fleets of the three Powers arrived at Vera Cruz at the end of the year. No idea of conquest of, or interposition in, Mexican territory was intended in this action, only enforcement of just claims, and so it was proclaimed; and a conference having been celebrated with the Mexican representatives, and a preliminary agreement entered into, the Spanish and British ships in all sincerity withdrew and sailed for home. Not so the French--and the charge of perfidy is recorded against France for her act--for the troops of Napoleon repudiated the agreement