The commercial treaty which Butler concluded with the Mexican government on April 5, 1831, and which was ratified just a year later contained an article intended to regulate the trade by this route. It declared: "For the purpose of regulating the interior commerce between the frontier territories of both republics, it is agreed that the executive of each shall have power, by mutual agreement, of determining on the route and establishing the roads by which such commerce shall be conducted; and in all cases where the caravans employed in such commerce may require convoy and protection by military escort, the supreme executive of each nation shall, by mutual agreement, in like manner, fix on the period of departure for such caravans, and the point at which the military escort of the two nations shall be exchanged. And it is further agreed, that, until the regulations for governing this interior commerce between the two nations shall be established, the commercial intercourse between the state of Missouri of the United States of America, and New Mexico in the United Mexican States, shall be conducted as heretofore, each government affording the necessary protection to the citizens of the other."45

Writers of popular narratives of events along the trail tell of United States troops escorting wagon trains to the Arkansas, and sometimes into Mexican territory, and of the coming of Mexican troops to meet and escort traders to Santa Fé.46

45 United States, Treaties and Conventions, 1776-1909, I, 1095. 46 In the books cited in footnote 1, above.

CHAPTER VI

DENUNCIATION OF POINSETT BECAUSE OF HIS RELA TIONS WITH THE YORK MASONS

In spite of clerical opposition, Masonry was already flourishing in Mexico before Poinsett's arrival in 1825. But all of the lodges hitherto fully organized and having a charter belonged to the Scottish rite. The secrecy of the lodges made them a fertile field for the growth and spread of political doctrines. The centralista faction dominated them everywhere and their influence was reactionary. Federalistas felt that it was necessary to oppose their influence in order to prevent a return to the monarchical system.

Just at the time when the changes were occurring in the government which Poinsett spoke of as the organization of an American party, and when that party was getting control of the cabinet,1 lodges of York rite Masons began to be organized. They immediately spread with great rapidity, were everywhere controlled by federalista partisans, and soon began a violent political agitation against the supposed European and monarchical tendencies of the centralistas exerted through the Scottish rite lodges. A bitter hostility sprang up between the two rites, which shortly either absorbed or obscured all other issues and caused the

1 Discussed above in the chapter entitled British Influence in Mexico, and Poinsett's Struggle Against it.

two chief political parties to abandon their old names for the respective designations of the rival rites. Poinsett's relations with the York rite leaders, which became manifest at the time when they were securing control of the government, were the chief cause of the fierce denunciations which the defeated faction soon began to hurl at him, and which interfered so seriously with the conduct of his negotiations.

In his correspondence at the time of their formation, Poinsett did not hesitate to acknowledge that he had taken part in their organization. In a letter of October 14, 1825, to Rufus King in London, he said he had encouraged and assisted in their organization and had entertained the members at his home. The meeting had been reported to Ward, the British chargé, by Tornel as having been entirely political; and that gentleman had been given a false notion of the toasts. Subsequenly Ward had given a diplomatic dinner to the secretaries of state and foreign ministers to which he had not invited Poinsett. At this dinner Ward's friends had indulged in toasts allusive to pending negotiations between the United States and Mexico of not a very friendly tenor, and those toasts had been published at Ward's request. The factions which Poinsett classed as the enemies of the government, the European Spaniards, the Bourbonistas, and the centralistas,-had been displeased, he said, at the good understanding that had hitherto existed between the representatives of England and the United States, and had worked on Ward to break

it up. In closing, Poinsett said he would await information from King concerning opinion in London about Ward's activities before he attempted to retaliate for the insult which he felt Ward had offered.2

Later in explaining to Clay the attack of the legislature of the state of Vera Cruz upon him, discussed below in this chapter, Poinsett said the most serious charge made against him was that he had established the York Masons; and explained to Clay just what part he had taken in their organization. He regretted that Masonry should have been made an instrument of political intrigue. He said that lodges of York Masons had already existed in Mexico before his arrival, but that they were without charters. Members of these had asked him to secure a charter from the grand lodge of New York, which he had not hesitated to do. The persons who made the request were all members of the government or interested in maintaining the existing order of things and in preserving the tranquility of the country. He said they were General Guerrero, a distinguished revolutionary officer; Esteva, secretary of the treasury; Arispe, secretary of grace and justice; Zavala, a member of the Senate and later governor of the state of Mexico; and Alpuche, a member of the Senate. He said he had no notion that such men had in view any project to disorganize the government. As soon as the Yorkinos were publicly accused of perverting the organization to political purposes, he said he had withdrawn from

2 Poinsett to Rufus King, October 14, 1825, MS., Department of State, Despatches from Mexico, I.

their meetings. But he excused them by saying that the Scottish rite Masons had long been organized, and that their opponents had only followed their example in political activity. He said further that the progress of the Yorkino cause had been so rapid as to lead the people to attribute it to some secret cause. They see in this "the direction of some able hand, and have thought proper to attribute the success of the republican party, the consolidation of the federal system, and the establishment of liberal principles exclusively to my influence."

Zavala, to whom Poinsett referred as friendly and useful and a leading member of the Yorkino lodge, later published a brief account of the formation of the lodges. He says the project was formed by Alpuche and joined by Esteva, Arispe, Victoria and others; that its purpose was to oppose the Escoceses (Scots); that five lodges were formed; and that Poinsett was then asked to obtain for them a charter from the grand lodge of New York. This step and the installation of the grand lodge in Mexico, he says, was the only interference by this American, who, he continues, because of his share in the movement has been calumniated by aristocrats and various European agents in Mexico who have taken more part than he in the affairs of the country. Tornel, the bitter enemy of

3 Poinsett to Clay, July 8, 1827, MS., Department of State, Despatches from Mexico, III.

4 Zavala, Ensayo Historico, I, 346. This was published in 1831. On page 385 he says: "los periódicos del otro bando le acusaban de haber faltado á la primera obligacion de un min