17 JULY 1869, Page 23

Mexico and the United States. By Gorham D. Abbot, LL.D.

(New York : Putnam.)—Dr. Abbot is a fervent admirer of Mexican Repub-

limns, and an equally fervent enemy of the Pope. He might have found space in his volume, which is indeed of no inconsiderable magnitude, to tell us a good deal more than he does, if he had not thought it needful to expound his political and religious principles quite so much ab ore; as it is, he narrates the growth of English liberties and of Papal usurpa- tions, to show us, it is to be supposed, that Mexican patriots are in sympathy with the one and sworn foes of the other. Mexican patriots, indeed, would seem to be the salt of the earth. "Neither England, Francs, nor Spain, nor old Rome itself, Pagan or Papal, can show a fairer record than the wronged and defenceless Mexicans present of righteous claims, of intrepid patriotism, of self-sacrifice and suffering in the cause of their country, their government, or of humanity." Well, we felt no particular favour for intervention, especially in the form which it ultimately assumed ; but there is no forgetting that it was provoked by about as intolerable a state of confusion and of wrong-doing as ever was heard of. It may be too much to credit European Powers with good motives, but

the Sister Republic herself had found it necessary some few years before to do something of the same kind, and had done it, too, in a much

more businesslike and profitable way than the European invaders were

to manage. Surely, unless our memory deceives us, there are one or two trifling strips of territory which it might be well to restore to the virtuous and enlightened race to whom they once belonged. Dr. Abbot's book has indeed some useful and valuable things in it ; especially there is the fullest map of Mexico that we have ever seen.