The Americans and the Mexicans are as pertinacious as the
Russians and the Turks used to be, as the Russians and the Cir- eassians are. Nor does the great Union get on much more pros- perously than the great Empire did and does in the unequal con- test. It has its successes—as at Tampico ; it also has its peculiar balks—a kind of success by the wrongend, as at Tobasco. Tampico yielded without a blow—the Mexicans, in fact, getting out of the way. Tobasco wag soundly thrashed, and then—the Americans thought it meet to get out of the way. For such, through their own boastful accounts, seems to be the state of the case. Mean- while, supplies are rapidly absorbed. The immediate combatants are warming to their work, and gaining vigour in their appetite and powers for mischief; but the commercial citizens of the Union, who have no substantial interests at stake, except in the way of loss by taxation and impeded trade, are apparently cooling in their martial ardour. General Scott is sent to supersede General Taylor, because, as people infer, General Taylor is not energetic enough. General Taylor has shown no real want of energy ; though the Americans may seek, by disgracing him, to disguise mortification at the defeats inevitable to those who contend against adverse circumstances with scanty means. But it is to be remembered that General Scott as well as being an able officer is an able and conciliatory diplomatist.
