Sir,—General Lopez de Santa Anna, who so admired the St Patrick’s Battalion, did not forget the martial qualities of the Irish soldier. In 1866 while living in exile in New York he offered his support to the Mexican Republic in its fight against the French. This was rejected but on 29 September 1866 the New York Herald, under the headline ‘A Mexican Fenian movement, Mexico for the Milesians’, reported that Santa Anna had declared himself ‘General-in-Chief of the Mexican Republic’, and was negotiating to hire the army of the Roberts wing of the Fenian Brotherhood.
Santa Anna’s initiative was timely coming as it did the day after it had been announced that Roberts was not to be prosecuted for his part in the abortive Fenian invasion of Canada, and that the Fenian Brotherhood’s confiscated arms were to be returned to them. The Herald reported that Santa Anna had acquired three large steamers as transports and that he had held several conferences with William R. Roberts, Thomas W. Sweeny and other Fenian chiefs. Santa Anna, it was said, had laid matters before them in such a favourable light ‘that these gentlemen have shut their eyes to the advantages of Canada and are more zealously educating the Irish in the belief that Mexico is the country specially designated by Providence as best fitted for the development of the Milesian race’.
Roberts’ response to the Herald’s exuberance was more measured and might have been drafted for him by a modern press agent:
Colonel Roberts said a number of interviews had taken place between himself and General Santa Anna, several of which were of a private and personal nature, and the balance of which were in relation to public matters of which he was not at liberty to give details.
—Yours etc.,
DONALD BARRETT
Hertfordshire