friend in Paris: "Europeans are disturbed by the growth of the
United States. And rightly so. Unless she be dismembered; unless
a powerful rival be built up beside her (_i .e._, France in Mexico),
America will become, through her commerce, her trade, her
population, her geographical position upon two oceans, the
inevitable mistress of the world. In ten years Europe dare not fire a
shot without her permission. As I write fifty Americans prepare to
sail for Mexico and go perhaps to victory. _Voila les Etats-Unis_."

These fifty Americans who, in the eyes of Boulbon, threatened the
peace of Europe, were led by the ex-doctor, ex-lawyer, ex-editor,
William Walker, _aged twenty-eight years_. Walker had attempted
but had failed to obtain from the Mexican Government such a
contract as the one it had granted De Boulbon. He accordingly
sailed without it, announcing that, whether the Mexican
Government asked him to do so or not, he would see that the
women and children on the border of Mexico and Arizona were
protected from massacre by the Indians. It will be remembered that
when Dr. Jameson raided the Transvaal he also went to protect
"women and children" from massacre by the Boers. Walker's
explanation of his expedition, in his own words, is as follows. He
writes in the third person: "What Walker saw and heard satisfied
him that a comparatively small body of Americans might gain a
position on the Sonora frontier and protect the families on the
border from the Indians, and such an act would be one of humanity
whether or not sanctioned by the Mexican Government. The
condition of the upper part of Sonora was at that time, and still is
[he was writing eight years later, in 1860], a disgrace to the
civilization of the continent...and the people of the United States
were more immediately responsible before the world for the