In eight days Hermosillo was reached;
and in an hour after the preliminary parley
with Novara, the temporary prefect, the
French—with a severe loss of officers and
men—were masters of the town, and the war
was fairly begun. As the Northern
Sonorians hated the present government and
favoured the French immigration, it seemed
as if it would be the signal for a general revolt.
Perhaps it would have decided the question
had Raousset been enabled to follow up the
advantage he had gained; but, unfortunately
for him, he fell sick immediately after the
battle, and, more dead than alive, was carried
back to Guaymas by his men, utterly
demoralised by the want of their leader and the
loss of their officers. A short distance from
Guaymas a messenger from M.Calvo,a French
merchant, prayed de Raousset not to advance
further; but to see the general and to patch
up some kind of treaty which should prevent
further bloodshed. Raousset was marching
on Guaymas, and would have surely taken
it, even in the present enfeebled state of his
band, as it was totally undefended and
unprotected. Raousset obeyed the suggestion;
but no good came of it; and, in the evening,
his sickness increased, so that for three weeks
he was insensible, and hovering between life
and death. When he recovered he found that
the company had treated with General
Blanco, and had accepted forty thousand
piastres for the evacuation of Souora.

As soon as he was able Raousset went to
San Francisco to organise another expedition;
and at this moment Walker, the Fillibuster,
offered him the command of his troops in
Lower California, which offer he refused.
Arista now gave up the presidency of the
Mexican republic, which Santa Anna assumed.
The Frenchman believed in Santa Anna, and
hoped as much as he believed. But the two
men quarrelled in their interviews; and
de Raousset in revenge entered into a plot
against Santa Anna, which was discovered;
the plotter himself receiving timely intimation
of his betrayal, and so able to escape the
doom which else would have overtaken him
then. He returned to San Francisco; still
with Sonora, the mines of Arizona and
Antonia in his head, and he worked at his
plan so well that in the middle of May,
eighteen hundred and fifty-four, he sailed for
Guaymas, prepared to take his own course
for weal or woe. He began his journey
by garotting the American captain, who
wished to delay the start owing to the
terrible weather; and, on the twenty-eighth of
June, he landed at Guaymas. His first
measures were abortive; but his presence
excited the French soldiers and emigrants in
the town to the last degree. Mexican folly
and insolence were not wanting to exasperate
this French pride and rapacity, and
soon a struggle between the two parties
was inevitable. Fights in different parts of
the town inflamed the bad blood already
roused; and, when a body of armed Indians
and a large number of troops from the interior
arrived to strengthen the Mexicans, all
hope of peace was at an end. The French
soldiers clamoured for war; for a sudden
onset and the leadership of the count;
Raousset—nothing loth—urged on the
scheme, of which he undertook both the
responsibility and the command. After
three hours' hard fighting the insurgents laid
down their arms; Raousset broke his sword,
and was conducted as a prisoner to the
consul's house. It had been a combat between
four hundred on the insurgents' side and eighteen
hundred on the Mexican. Ten days after
Raousset was tried and condemned, and, two
days after, was executed. He refused to allow
his eyes to be bandaged, and met his death
with a calm, grave courage that had
something truly heroic in it. He fell at the first
volley, and the Sonorians lamented him as
the fallen defender of their independence.
Here were grand talents and a rich nature
lost, which under more favourable
circumstances might have revolutionised a
hemisphere. His biographer, Henry de la
Madelène, calls him a "Cortes slain at the outset'"
and a second Cortes he might, indeed, have
proved, had he known the material out of
which man fashions success.

STICKYTOES.

IN these latter days, a radical revolution
has broken out in the kingdom of Petland.
The lowest members of zoological society
have risen to the highest dignities.
Sea-anemones, and others of equally doubtful
position, assume to be regarded as domestic
pets. The aquavivaria, marine and fresh,
have introduced a host of aspirants after
the daily smiles and tenderness of ladies;
and there are symptoms that even invisible
pets, curious and choice animalcules, rotifers,
and vorticellæ, will, before long, be tended,
fed, and cherished, as rustic adornments in
our homes of taste. "Liberty, fraternity,
equality!" is the unanimous cry of multitudes
of oppressed candidates for admission to
our drawing-rooms. "A fair stage, and no
favour!" shout an ark-full of dumb but
noisy animals. "No close boroughs, for
proud, exclusive, long-eared rabbits! down
with aristocratic Italian greyhounds, King
Charles's spaniels, and Angora cats!
Abolish the privileged monopoly of canaries,
guinea-pigs, piping bulfinches,—and your
petitioners, the entire roll-call of living things
created, the united body of members entered
on the list of Cuvier's Zoology, will ever
pray. Justice to flying things; justice to
swimming things; justice to all!"

At the next election of a fashionable pet, I .
have a candidate of my own to propose.
Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to present to
your notice the Honourable Mr. Verdant
Stickytoes, of ancient lineage, accustomed to