No. 482.
Mr. Morgan
to Mr. Evarts.
Mexico, July 24, 1880. (Received August 6.)
Sir: In my dispatch No. 57, I informed you of an attempt which had been made by a detachment of State troops at Guanajuato upon the life of General Gonzalez. It appears that a similar attack was made upon him on the 19th instant at Leon, which resulted in the serious wounding of Alonzo Lopez.
General Gonzalez appears to have received a majority of the votes cast by the electoral college.
On the 26th of June last, General Jésus Ramirez and Colonel Izunza attacked Mazatlan and obtained possession of the city. General Carlo, in command of government troops, took refuge on one of the gunboats [Page 766] in the harbor, and immediately commenced to bombard the town, but ceased upon the representations of the foreign consuls. Some seventeen of the government troops were killed; the number lost by the insurgents is not given.
The government has succeeded in recapturing the place, and has reopened the port, which it had closed.
It is reported that Colonel Rayes, who went to the relief of Cañedo, at Culiacan, which was threatened by Marquez de Leon, is in a critical position, being surrounded by a large force of insurgents. It is also said that the troops that occupied the city of Oajaca were ordered to Tehuantepec and Juchitan, which are in revolution, and that they have been driven back upon Yantepec. Numerous bands are said to have taken the field in the neighborhood of Tetila. Negrete is in the neighborhood of Orizaba, at the head of three hundred men. These occurrences would seem to indicate a disturbed condition of the country, but the members of the government with whom I have had occasion to converse lately do not seem to apprehend any serious trouble.
Rumors are abundant that General Gonzalez will not be declared President; that a sufficient number of electoral votes cast in his favor will be excluded, on the ground that the electors who cast them obtained a majority through fraud 5 that the election will then devolve upon Congress, in which event he will not be elected. But these are mere rumors.
I am, &c.,