But
there is evidence that back of Boulbon was the French
Government, and that he was attempting, in his small way, what
later was attempted by Maximilian, backed by a French army corps
and Louis Napoleon, to establish in Mexico an empire under
French protection. For both the filibuster and the emperor the end
was the same; to be shot by the fusillade against a church wall.
In 1852, two years before Boulbon's death, which was the finale to
his second filibustering expedition into Sonora, he wrote to a
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.
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