ASPIROZ, as-peroth, Manuel de, Mexi can soldier, statesman and diplomat: b. Puebla, 9 June 1836; d. Washington, D. C., 24 March 1905. He was graduated from the University of Mexico in 1855, was licensed to practise law in 1863, but upon the French invasion entered the army. In the Juarez insurrection of 1863 against Maximilian, he served in the insurgent army with great distinction, rising from 2d lieutenant to colonel. After the fall of Quere taro he was appointed judge-advocate of the military court which sentenced the Emperor to death, thereby incurring the lasting hatred of the imperial house of Austria. of which Maxi milian was a member. In 1867 Aspiroz became assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the new republic; in 1872 he did much to set tle amicably the claims between the United States and Mexico, which dated from the Mex ican War in 1845s in 1873-75 was consul at San Francisco; and in 1875 was elected senator from his native province to the Mexican Na tional Congress. In 1881 he left the Senate to become a member of the commission appointed to make treaties with the powers of the world; was law professor in the College of Puebla from 1883 to 1890, when he was again ap pointed by President Diaz assistant Secretary of State, serving in that capacity until appointed, in 1899, first Mexican Ambassador to the United States, a position he held till his death. In
1900 he was the Mexican representative at The Hague tribunal; was a member of several scientific organizations, a knight commander of the military Order of Our Lord Jesus Christ of Portugal, and had been presented by the Shah of Persia with the decoration of the Order of the Lion and Rising Sun, and by the Dowager Empress of China with the insignia of the Order of the Dragon, in both cases in appreciation of his services in negotiating trea ties between their respective countries. He published (C6digo de extranjeria de los Esta dos Unidos Mexicans' (1876) ; and lib ertad civil como base del derecho internacional privado) (1896).