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278 their families. But men were thinking. The standard of liberty raised by Hidalgo had floated over the capital but sixty-six days, yet during that time the liberals had used the just-unfettered press to great advantage. Newspapers and handbills were scattered with a lavish hand, and truths were taught that burned in the hearts of men like smouldering fire, needing only one breath of free air to kindle into flame.

One of those who stood by when Morelos was put to death was Agustin Iturbide, a handsome, dashing young officer from the hills of Valladolid, in Southern Mexico. He had commanded the government troops when the patriot was captured.

In 1820, when the news of the revolution in Spain sent a thrill throughout the colonies, the viceroy of Mexico received orders from the Council of the Indies to proclaim throughout his dominions that the constitution enacted by the Spanish Cortes in 1812 was again the law of the land. Anxious lest his own power should be curtailed, and counting on the support of all the royalists in Mexico, Apodaca resolved to oppose these measures, and so far as was in his power to reinstate the Bourbons on the throne. But Iturbide, though a thoroughgoing royalist, saw fit to disobey both Apocada and the Cortes. Whatever may have been his motives, God's time had come for another blow to be struck for the independence of Mexico, and Iturbide, though an enemy of true liberty, was the instrument prepared for the work.

Leagued with the Church party, Iturbide contrived to get possession of half a million dollars of public money, and proceeded to set up a new kingdom on these Western shores with the design of perpetuating here the old despotism of Europe, and at the same time to free