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maintained her struggle for independence through eleven years. At the outset, no people could have been less prepared for such a contest. Their weapons of warfare were primitive and few in number. They possessed no knowledge of military tactics, and their leaders were unfitted by training and profession for warlike deeds. But in that era of social and political ferment the chances were many that their efforts would ultimately be crowned with success; and while the difficulties attending the high enterprise must have seemed at times almost insurmountable, their faith in the issue was unclouded.

Doubtless they also derived both stimulus and encouragement from the assured success of the American Republic, and gladly risked their lives in the hope of a like glorious consummation.

A better grounded or more righteous cause never existed than that of Mexico against the tyranny and usurpation of the Spaniards, who filled every place of power and emolument in the government to the exclusion of the Creoles and native population.

This state of affairs was long accepted as inevitable; but the idea of the divine right of kings and the immutability of established order received a rude shock when Napoleon overturned so many of the sovereignties of Europe, and among them that of Spain. Grand possibilities opened then before the vision of the foremost few, and these animated by the purest patriotism, unavoidably joined forces