Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/314

296 hands of Spanish levies, two thousand of whom surrounded the slender band. Notwithstanding the inequality of forces between the assailants and the besieged, the royalists were unable to take the place by storm; but, after repeated repulses, General Arredondo proposed terms which were accepted by Major Sarda, the independent commander. It is scarcely necessary to say that this condition was not fulfilled by the Spaniards, who sent the capitulated garrison in irons, by a circuitous journey, to the sickly Castle of San Juan de Ulua at Vera Cruz, whence some of the unfortunate wretches were marched into the interior whilst others were despatched across the sea to the dungeons of Cadiz, Melilla and Ceuta. This was a severe blow to Mina, who nevertheless was unparalized by it but continued active in the vicinity of Sombrero to which he retreated after an illjudged attempt upon the town of Leon, where the number of his troops was considerably diminished. Sombrero was invested, soon after, by a force of three thousand five hundred and forty soldiers, under Don Pascual Liñan, who had been appointed Field Marshal, by Apodaca, and despatched to the Bajio. This siege was ultimately successful on the part of the royalists. The fresh supplies promised to Mina did not arrive. Colonel Young, his second in command, died in repulsing an assault; and, upon the garrison's attempting to evacuate the town, under Colonel Bradburn, on the night of the 19th of August, the enemy fell upon the independents with such vigor that but fifty of Mina's whole corps escaped. "No quarter," says Ward, "was given in the field, and the unfortunate wretches who had been left in the hospital wounded, were by Liñan's orders, carried or dragged along the ground from their beds to the square where they were stripped and shot!"

Mina, as a last resort, threw himself into the fort of Los Remedios, a natural fortification on the lofty mountain chain rising out of the plains of the Bajio between Silao and Penjamo, separated from the rest by precipices, and deep ravines.

Liñan's army sat down before Remedios on the 27th of August. Mina left the town so as to assail the army from without by his guerillas, whilst the garrison kept the main body engaged with the fort. During this period he formed the project of attacking the town of Guanajuato, which, in fact, he accomplished; yet, after his troops had penetrated the heart of the city, their courage failed and they retreated before the loyalists who rallied after the panic created by the unexpected assault at nightfall. On retreating from Guanajuato, our partizan warrior took the road to the Rancho del