Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/315

Rh where he designed passing the night in order to consult upon his future plans with his friend Mariano Herrera. Here he was detected by a friar, who apprised Orrantia of the brave Mina's presence, and, on the morning of the 27th of October, he was seized and conveyed to Irapuato. On the 11th of November, 1817, in the 28th year of his age, he was shot by order of Apodaca, on a rock, in sight of Los Remedios.

At the end of December the ammunition of the insurgents in this stronghold was entirely exhausted, and its evacuation was resolved on. This was attempted on the 1st of January, 1818, but, with the exception of Padre Torres, the commander, and twelve of Mina's division, few or none of the daring fugitives escaped. The wretched inmates of the fort, the women, and garrison hospitals of wounded, were cut down, bayoneted, and burned. On the 6th of March, the fort of Jauxilla, the insurgents' last stronghold in the central parts of the country, fell, while, towards the middle of the year, all the revolutionary chiefs were dislodged and without commands, except Guerrero, who still maintained himself on the right bank of the river Zacatula, near Colima, on the Pacific. But even he was cut off from communication with the interior, and was altogether without hope of assistance from without. The heart of the nation, and the east coast,—which was of most importance so far as the reception of auxiliaries by the independents was concerned,—were, thus, in complete possession of the royalists; so that a viceroy declared in his despatches to Spain, "that he would be answerable for the safety of Mexico without a single additional soldier being sent out to reinforce the armies that were in the field."

But the viceroy Apodaca, confident as he was of the defeat of the insurrection, did not know the people with whom he dealt as well as his predecessor Calleja, who, with all his cruelty, seems to have enjoyed sagacious intervals in which he comprehended perfectly the deep seated causes of revolutionary feeling in Mexico, even if he was indisposed to sympathize with them or to permit their manifestation by the people. In fact, the revolution was not quelled. It slept, for want of a leader;—but, at last he appeared in the person of, a native Mexican, whose military career, in the loyalist cause had been not only brilliant but eminently useful, for it was in consequence of the two severe blows inflicted by him upon the insurgents in the actions of Valladolid