Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/151

 MEXICO. 119 replaced, in 1809, by the Audiencia, to whom the supreme authority was entrusted by the Central Junta ; and by the violence and arrogance of this body matters were soon brought to a crisis. In every part of the country, a feeling of hostility towards the Europeans spread, and with it an impatient desire to shake off their yoke. In some places, (as at Vallado- lid,) attempts were made to concert insurrectionary move- ments as early as May 1809, which were checked by the ar- rest of those principally concerned in the project. But no- thing was gained by this ; discontent had become too general to be repressed entirely, and to check it at one point, only gave it a tendency to break out, with additional violence, at another. The scene alone was changed from the province of Michoacan, to that of Guanajuato, where the famous Cura Hidalgo was destined first to rouse into action the excited feelings of his countrymen. Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, was a man whom the Spa- niards themselves allow to have possessed very superior ac- quirements.* His reading was extensive, and in the little town of D6l5res, of which he was Cura, he had given proofs of great activity and intelligence, by encouraging different ma^ nufactures amongst his parishioners, and introducing the cul- tivation of the silk-worm ; in which, in the year 1810, they had made a very considerable progress. He had likewise planted vineyards to a great extent in the vicinity of the town ; but this attempt to increase the resources of his curacy was rendered abortive, by a special order from the Capital, diencia to the Cortes, in which Hidalgo, although designated as a "man without honour, or religious principle," is admitted to have possessed " sufficient acuteness, and knowledge of mankind, to calculate, not only upon the assistance of the troops, whom he had seduced, but upon the powerful aid of the ambition, the vices, and the ignorance of his coun- trymen."
 * Vide Appendix, 37th paragraph of the Representation of the Au-