Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/166

 130 MEXICO. would, under less skilful management, have put an end to the contest at once, by siding with their countrymen.* Ten thousand Indians are said to have perished at Aculco ; but Hidalgo and most of his officers found means to escape, and, after collecting as many of the fugitives as they could, effected a hasty retreat to Valladolid. All end e, having sepa- rated from his companions, took the road to Guanajiiato, with the intention of defending the town ; but finding that he had not forces sufficient again to meet Calleja, by whom he was pursued, he evacuated the place on his approach. Much has been said of the atrocities committed by this general, on his entry into that unfortunate city. I am far from wishing to palliate them, but there was, undoubtedly, a circumstance, which furnished him with a plea for any seve- rities that he chose to exercise. Two hundred and forty-nine Europeans, who had escaped from the massacre at Alhondiga, when Hidrdgo took it, or were found afterwards concealed in the neighbourhood, were left there by him as prisoners. The populace, furious at seeing themselves deserted by Allende, in a paroxysm of rage flew to the fort in which these unfortu- nate men were confined, and, in spite of the resistance made by several respectable Creoles, many of whom were wounded in attempting to oppose them, most inhumanly massacred all the prisoners. This horrible act was perpetrated on the very morning that Calleja entered the town ; and it was upon re- ceiving intelligence of it, that his troops were ordered to give no quarter. This order too, by which the innocent were con- founded with the guilty, was revoked before the troops had penetrated beyond the suburbs ; and I do not find that the is torinecl " a General, whose consummate skill converted into invincible soldiers, men who, under any other direction, would have turned against their General, and their Country;" that is, (in dispassionate language,) men, who, if left to themselves, would have joined Hidalgo instead of Calleja, and fought for the Independence of Mexico, instead of against it.
 * Vide Representation of Audiencia, paragraph 38, in which Calleja