Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/169

 MEXICO. 133 This detestable system of midnight executions commenced at Valladolid, where Hidalgo ordered eighty Europeans to be beheaded on the Cerro de la Batea, during the three days which he passed in the town ; but, in Guadalaxara, the num- ber of victims was between seven and eight hundred. There is every reason to believe too, that he intended to pursue the same line of conduct in future, and to establish it as a general rule amongst his adherents ; for a letter was produced on his trial, written by him to one of his lieutenants, in which, after recommending him to go on seizing the persons of as many Spaniards as possible, he adds, " and if you should have any reason to suspect your prisoners of enter- taining restless or seditious ideas, or discover amongst them, any dangerous intentions, hury them in oblivion at once, by putting such persons to death, with all necessary precautions, in some secret and solitary place, where their fate may remain for ever unknown." Nothing can be more horrible than the idea of thus re- ducing assassination to a system ; and, even setting humanity and morality aside, nothing could be more ill-jvidged. It drove the Spaniards to despair, and furnished them, at the same time, with an excuse for any atrocities which they chose to commit. It discredited the cause of the Revolu- tion, and prevented a number of respectable Creoles from espousing it. AUende himself, is said to have been so dis- gusted with the cruelty of his chief, that nothing but the approach of Calleja prevented him from abandoning him. The cannon found by the Insurgents at San Bias, were so numerous, that Hidalgo, though there were only 1,200 muskets in the whole army, imagined that, with the assist- ance of his batteries, he should be able to repulse Calleja''s forces. AUende foresaw that the want of discipline amongst the troops, would produce the same eiFect as at Aculco, and wished not to try another action ; but being out-voted, in a council of war, he was forced to submit. The bridge of