Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/182

 146 MEXICO. allow his men to fire, until the enemy was within pistol-shot of the entrenchments. An attempt to enter Cuautla, by establishing a correspon- dence with some of the inhabitants, likewise failed. Calleja had managed to induce a Captain Manso to promise to de- liver up a battery entrusted to his charge, but his treachery was discovered by Galeana, and turned against the Royalists, who, on seeing the signals agreed upon, advanced, by night, and were introduced by Galeana himself into the trenches, where they were received with so general, and so well-directed a discharge, that they left one hundred men dead upon the spot. Calleja''s own reports do ample justice to the gallantry of the defence made by the Insurgents. He acknowledges, (March 25th) in his correspondence with the Viceroy, that, so far from having shown any symptoms of discouragement, they had supported both the firing and the bombardment, " with a firmness worthy of a better cause and that they continued to harass his troops by sallies, which kept them constantly upon the alert. He calls Morelos, " a second Ma- homet C and though he terms fanaticism the enthusiasm with which he had inspired his followers, he confesses that it had produced the most extraordinary effects. At a much earlier period, he had applied for a train of heavy artillery from Perote ; but though Venegas instantly despatched the neces- sary orders, the troops appointed to convoy it to Mexico were so often attacked upon the road by the La Puebla, and Yera Cruz Insurgents, that their progress was extremely slow. In these Provinces the Spaniards possessed little more than the great towns ; the open country was in the hands of the Insurgents ; and they mustered in such formidable numbers about Nopaluca, that olazabal, who commanded the convoy of the artillery, was detained there, in a state of siege, by Os5rn6, on the 23rd of March, and was only released by the