Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/188

 152 MEXICO. lished by it upon the 13th of November, 1813. It is difficult to say what impression this declaration might have produced upon the country, had Morelos continued his career of suc- cess ; but his fortune was upon the wane before it became at all generally known, and the influence of the Congress di- minished, of course, in proportion to the decline in the repu- tation of its protector. The period of its installation was, undoubtedly, the most brilliant moment of Morelos's political existence. Up to that time, he had not only been successful wherever he commanded in person, but seemed to commu- nicate a portion of his good fortune to all who served under his orders. The years 1812, and 1813, were distinguished by the victories gained by Don Nicolas Bravo, and Mata- moros, at the Palmar, and by the defence of the mountain of Coscomatepec. In the first of these actions, Bravo de- feated Don Juan LabaquT, the Commandant of the regiment of the Patriots of Veracruz, at the head of a strong detach- ment. The engagement lasted three days, when the village, in which the Spaniards had taken refuge, was carried by storm, (20th August, 1812.) Three hundred prisoners, taken upon this occasion, were placed by Morelos, at the disposal of Bravo, Avho offered them to the Viceroy Venegas, in ex- change for his father, Don Leonardo Bravo, who was then under sentence of death in the prisons of the Capital. The offer was rejected, and the sentence against Don Leonardo ordered to be carried into immediate execution. His son, in lieu of making reprisals by the massacre of his prisoners, in- stantly set them at liberty, " wishing," (as he said,) " to put it out of his own power to avenge on them the death of his parent, lest, in the first moment of grief, the temptation should prove irresistible !" So noble a trait requires no com- ment ! From this time. Bravo had the command of a separate di- vision, with which he carried on hostilities in the province of Veracruz, where he fortified the Cerro of Coscomatepec, and