Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/194

 

REVOLUTION FROM DEATH OF MORELOS TO 1820.

The most brilliant period of the Revolution terminated with the life of Morelos. He alone possessed influence enough to combine the operations of the different Insurgent chiefs into something like unity of plan; — to reconcile their jarring interests, and to prevent their jealousy of each other from breaking out into open discord. By his death this last tie seemed to be dissolved, and things relapsed. into their former confusion. Each Province considered itself as isolated, and connected with no bond of union with the rest; and by this fatal want of combination, the Insurgent cause, though supported in many parts of the country by considerable military talent, and great personal courage, sunk gradually into an almost hopeless state.

Morelos conceived that the Congress which he had assembled at Oaxaca, and for which he sacrificed his life, would prove a centre of union, to which his lieutenants might look, as they had previously done to himself; but few of his officers entertained similar feelings with regard to this body, which, however useful in theory, was, practically, a most inconvenient appendage to a camp. Don Nicholas Bravo succeeded, indeed, in escorting the Deputies in safety to Tĕhŭacān, where they were received, at first, with great respect by General Tĕrān: but disputes soon arose between the Civil and Military authorities, and these terminated by the dissolution of