Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/215

 MEXICO, stitutional system, but not, of course, for a separation between Mexico and Spain. The Creoles had, therefore, reason to suppose that the change to be efiPected by Mina, if successful, would be to them little more than a change of masters ; and this apprehension, together with the smallness of Mina"'s force, which was so inconsiderable as to check the hopes even of his warmest partizans, rendered them passive spectators of the contest, upon which he was about to enter, with the armies of the King. Nothing could be, apparently, more unequal than this contest. Mina, on landing, had with him only three hundred and fifty-nine men, including officers, of whom fifty-one de_ serted him, under the command of Colonel Perry, before he commenced his march into the interior of the country. One hundred more were left to garrison a little fort, which was erected, as a depot, at Soto la Marina, (where Mina landed,) under the orders of Major Sarda ; and with the remainder, reinforced by a few straggling Insurgents, Mina attempted to eff*ect a junction with the Independent party in the Baxio, (the very heart of Mexico,) in the face of several detach- ments of the Royal army infinitely superior to him in num- bers. He left Sota la Marina on the 24th of May ; and after suffering dreadfully from the want of provisions and water on his march through the Tierra Caliente from the coast, he reached the town of El Valle del Maiz, situated on the river Panuco, in the Intendancy of San Luis PotosT, and near the confines of the Table-land, on the 8th of June, 1817- Here he found a body of four hundred Royal cavalry, which he defeated ; and this successful action enabled him to allow his troops two days' rest after their fatigues. On the 14th of June his little corps reached the Hacienda de PeotTllos, where it was destined to meet with the first serious opposition to its progress. Brigadier Armihan, at the head of nine hundred and eighty European infantry, of the regiments i»f Estrema- dura and America, and eleven hundred of the Rio Verde VOL. I. N