Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/224

 186 M EXICO, been left in the hospital wounded, were, by Linan's orders, carried, or dragged along the ground, from their beds to the square, where they were stripped, and shot. The result of the siege of Sombrero was fatal to Mina's hopes. With his foreign officers, of whom only eleven ever rejoined him, he lost the means of disciplining his Creole re- cruits, and the men were all tried soldiers, on whom he could reckon in the hour of need. They were not to be replaced by numbers, and Mina attempted in vain, with his Mexican allies, enterprizes, in which, with his original forces, (incon- siderable as they were), he would have been almost certain of success. It was not that the Creoles were deficient in per- sonal courage : on the contrary, they possessed both that, and all the other elements of excellent soldiers ; but, in a contest with disciplined troops, nothing could compensate the want of discipline, no sort of attention to which had been paid by the Padre Torres, or any of his subordinate chiefs. They indulged their men in all the licentiousness, in which they habitually indulged themselves ; and thus, though indi- vidually formidable, they were totally inefficient when called upon to act in a body. Such were the tools with which Mina was compelled to work. At an interview with the Padre Torres, it was determined that, in the event of the fort of Los Remedies being besieged by Linan, (as it was shortly afterwards,) Mina should take the field with a body of nine hundred Insurgent cavalry, and endeavour to harass the be- sieging army by cutting off its supplies, while the Padre, with the remnant of Mina's officers, conducted the defence of the place. This was conceived to be an easy task, as the fort was, in fact, a natural fortification, being one of a lofty chain of mountains which rise out of the plains of the BaxTo, between Silao and Penjamo, separated by precipices, and im- mensely-deep barrancas, from the rest. On one point alone it was vulnerable ; but there, a wall three feet in thickness was erected, and the approach enfiladed by three batteries,