Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/227

 MEXICO. 189 seized the General himself, in the act of rushing out of the house, unarmed, and almost undressed, in order to ascertain the cause of the confusion Avithout. Don Pedro Moreno, the Commandant of Sombrero, was taken at the same time, and immediately shot. Mina was conveyed pinioned to Irapiiato, where he Avas presented to Orrantia, who had the meanness not only to re- vile his fallen enemy in the most opprobrious terms, but actually to strike him repeatedly with the flat of his sword. Mina's rebuke was dignified: " I regret to have become a prisoner, but to have fallen into the hands of a man, regard- less alike of the character of a Spaniard and a soldier, ren- ders my misfortune doubly keen."' From the hands of this unworthy foe, he was removed to Liinan's head-quarters, where he received the treatment due to a soldier, and a gentleman, though every precaution was taken to prevent the possibility of an escape. On the 10th of November, the courier, whom Linan had sent to the Capital, to take Apodaca's commands with regard to his prisoner''s fate, returned with orders for his immediate execution ; and, on the 11th, this sentence was carried into effect, in the presence of all the surgeons of the army, and the captains of each company, who were directed to certify the fact of his death. Mina is said to have met his fate with great firmness. He appears, however, to have entertained, latterly, some doubts with regard to the cause which he had espoused, and an anxious wish to clear his memory, with his own countrymen, from the imputation of having wished to separate Mexico from Spain. With this view, I presume, he wrote a letter to General Linan, on the 3d of November, the authenticity of which, though denied by Robinson, has been established by the discovery of the original in Mina''s hand, by Don Car- los Bustamante, in which he assures him, that " if he had ever ceased to be a good Spaniard, it was erroneously, and