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REVOLUTION FROM 1820 TO 1824, INCLUDING ITURBIDE'S RISE AND FALL.

giving the opinion mentioned at the close of the preceeding chapter, Ăpŏdācă showed himself to be much less intimately acquainted than his predecessor with the character of the contest, in which Spain and her Colonies were engaged. Nothing could be more fallacious than the appearances to which he trusted. The country was exhausted, but not subdued; and during the suspension of hostilities, upon which his hopes were founded, the principles of the Insurrection were daily gaining ground. The great support of Spain, during the early part of the contest, had been the Creole troops, who had embarked in her cause with a zeal for which it is difficult to account, as the military profession, under the old system, was not exempt from the disadvantages to which other professions were liable, no Creole being allowed to hold any important command. But means had been found to conciliate the army at the critical moment, and up to 1820, it continued faithful to the cause which it at first espoused. During the war, the officers had little leisure for reflecting upon the rights of the question, and it even became a sort of esprit de corps with them to designate the Insurgents as banditti, to whom none of the privileges of ordinary warfare were to be extended. Their men, when once blooded, followed