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220 Audiencia of Mexico; which admits, as unreservedly as the Viceroy himself, the unanimity of the natives in favour of the Independent cause { Vide paragraphs 12, 14, 18, 19, 26, 28, and 42), and sees no hope of checking this spirit, but by having recourse to measures amounting to little less than the establishment of martial law; since it recommends that all legal restrictions should be dispensed with.

These measures were resorted to, and were for a time successful. Backed by an imposing force, and relieved by the abolition of the Constitution (in 1814) from all legal trammels, the authority of the Viceroy was gradually re-established, and tranquillity, to a certain extent, restored. Seventeen thousand Insurgents are supposed to have accepted the Indulto during the Viceroyalty of Apŏdācă, who assumed the reins of government in 1816; and even the expedition of Mina failed in rekindling the flame of civil war. But nothing could be more deceitful than this calm. The principles which led to the Insurrection of 1810 were daily gaining ground; they were disseminated by the Indultados themselves amongst their friends and connexions; the Creole troops were their first proselytes: disaffection spread amongst them, until whole regiments were ripe for revolt; and when, in 1820, the re-establishment of the constitutional system