Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/138

122 injuries it raises its hands in holy horror, and cries out against them as barbaric and savage. Stuff and humbug! Savage warfare is no worse than civilized warfare, no less necessary, no less righteous. It may be a little less decent and refined; but what are refinement and decency beside butchery and body-mangling machines! All is as bad as it can be; the civilized men are the more to blame, however, for they should know better.

Hidalgo was a far more self-sacrificing, honorable, and humane man than the average military leader. But he was not hypocrite or fool enough to pretend that it was worse to take a dead man's goods than a living man's life. But the killing in war is done for the cause. True; and now pillage is permitted for the cause. It was not that he was in favor of robbery. But sacking a town he regarded as no worse than killing the people; and in his present emergency he deemed one as much a matter of necessity as the other. In any event, he would win this cause if within his power to do so.

Allende thought differently. He was a man of narrower mind, of more restricted ideas; he was a soldier, and felt bound by conventional rules and the regulations of his craft. He urged that they ought not to rely upon the common people, who were addicted to pillage, but upon disciplined troops. The discussion was continued with considerable warmth, until it became evident that two leaders at discord might prove fatal to the cause. Hidalgo, therefore, suggested that his own and Allende's authority should be defined, in order that each should act within the limits of his own powers, and Allende at once offered to surrender the supreme command to the cura, whose ability and influence he very sensibly deemed superior to his own. He expressed the determination, however, to separate himself from him if they should be unable to act in harmony. But all thought of independent action on the part of Allende