Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/151

Rh posted on the Santa Rosa and Villalpando highways which lead to Dolores and San Miguel. A third body of troops was stationed on the Marfil road. Squadrons of the cavalry regiment del Principe were ordered in, and advice asking for aid sent to Brigadier Feliz Calleja, in command of the troops at San Luis Potosí. On the following morning a false alarm was raised that the enemy was approach ing on the Marfil road; and the tardiness of the lower orders to assemble for defence amounted almost to indifference—a state of things significant of im pending misfortune. For six days these defensive measures were maintained, and still no enemy appeared. The intendente displayed an energy and endurance which only the conviction of his perilous position could have called forth; but day by day he became more certain of the disaffected inclination of the lower classes. "The seeds of rebellion spread," he writes to Calleja on the 26th, "security and confidence are gone. I have neither rested nor undressed myself since the 17th, and for the last three days have not slept an hour at a time." Indeed, he could no longer rely upon the fidelity even of his own troops. The responsibility of saving, if possible, the royal treasury and archives increased Riaño's anxiety; and deeming his present arrangements defective, since he could avail himself neither of the barracks, the plaza, nor any of the churches, owing in part to the threatening attitude of the populace, on the 23d he decided to retire to the alhóndiga de granaditas, or government granary—a building which from its size and strength would afford the advantages of a fortification.