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160 officer who had accompanied Venegas from Spain, the whole force being under the direction of Flon as commander-in-chief. In order to provide for the security of the capital, now almost without garrison, the infantry regiments of Puebla, Tres Villas, and Toluca were withdrawn from those towns, and two battalions formed from the crews of the frigate Atocha and other vessels at Vera Cruz, and placed under the command of the naval captain Rosendo Porlier. Several battalions also of the volunteers of Fernando VII. were again raised in the city; and Yermo, in his patriotic zeal for the mother country, equipped and maintained at his own expense five hundred cavalry men drawn from the laborers on his estates. More over, Colonel Diego García Conde was appointed comandante of Valladolid and sent thither without delay in company with Manuel Merino, the intendente of that province, and the conde de Rul, colonel of the provincial infantry. Meanwhile the comandantes Felix María Calleja and Roque Abarca, of San Luis Potosi and Guadalajara respectively, were getting their brigades into efficient condition.

But military operations were not the only means employed to crush the rebellion. Prices were put upon the heads of Hidalgo, Allende, and Aldama by the government; the church excommunicated them,