Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/187

Rh presently arrived of the capture near Acámbaro of the intendente Merino, the comandante García Conde, and Colonel Rul by the guerrilla chief Luna, and this so disheartened them that, on the approach of Hidalgo, all thought of resistance was laid aside, and the bishop, most of the chapter, and many Europeans hastily left the capital and proceeded by different routes to Mexico.

In following the career of a great personage, we cannot but note how easily and naturally genius falls into any position, and adapts the man to the circumstances. So it was with Hidalgo: lately a humble priest, now at the head of a large army, fighting battles, making and unmaking rulers, and all with calmness and facility as if he had been accustomed to the work from his youth. Not that the cura was by any means a proficient soldier; on the contrary, he was no soldier at all, did not pretend to be one, and would have been filled with joy unbounded were there any other means at hand to secure his sacred cause. He was not even a cunning man of the world. He was not working for greatness of name or ambition, or for money or power. He would have his country move toward independence. The full glory of it he never expected to see. Yet he would do what he could; his life he would cheerfully give. Such was the quality of his greatness, patriotic, pure, amiable, ethereal, not crafty, not subtle, and not always the most successful.

On the 15th of October the van of the insurgents arrived at the suburbs of Valladolid without opposition;