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238 It set out with a force of about 2,500 men, and arrived at Tepic on the 11th of December, where it was still further augmented by volunteers.

On the 15th Hermosillo reached Acaponeta, the border town, distant 115 leagues from Guadalajara; and on the 18th engaged with Colonel Pedro Villaescusa, who was in command of the troops at the real del Rosario. The royalists were defeated, and the town remained in possession of the independents. Herrnosillo gave Villaescusa a letter of safe-conduct to rejoin his family, exacting from him an oath not to take up arms against the independents. Villaescusa, taking advantage of this clemency, retired from the town with more than seventy of his troops, and having recruited on his march all whom he could induce to join the royalist cause, reached San Ignacio de Piastla. He now sent information to the intendente of Sinaloa, Alejo García Conde, who resided at Arizpe, and who hastened to his aid with a company of Indians. Meanwhile Hermosillo entered San Sebastian on the 27th of December without opposition, having been previously joined by the garrison of Mazatlan. His army now numbered nearly 5,000 men, and on the 29th he took up a position on an eminence which commanded the town of San Ignacio de Piastla, a considerable river intervening. Misfortune here