Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/259

Rh of Toluca, 250 dragoons, and two pieces of artillery, afterward reënforced by the provincial infantry regiment of Puebla, and a battalion of marines commanded by Captain Porlier, of the frigate Atocha. Arriving at Nopala on the 20th, he proceeded on the following day to Huichapan, hoping to come in contact with the insurgents; but Villagran, timely informed of the danger, had retreated with all his followers to the sierra of the Real del Doctor and taken up a position on the inaccessible heights of Nasteje or the Muñeca. Cruz on arriving at the town recovered the merchandise and ammunition which had lately been taken by the insurgents in the Calpulalpan defile. His reception by those of the inhabitants who had not fled was joyful; but in order to prevent any further insurrectionary acts, he deprived them of every article of use that could be converted into a weapon, sparing neither the housewife's scissors, the laborer's implements, nor the artisan's tools. He gave imperative orders to the commander of a detachment which he sent out in quest of the Anayas, to put to death the inhabitants of every town or hacienda in which insurgents might be found, or where they had received shelter, reducing the places to ashes. Before his departure from Huichapan, Cruz amply avenged the death of Velez; pendent from the trees on the roadsides all through the defile where the deed was perpetrated swung the corpses of victims hanged in reprisal. On the 14th of December, in