Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/302

286 and drilled them, dismissing the great rabble and his army of pillagers; had he proclaimed a system of liberal institutions; had he been slower to rob and butcher Spaniards; had he better protected the creoles; had he done 'differently in a hundred other ways—the result would have been different. Doubtless. But the question is not what might have come to pass if the prime mover in Mexican independence had been a different man and acted differently. As it is, though not without his faults, Mexico may well be proud of her hero. Let his memory be honored! Let his name be enrolled among the world's champions of liberty!

His countrymen, grateful to one who, in the gloomiest hour of hope, stood forth so fearlessly as their defender, have rightly embalmed his memory; and his name, growing brighter and brighter as the ages pass, will be handed down unsullied to remotest generations.On the 19th of July, 1823, a congressional decree was passed, declaring Hidalgo and the other principal leaders in the struggle for independence to be 'beneméritos de la patria en grado heróico,' and ordered a monument in their honor to be erected in Chihuahua. ''Gaz. de Mex., 5 de Agosto, 1823; Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc.,'' ii. 695. In 1863 Benito Juarez, having retired with the government to Dolores on account of the French invasion, passed a decree elevating the town to the rank of city, and ordering that a monument bearing a statue of Hidalgo should be erected in the principal plaza. He pronounced the house in which Hidalgo had lived to be the property of the nation, and provided that it should be protected and preserved in its original state so far as possible, at the expense of the government. Id., ii. 611. In 1873 the congress decreed that the national flag should be annually hoisted on the 8th of May, Hidalgo's birthday, and raised half-mast high on the 30th of July in commemoration of his death. Id., ii. 614-15. President Porfirio Diaz in 1878 ordered that the monument at Dolores, which had hitherto not been erected, should be built. The estimate of its cost was $40,000, which amount was covered by pro rata contributions levied upon the states. In the same year General Diaz decreed that a monument should also be erected in Hidalgo's honor on the spot where he was executed in Chihuahua. Id., ii. 615-19. In the Gazeta de Mexico of August 3, 1811, was published an alleged copy of a declaration professed to be Hidalgo's solemn recantation of his errors, made some weeks before his death, and dated Chihuahua, May 18, 1811. This spurious statement was probably promulgated in order to turn independents against the cause. It is superfluous to deny such an assertion. No attempt which can properly be called such was ever made to establish its truth. He who for a moment could hold to such an opinion totally misconceives the character of the man. To death Hidalgo was indifferent; and he would be the last man on earth to uphold to his followers, according to the tenor of this declaration, the enormity of their crime in