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Rh district between Huichapan and Querétaro, Villagran was still harassing convoys and interrupting communication with the capital. The hilly region of the Huasteca, the mountains of the Sierra Gorda, and the plains of Apam to the north of the Mexican capital swarmed with predatory hordes. Nuevo Santander was in open insurrection; portions of San Luis Potosí were still unpacified; while the forces left in Zacatecas and Aguascalientes were inadequate, as the reader is aware, for the security of those cities.

While the events narrated in the preceding chapter were occurring in Zacatecas and Michoacan, the insurrection in Nuevo Santander, under the leadership of Villerías, was successfully suppressed by Arredondo. Having been invited by that chief to espouse the independent cause, Arredondo caused the communication to be burned by the hangman, and on the 4th of May marched from Agayo against the in surgents. Villerías, having sustained several successive defeats, fled toward Matehuala, where he was overcome and slain by a royalist force sent against him by the junta de seguridad of Catorce, under the direction of the cura Semper, Padre Duque, and Nicanor Sanchez. The insurrection in Nuevo Santander was now confined to Tula and its vicinity. On the 21st Arredondo approached the town, and having routed the insurgents with considerable slaughter, entered Tula the following day with little opposition. All the leaders and principal men were hanged, and their bodies left suspended from trees. Although the insurrection in this province was thus thoroughly crushed, Venegas, fearing that assistance to the revolutionists might arrive from the United States, dare not reduce the number of troops, the efficiency of