Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/419

Rh lost. Being detected, Perez and several others were arrested on the 18th of March, and hurriedly tried. Perez and five others were sentenced to death, and executed on the 29th of July. One Molina, to save his own life, accused Michelena, but was unable to prove his words, as Perez, the only one having knowledge of the details, had refused to divulge them. Michelena, Merino, and others, however, being suspected, were sent to Spain, where the first named continued his military career, and rose to be a lieutenant-colonel.

While the royalists were recovering Tepeaca, Tecamachalco, and Orizaba, the independents had been intent on some important places garrisoned by viceregal forces. A conspiracy was planned by a sergeant in Perote—where Olazábal had remained after his loss of the train at Nopalucan—to surrender the fortress. All the leading officers, with Castro Terreño and Olazábal at their head, were to be killed. The plot was detected on the 8th of June, and the conspirators being arrested and tried by court-martial, all were sentenced to death and eight days afterward shot in the castle moat.

It was now midsummer, and at the capital no news had come from Vera Cruz for three months. Even the ingenuity of the merchants could not invent means to get a letter through. Further than this, smokers were suffering. Paper was getting scarce at the cigar factory; and the viceroy finally ordered Llano to march with his division to Jalapa, escorting