Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/449

Rh named Juan Raz y Guzman; and it was even resolved to hold a conference at the hacienda de Tultenango. Rayon being advised that a merchant named Juan Bautista Lobo, duly instructed by the viceroy, would meet him in that place. Although the members of the supreme junta were scattered and Rayon as the president acted in its name, he never pretended to determine any important government affair without consulting his colleagues. He laid the viceroy's pretensions before them, and the only answer I have found is that given by Liceaga, written by Doctor Cos, in which Rayon is advised to confine his efforts to secure a suspension of arms so as to take advantage of it for organizing and drilling troops to prosecute the war and cripple Spain's resources in her resistance, against the French. Mexico would be thus enabled to attain her independence. But as the conferences appointed for Tultenango never took place, the whole project went out of mind.

The viceregal government, since the fall of Cuautla, had, as we have seen, kept its troops engaged in operations within the provinces of Puebla and Vera Cruz, to the neglect necessarily of the south and of Oajaca. To enable the reader to arrive at a clear understanding of the coming events in those regions, I must revert for a few moments to the occurrences of November, 1811. Morelos had sent Valerio Trujano to occupy Silacayoapan, which was effected without opposition, and the revolution spread throughout Mizteca, the portion of Oajaca bordering on Puebla.