Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/503

Rh the royalists awarded death to every independent chief falling into their hands. We may be very sure if the situation at Oajaca had been reversed Morelos and all his officers would have been killed. The revolutionists made some little distinction in regard to the men they executed; the royalists made none whatever. Had Morelos refused entirely to execute notorious prisoners it would have laid him open to suspicion and perhaps have brought on mutiny. Undue magnanimity would hardly have been appreciated. When Mariano Jimenez became a prisoner, his kindness toward the governor of Coahuila and other Spaniards in the internal provinces was all forgotten. The Spanish authorities made no distinction between him and the infamous Marroquin, the butcher of the barrancas near Guadalajara.

Morelos despatched Father García Cano in pursuit of Bishop Bergosa, hoping that he might be overtaken in Tehuantepec. Cano's orders were to extend to him every kindness; but the bishop had already gone to sea. Cano's expedition was not fruitless, however, as he gathered on the road a large quantity of cochineal and other property that the Spanish merchants had sent out of Oajaca. Lieutenant-colonel Vicente Guerrero, who had begun his military service under Galeana in 1810, was directed to seize in the bights near Tehuantepec the tobacco and cacao landed from Acapulco.

To the remains of Tinoco, Palacios, and others sacrificed in Oajaca by the royalists, Morelos caused funeral honors to be paid. He released the revolutionary prisoners confined in the convent of