Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/559

Rh which held undisputed sway over the province, and prepared even to extend it southward.

Warned of the danger Arredondo, stationed lately in the valley del Maiz, hastened of his own accord to counteract it, gathering troops and material on his way through Nuevo Santander. His independent action might not have pleased Venegas. Calleja, however, not only approved but appointed him to the comandancia general vacated by Herrera's death, and sent the newly arrived Estremadura regiment to Tampico to take the place of the departed forces. Colonel Elizondo was sent in advance to prepare the way, but allowed himself to be engaged in battle and routed. Two months later, in August, Arredondo himself approached Béjar with eighteen hundred men, whereof two thirds were mounted, and retaliated by inflicting a crushing defeat on Alvarez de Toledo, a Spanish naval officer who had managed to supplant Lara. Of the prisoners a large number were executed, especially people from the United States, who were outlawed and shot wherever encountered, for their so called perfidy against a confiding government. The later dictator Santa Anna won his earliest distinction in this field, where a score of years later humiliation overtook him.

The province was quickly cleared of insurgents, and after appointing as governor Cristóbal Dominguez, Arredondo returned to Monterey, there to establish the seat of his comandancia. And so vanished also the hope of any aid from the United States, for the people there made no movement to interfere in behalf of the persecuted adventurers in Texas. The agent accredited by Rayon to Washington and other places for interesting foreign governments in the cause failed to obtain even means for departure.