Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/586

570 his successes in field and council-hall, he proposed to remedy the mistakes and avenge the humiliation of his predecessors and colleagues. Deliverance was to come from the south. A first and necessary step was to recover the much disputed Valladolid, there to install the new-born congress, and thus affirm its dignity, and further to make this city the starting point for future operations, which henceforth must be directed into the central provinces. While the place at this time was not strongly fortified, aid could easily reach it; and he proposed to insure his project by mustering all the forces possible. To this end he summoned Nicolás Bravo and Matamoros from Vera Cruz and Puebla, counting upon their well trained troops as the nucleus for his army, to which were to be added the guerrillas of Michoacan, including those of Ramon Rayon.

Morelos kept his object secret from all except a few intimate friends, and sought to delude the royalists by a movement which obliged Daoiz to fall back on Cuernavaca. He thereupon set out from Chilpancingo November 7, 1813, incorporating the forces of Matamoros and Bravo at Cutzamala, and further on those of Muñiz, Ortiz, Arias, and Navarrete, so that he was able to present himself before Valladolid on the 22d of December with an army variously estimated at from 6,000 to 20,000 men, with thirty cannon and large supplies. The city was in despair, for the garrison under Landázuri numbered only some 800