Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/596

580 Morelos on receiving the news exclaimed in a tone of despair, "Both my arms are gone; I am now nothing!" Galeana was a warrior by instinct, with a vast fund of resources, although illiterate, and withal of greater gentleness than the other commanders, a trait that commended him also to the royalists.

Another prominent leader had been taken shortly before, in the person of Miguel Bravo, mariscal de campo, surprised at Chila by La Madrid. This officer, commanding at Iztúcar, and Villasana in charge of the Mescala district, assisted greatly to suppress revolutionary operations, so that with the fall of Galeana the province of Tecpan, the cradle of revolutionary movements since the time of Hidalgo, might be regarded as practically subjugated, an achievement on which Armijo failed not to pride himself.

Equally great had been the royalist success in the adjoining province of Oajaca. Morelos had not fully appreciated the value of this acquisition, with its large wealth and natural strength, and had allowed unfit ad ministrators to misdirect or neglect its resources, there by fostering a reaction against the cause among an