Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/630

614 passed the death sentence. This raised a wide remonstrance, and the penalty was at the last moment changed to imprisonment in the dreaded hill dungeons of Atijo. Cos remained obstinate throughout, the effort to intimidate him provoking merely the observation, "A flea-bite would pain me more than the transition from life to death." A counter-revolution soon gave him liberty; but the decline of his influence, of which he had been so sadly convinced, induced him to accept the viceregal pardon, though with manifest bad grace. He retired to Pátzcuaro to resume the ministry, and died there in 1819, deeply regretted by his parishioners.

He was undoubtedly a worthy patriot, who had served the cause with credit in the field and in the council hall. His talents by right should rather have been devoted to the administration of affairs; and had he possessed the command of his temper he could have rendered far greater benefits to the cause. As it was, he destroyed with one hand much good performed with the other.

Since the disaster before Valladolid, which opened to the royalists the gate southward, the centre of the campaign had shifted to Puebla and Vera Cruz. This in itself was a sufficient incentive for the national assembly to transfer its sessions to that region. Another was the need of a strong effort to restore harmony there among the quarrelling leaders; and this could not be effected from a distance, as already proved. Hill-girded Tehuacan appeared a place where the congress might find a more stable abode, and recover the dignity and influence now rapidly deserting it as