Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/635

Rh would have given you two hours for confession and then have shot you!" was the curt answer of the cura as he turned his back upon them. To a woman, however, who grossly insulted him, he said mildly, "Have you naught to do in your house?"

He was confined in the inquisition building until the viceroy arranged with the ecclesiastical authorities for his surrender to the military courts. Meanwhile two judges from both jurisdictions proceeded to try him as a rebel and a traitor, mainly on the charges that he had ignored the king, promoted revolution, disregarded episcopal decrees, cruelly ravaged the country, and executed loyal subjects. Morelos replied that no king existed in Spain during the earlier period of the war; his subsequent restoration was either doubted or ascribed to a Napoleonic compact prejudicial to Spain. Episcopal decrees were inapplicable against an independent people, unless sanctioned by the Vatican. Ravages were the inevitable consequences of war, and executions of royalists were reprisals authorized by circumstances and by insurgent powers. The defence of the counsel covered the same ground, except in assuming the reasons to have been based on erroneous judgment. Morelos had warred rather against the córtes; and the king having dissolved this body as illegal, and annulled all acts passed during his absence, the accused stood absolved, if not justified.

The church now took the prisoner in hand. Intent above all upon branding the revolution, the inquisition condemned him, its reputed leader, as a heretic for having profaned the sacraments, neglected religious duties, ignored the ecclesiastical authority, and led an immoral life, the latter fault being intensified by his sending an ill-begotten son to a protestant country to be educated. In partial expiation he was arrayed