Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/711

Rh from place to place, sought the benefit of the pardon in great numbers, among whom were Ramsey, the brave defender of Fort Los Remedios, Tercero, ex-member of the junta, Pablo Anaya, fathers Navarrete and Carbajal, Huerta, Borja, Arago, Erdozain, and other leaders.

Among the few insurgents who scorned to ask for royal clemency was Guadalupe Victoria, whom the government vainly endeavored to capture. A reward having been offered for his arrest, he fled to the recesses of the woods and mountains, and though chased for six months like a wild beast, he always succeeded in baffling his pursuers. For more than thirty months, without a companion, he lived in the fastnesses of the mountains, undergoing incredible sufferings from hunger and exposure. During this period he never saw a human being; his clothes were torn to shreds and reduced to a single cotton wrapper, and frequently for four and five days at a time no food passed his mouth. But with indomitable will he endured to the end. By 1820 the pacification of nearly the whole of New Spain had been consummated, and the revolution was confined to the narrow limits of the cerro de la Goleta, where Pedro Ascensio still held out, and a portion of the district on the banks of the Mescala, to which Guerrero had retired after his defeat at the Aguazarca.