Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/263

Rh Miñon, Champoton and Lerma were occupied, and siege was laid to Campeche. This proved ineffectual against the able resistance offered, and Santa Anna, in January 1843, intrusted the management of the campaign to Peña y Barragan with forces now amounting to 4,500 men. He sought to divert the attention of Llergo, his chief opponent, by carrying the war into the region of Mérida, but displayed such lack of energy and skill that Ampudia was sent with 800 additional men to assume the control. He arrived off Campeche in April, just in time to hear that Peña

had capitulated with the flower of the army, and was about to embark for Vera Cruz and Tampico. The Mexicans had suffered greatly from the climate on this low and heated coast, and Ampudia recognized that he could achieve nothing with the reduced force at his command. Nevertheless he made so efficient a demonstration before the still besieged Campeche, as to impress the Yucatecs with the clanger and cost of rejecting peace proposals now again tendered. An armistice was agreed upon, and commissioners