Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/29

Rh execution on the fourth of that month, and in which were implicated several officers and bodies of troops, whose chief, General Andrade, though a deputy, was arrested, and finally exiled to Guayaquil, where he died.

Congress did not neglect to pay due honor to the original heroes of national independence. On the 19th of July a law was enacted recognizing the services rendered in the first eleven years of the war as good and meritorious. Its promoters and leaders were declared "benemeritos de la patria en grado heróico," and their names were ordered to be inscribed in letters of gold in the hall of sessions of the national congress. Monuments to the memory of those who had suffered for the cause were ordered to be raised on the sites where they were executed, and their remains, such as could be found, were exhumed and brought to Mexico, where funeral honors on a magnificent scale were paid them at the cathedral, several of the very men who had caused them to be shot being present at the ceremonies. Their bones were placed in an urn and deposited in the vault of the Altar de los Reyes, and the two silver keys of the urn delivered, one to the congress, and the other to the executive. The latter was placed in charge of the department of relations. In the midst of these