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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
guished for their cruelty and valor were Calleja, Negrete, Cruz, Con- cha, Evia, Arredonde, Venegas; in this number should be counted some :Mexicans who imitated in their [illegible] and they are Yturbide, (distinguished for his valor and cruelty, and more for his change in favor of independence in 1821) Bustamente, Armijo, Barre- gan, Rincon and others, less known then Among the insurgents likewise, were distinguished Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama, :Matamoros, Guerrero, Victoria and others. The revolution continued bloody and distructive for six years until the fall of the most distinguished chief, :Matamoros, caught and shot by the Spaniards. In 1817 there succeeded to the viceregency of Calleja, General .Apodaca, a humane man, who substituted means of persuasion for the cruel butchering of Cajella [sic] and his subalterns. 20 When the revolution was in its decadence {1817) there appeared in the plaza of Mexico a Spanish leader who after having displayed great valor in favor of the independence of his country in the war against ·Napoleon was obliged to abandon it fleeing from the domestic tyranny of Ferdinand VII. This chieftain identified himself with the independent :Mexi- cans of that epoch and after having fought with the royalists in some encounters was ·routed and assassinated in Silao, a village of the plains. The insurgents themselves were the principal cause of his misfortune, In 1818 New Spain, the name which the present Mexican Republic then was called was almost entirely peaceful. An obscure chief Gen- eral Guerrero, afterwards president of Mexico (in 1823), alone re- mained with arms in his hands in the mountains of the south of Mex- ico, fleeing before the Spanish· detachments. But there was being prepared silently in the country, and one might say without even the knowledge of the future authors, a great revo- lution, moral and political. There was being circulated already in the hands of the middle classes, the works of many writers, national and foreign, who had for their object to prove the justice of American independence, by exaggerating the cruelties of the Spaniards and the tyranny of their government. These and the anonymous works of some philosophers and politicians which had been introduced into the nation, translated into Spanish, and taught to the people in the six years fol- lowing the Spanish constitution of 1812, changed the opinions of the Mexican Military Chiefs and of the men of the country who read those books, a little before forbidden by the inquisition and never before in- troduced into the country. But the mass of the people did not par- ticipate in these benefits. · When in 1820 the Spanish constitutionalists succeeded in triumph- ing over the absolutism of King Ferdinand, and forced him to adopt the constitution in New Spain, there appeared one of those political phenomena which are common in revolutions' of the people. The clergy who saw their privileges threatened by the triumph of liberal ideas in Spain, the lesser aristocracy who hated the leveling principle of the constitutionalists, the leaders of the former insurgents scattered in various parts of the provinces, and many military chieftains whose opinions had changed in favor of the independence which they for- "'The first two paragraphs and the third to this point are from a copy by Lamar. The remainder is from a copy in another hand, perhaps that of the anonymous author.
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