PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
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trial than the most trivial accusation that they were in•favor of Mexi can lndependence. By a most inexplicable coincidence, it would seem that those very places which in other times were the scenes of the rankest cruelties in t:,an Antonio, are consecrated by a High Providence, at a happier period, to purposes of devotion, of administration of Justice, of imparting i:µ struction and of recreation. Where the Court House of Bexar County now stands, and on the area fronting the present Plaza House (the one the sanctuary of law, the other the abode of the most delicious gas tronomy) at the time of which I speak were daily enacted military ex ecutions. Where now is heard the harrangue of the advocate and the voice of contentment and mirth, in that gloomy period pealed forth the imprecations and groans of dying men. The site of the present Post Office, so much resorted to for friendly and business communica tions, the reservoir in fact of distant knowledge, Arredondo adopted M a prison for femalel'l. It was styled the Quinta. Here were incarcer ated some five hundred souls, consisting of married ladies and maidens whose husbands or parents were ranked among the insurgents. Daily were they forced by a brutal guard of soldiery, to convert twenty-four bushels of corn into tortillas to supply the wants of the officers and privates of Arredondo's army. To this ignominious employment were they doomed for more than four long months. Those delicate and re• fined ladies were here exposed to the derision of that depraved army and were constantly compelled to endure the lascivious looks and brutal taunts and jests of those officers and soldiers who reveled in this spec tacle of horrors. Donna Juanna Leal de Tarin and Donna Conception Leal de Garza, who now reside at their Ranchos on the River San An tonio, were among those innocent and maltreated prisoners of the· Quinta. They sustained their horrible captivity with fortitude truly masculine, rather than submit to the threats or nefarious proposals of their jailors. After the battle of the Medina, Colonel Elisando left Bexar at the head of five hundred mm in pursuit of the fugitives who were bend ing their course towards the United States. Following on in the old San Antonio Road, he overtook on the Trinity River a number of men and families and shot one hundred and five persons. Though expos ing myself, perhaps, to the charge of exaggeration, I will state the mode of the trial accorded to those who were condemned and executed. The Chaplain of Elisando was an execrable priest who bore the title of Padre Camacho. As �oon as the Royalist troops had captured any of the fugitives who were called Insurgents, they were· ordered to con fef;s to this pnest. in accordance with the Catholic rite. Christian feel ing and the pressing thoughts of eternity would force the unhappy peni tents to reveal without reserve the share they had taken in the Revolu tion. Satisfied with such statement, Pa<lre Camacho would signal the officer of the guard to lead the victim to execution. A still more re volting circumstirnce, and one more Rhockin� to the reader remains to be told. This priest Camacho had hC'en slightly woun<le<l by a spent ball at the battle of Alizan, by which the muscle of his leg was broken. More than once at the Trinity when a poor victim condemned to death implored pardon, this monf;ter, elevating-his clerical habits would say to him, "Go, my son; suffer thy puniflhment in the name of God, for
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