themselves into armed juntas, and haughtily said, that
while there was a cobbler in Castile or a mule in
La Mancha, there would always be a ruler for
America. Representations in favour of the
imprisoned viceroy were met with insult. The
Mexicans were thus stung into active assertion
of their rights, anil there was division of the
land into two hostile parties of Spaniards,
nicknamed " Gachupines," and of Mexicans, who
vere commonly called Americans, and also, from
a certain convent where the Virgin, as Our
Lady of Guadalupe, was worshipped as special
protectress of the country, were called
"Gua dalupes."

Now, at this time there was a parish priest
in the small town of Dolores, a town almost
entirely peopled by Indians, who loved his
country, and had laboured with intelligence to
help his poor parishioners. He had taught
them to breed silkworms and cultivate the
vine. But protectionist Spain demanded that
in Mexico no wine should be drunk that had not
come from the mother country; an order came,
therefore, for the plucking up of the vines round
about Dolores, and they were plucked up. The
parish priest, who was named Hidalgo—or, in
full, Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla—a native
of Guanaxuato, and then sixty years old,
resolved that his vines should bear fruit, and good
fruit. He formed plans of revolt, which were
disclosed to the Spaniards when one who had
joined in them, being at the point of death, told
all to his confessor. There were arrests, and
Miguel Hidalgo was to be arrested, but the
danger, instead of unnerving him, hurried him
on to immediate action. Joined by Captain
Allende, a young Creole, captain of the forces
in the neighbouring town of San Miguel, the
parish priest of Dolores raised the flag of
independence, and down came the streams of Indians
from the mountains to join in the following, as
the little army of independence marched from
San Miguel to Zalaga. It was the fierce crowd
of an oppressed, warm-blooded people, and its
march was not untainted with the cruelty of
passion. Twenty thousand strong, it reached
Guanaxuato, where the Spaniards refused to
surrender; the town was taken, and Hidalgo
would have striven in vain, if he did strive, to
repress the ensuing massacre and plunder. But
property of Spaniards, as a rule, was confiscated
and divided by Hidalgo among his troops, and
it is difficult to say whether he may not have
been willing to strike terribly at once to make
the stroke swift and effectual. But the Indians
—the old native population—were those who
fought cruelly; they had small respect even for
Creoles; and their warfare, with the dread of
some possible issues of it, drove many of the
rich Creoles to the Spanish side. The
archbishop excommunicated the whole rebel army.
Truxillo led the troops that were to fight it,
and was beaten at Las Cruces. Hidalgo
marched on towards Mexico, but, after halting
for some days before the town, with fatal
hesitation turned aside. An army, under Don Felix
Maria Calleja, sent in pursuit, beat Hidalgo's
forces at Aculco, though the Indians fought
only too recklessly, rushing at the very mouths
of the enemy's guns, and thrusting their straw
hats into the muzzles. They retired, and were
pursued into Guanaxuato, where Calleja
deliberately butchered in the great square fourteen
thousand men, women, and children. The army
of revolt fell then upon Guadalaxara, where its
forces were broken, and Calleja's orders were
"to exterminate the people of every town or
village that showed signs of adherence to the
rebels." There were men enough to carry on
the fight with Spain, but they wanted arms and
ammunition, and Hidalgo was about to sail to
the United States for these, when he was
betrayed into the hands of the Spaniards,
degraded from the priesthood, given over to the
secular arm, and shot at Chihuahua in July of
the year eighteen hundred and eleven.

Then followed a year of diffused civil war,
during which the party of independence formed
a junta, or central government, of five members,
chosen by a large body of respectable landed
proprietors. The people of the afflicted country,
at a congress of Chipalzingo, made in moderate
terms their last demands—which were burnt
by the hangman—of a representative assembly,
and equal rights in Mexico for Spaniards and
Mexicans.

Then rose up another country curate, Morelos,
who held a commission under Hidalgo. There
was again army against army. Morelos was
besieged in Cuautla, till a rat there was worth
a dollar, and a cat worth six dollars, as meat.
But he and all his forces contrived an escape,
with the loss of only seventeen men. Then
Calleja spent his fury with atrocious cruelty
upon the helpless citizens of Cuautla, while
Morelos was capturing Orizaba and Oaxaca.
At Oaxaca a brave youth, in face of the enemy,
swam the moat around the tower, and cut the
rope of the drawbridge, over which, when it
fell, the victorious insurgents marched. Another
young Mexican chief, whose father had been one
of the seventeen taken during the escape from
Cuautla, offered to return three hundred
prisoners in exchange for the old man. The offer
was refused, and the old man was shot; upon
which the young soldier set all his prisoners
free, lest he might be tempted to a cruel
vengeance. Morelos carried on the struggle for
tour years, and was at last taken by General
Concha, when remaining in a mountain pass
with a small devoted band, to keep the Spanish,
army at bay while the members of the Mexican
congress were being escorted to a place of safety.
"My life," he said, " is of little consequence, if
the congress be saved. My race was run when
I saw an independent government established."
After a stout resistance, when he was left fighting
almost alone, Morelos was taken prisoner,
and he was shot in December, eighteen hundred
and fifteen, his last prayer being, "If I have
done well, Lord, thou knowest it. If ill, to Thy
infinite mercy I commend my soul."

For more years the struggle was continued.
It had in Xavier Mina, who was in revolt