still hopeful of success he had commissioned Morelos, an Indian priest, as captain-general of the insurgent force at the South. After the death of Hidalgo the chief command devolved on his brother-patriot.
The royalists had entered on a war of extermination, and not a town or a village dared shelter the rebels. Morelos resolved to tire out his enemies by changing the scene of conflict to the hot lands on the coast, where the men of the cold regions would melt away with its deadly fevers.
At one time, on a retreat to Oaxaca, Morelos hoped to find shelter for his troops in a little town surrounded by a deep moat. As they came to the bank with the enemy in hot pursuit they saw, to their dismay, that the draw-bridge was raised and the better to prevent their entrance the townspeople had secured every boat. Seizing an axe, Guadalupe Victoria, afterward first president of the republic, sprang into the stream, and in the sight of the panic-stricken crowd on the opposite bank he swam boldly across, cut the ropes which held the bridge aloft, and as it came down with a thundering crash Morelos and his men dashed over and took possession of the place.
A story is told of Miguel Bravo, another of the patriots, that shows the spirit which animated many of these noble men. Three hundred prisoners had fallen into their hands at the siege of Palmo, and General Morelos gave the disposal of them to Bravo, who immediately offered them all to the viceroy in exchange for his father, Don Leonardo Bravo, then a prisoner under sentence of death at the capital. But the viceroy rejected the offer and ordered the execution to take place immediately. When Bravo heard the sad news, he set his three hundred men at liberty, saying, "I wish to put it out of my power to
