CHAPTER III.
1816—1821.
Don Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, Conde del Venadito,
LXI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1816—1821.
With the death of Morelos the hopes of the insurgents were crushed and their efforts paralized. This extraordinary man, so fertile in resources, and blending in himself the mingled power of priest and general, had secured the confidence of the masses, who found among his officers, none upon whom they could rally with perfect reliance. Besides this, the congress which had been conducted safely to Tehuacan by Bravo, was summarily dissolved by General Teran, who considered it an "inconvenient appendage of a camp." We cannot but regard this act of the general as unwise at a moment, when the insurgents lost such a commander as Morelos. By the dissolution of the congress the nation abandoned another point of reunion; and from that moment, the cause began to fail in all parts of the country.
The Constitution, sanctioned by the Cortes in 1812, had, meanwhile, been proclaimed in Mexico, on the 29th of September of that year; and, whilst the people felt somewhat freer under it, they were enabled, by the liberty of the press, which lasted sixty-six days, to expend their new-born patriotism on paper instead of
