headed on the Cerro de la Bătēă, during the three days which he passed in the town; but, in Guădălajāră, the number of victims was between seven and eight hundred. There is every reason to believe too, that he intended to pursue the same line of conduct in future, and to establish it as a general rule amongst his adherents; for a letter was produced on his trial, written by him to one of his lieutenants, in which, after recommending him to go on seizing the persons of as many Spaniards as possible, he adds, "and if you should have any reason to suspect your prisoners of entertaining restless, or seditious, ideas, or discover amongst them, any dangerous intentions, bury them in oblivion at once, by putting such persons to death, with all necessary precautions, in some secret and solitary place, where their fate may remain for ever unknown."
Nothing can be more horrible than the idea of thus reducing assassination to a system; and, even setting humanity and morality entirely aside, nothing could be more ill judged. It drove the Spaniards to despair, and furnished them, at the same time, with an excuse for any atrocities which they chose to commit. It discredited the cause of the Revolution, and prevented a number of respectable Creoles from espousing it. Allende himself, is said to have been so disgusted with the cruelty of his chief, that nothing but the approach of Calleja prevented him from abandoning him.
The cannon which the Insurgents had found at
