had assembled at Oaxaca, and for which he sacrificed his life, would prove a centre of union, to which his lieutenants might look, as they had previously done to himself; but few of his officers entertained similar feelings with regard to this body, which, however useful in theory, was, practically, a most inconvenient appendage to a camp. Don Nicolas Bravo succeeded, indeed, in escorting the Deputies in safety to Tĕhŭacān, where they were received, at first, with great respect by General Tĕrān: but disputes soon arose between the Civil and Military authorities, and these terminated by the dissolution of the Congress, to which measure Tĕrān had recourse on the 15th of December, 1815.
There is no act in the history of the Revolution that has been more severely blamed than this, and none, perhaps, that has been less fairly judged. It cannot be denied that, by dissolving the Congress, Teran injured the general cause, by depriving the Insurgents of a point de réunion, which might, afterwards, have been of essential use; but it has never been proved that it was possible for him to do otherwise, or that the district under his command could, in any way, have supported the additional charge, which the arrival of the Congress must have brought upon it. The fact is, that the members of that assembly, amongst the other articles of their Constitution, had assigned to themselves, as Deputies, a yearly salary of eight thousand dollars each; a re-
