can allies, enterprizes, in which, with his original forces, (inconsiderable as they were) he would have been almost certain of success. It was not that the Creoles were deficient in personal courage: on the contrary, they possessed both that, and all the other elements of excellent soldiers; but, in a contest with disciplined troops, nothing could compensate the want of discipline, no sort of attention to which had been paid by the Padre Torres, or any of his subordinate chiefs. They indulged their men in all the licentiousness, in which they habitually indulged themselves; and thus, though individually formidable, they were totally inefficient when called upon to act in a body. Such were the tools with which Mina was compelled to work. At an interview with the Padre Torres, it was determined that, in the event of the fort of Los Remedios being besieged by Liñan, (as it was shortly afterwards,) Mina should take the field with a body of nine hundred Insurgent cavalry, and endeavour to harass the besieging army by cutting off its supplies, while the Padre, with the remnant of Mina's officers, conducted the defence of the place. This was conceived to be an easy task, as the fort was, in fact, a natural fortification, being one of a lofty chain of mountains which rise out of the plains of the Băxīŏ, between Sĭlāŏ and Pēnjămŏ, separated by precipices, and immensely-deep barrancas, from the rest. On one point alone it was vulnerable; but there, a wall three feet in thickness was erected,
