officer who had accompanied Venegas from Spain, the whole force being under the direction of Flon as commander-in-chief. In order to provide for the security of the capital, now almost without garrison, the infantry regiments of Puebla, Tres Villas, and Toluca were withdrawn from those towns, and two battalions formed from the crews of the frigate Atocha and other vessels at Vera Cruz, and placed under the command of the naval captain Rosendo Porlier.[1] Several battalions also of the volunteers of Fernando VII. were again raised in the city;[2] and Yermo, in his patriotic zeal for the mother country, equipped and maintained at his own expense five hundred cavalry men drawn from the laborers on his estates.[3] More over, Colonel Diego García Conde was appointed comandante of Valladolid and sent thither without delay in company with Manuel Merino, the intendente of that province, and the conde de Rul, colonel of the provincial infantry. Meanwhile the comandantes Felix María Calleja and Roque Abarca, of San Luis Potosi and Guadalajara respectively, were getting their brigades into efficient condition.
But military operations were not the only means employed to crush the rebellion. Prices were put upon the heads of Hidalgo, Allende, and Aldama by the government;[4] the church excommunicated them,[5]
- ↑ These troops caused general disgust by their uncleanliness and want of soldierly deportment, and especially by their obscene and blasphemous language. The contrast between them and the provincial troops was marked. Bustamante, Cuad. Hist., i. 35; Alaman, Hist. Mej., i. 387.
- ↑ Gaz. de Mex., 1810, i. 838-40; Diario Mex., xiii. 390-2.
- ↑ Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., ii. 165. José María Manzano also supplied from his haciendas horsemen to the number of fifty. Ib.
- ↑ Viceroy Venegas, by proclamation of September 27th, offered a reward of 10,000 pesos for the capture or death of these leaders. Dispos. Varias, ii. f. 5; Gaz. de Mex., 1810, 796-7. At a later date this sum was offered for the head of any one of them; and Guerra states that money and arms were advanced to a gambling officer who engaged to assassinate Hidalgo, 'pues este lo recibiria sin recelo como que era su compadre.' Hist. Rev. N. Esp., i. 301-2; Dispos. Varias, ii. f. 8.
- ↑ Manuel Abad y Queipo, bishop elect of Michoacan, published his excommunication by edict of September 24th. Abasolo was also included in it. The excommunicated were declared to be 'sacrilegos, perjuros, y que han incurrido en la excomunion mayor del Canon, Siquis suadente Diabolo.' All who aided or succored them were threatened with the same punishment of
