ants from a cry raised that the royalists are upon them.[1]
While Calleja halted at Valenciana he confirmed the magistrate of that town in his office, although he had received his appointment from Hidalgo. He also supplied him with copies of the proclamation extending pardon to those who returned to their allegiance, and of the edict of the inquisition issued against Hidalgo, instructing him to publish them. Chovell and other residents, fearing for their lives, were meditating flight, but learning of these measures, they remained in their houses. At daylight on the following morning Calleja resumed his march against the city, but before doing so he had received intelligence of the massacre in the alhóndiga,[2] and had caused the immediate arrest of Chovell and other persons living in Valenciana. The insurgents had planted a heavy cannon on the cerro del Cuarto,[3] and during the evening of the 24th and early hours of the following day had maintained a vigorous fire with Flon, who replied from the hill of San Miguel. As Calleja advanced, the insurgents' gun was trained on his line of march, but the royalists, having placed two cannon in a favorable position, succeeded in dismounting it at the first discharge. This was the last effort at resistance; and Calleja and Flon entered the city simultaneously.
- ↑ Those who thus escaped took refuge in the convent of Belen and private bouses. The number of those slain is not accurately known. There were in the alhóndiga at the time 247 captives, many of them being creoles who favored the royalist cause. Of these, Bustamante states that a few over 30 escaped. Cuad. Hist., i. 101. According to the report supplied afterward by Marañon to Calleja, only 138 recognized bodies received burial, 'habiendo muchos quo habiéndoseles visto entre los presos, no se supo despues de ellos; por la que se supuso estar entre los muchos cadáveres que se sepultaron sin ser conocidos.' Alaman, Hist. Mej., ii. app. 6-7. A list of the principal victims, as well as of those who escaped, is given in Liceaga, Adic. y Rectific., 156-7. Pedraza states that more than 200 were slain. Celeb. N. Indep., 1.
- ↑ Captain Linares on the previous evening, fearing that some such catastrophe might occur, had urged Calleja to march at once upon the city; Linares made this statement frequently to Alaman, Hist. Mej., ii. 53, believing that the lives of the captives might have been saved. But the massacre was perpetrated in the afternoon of the 24th, and Calleja did not arrive at Valenciana until after five o'clock.
- ↑ This battery is said to have been directed by a man from the U. S., 'estaba servido por un norte americano.' Liceaga, Adic. y Rectific., 161-2.
