awaited the insurgent chief. On the 2d of January, 1811, Padre Parra, having discovered a ford, while crossing it in company with five soldiers was taken, prisoner.[1] On the 8th Hermosillo, after fording the river, fell into the hands of 400 royalists secreted in the brush on either side of his line of march. So deadly was the fire opened upon him, that in less than ten minutes more than 300 of the insurgents were slain, and the rest fled panic-stricken. Hermosillo lost all his cannon, baggage, and munitions of war, and the expedition so successfully begun was thus suddenly ended.[2]
But in another direction success attended the revolution. In the eastern provinces it spread with rapidity. After San Luis Potosi had thrown off the yoke, the neighboring district of Nuevo Santander was awakened by the spirit of independence. The governor, Lieutenant-colonel Manuel de Iturbe,[3]was compelled to retreat to Altamira by the revolt of troops which he had raised under the same delusive expectation indulged in by Abarca and Rendon. The country was now overrun by revolutionists. Spaniards were dragged from their homes and cast into dungeons from which the vilest criminals had been released; their wealth was appropriated and their property destroyed. The mines were deserted and enter-
- ↑ One of the soldiers was killed, the other four escaped. Padre Parra went through great hardships. He was afterward sent to Durango and delivered to the asesor Pinilla Perez, who 'habia jurado no dejaren este suelo gota de sangre Americano.' Id., 383. Parra, knowing that he had little hope of life, contrived to escape, 'contrahaciendo en el pasaporte que fingio la firma de Bonavia.' Ib. Bonavia was the intendente of Durango.
- ↑ This account of the Sinaloa expedition is taken from the narrative of Parra, in Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., i. 378-83, and given in brief by Bustamante, in Cuad. Hist., i. 176-81, and in Campañas de Calleja, 62-8. The original document belonged to Bustamante, and Hernandez y Dávalos is indebted for it to José María Andrade. Alaman is inclined to discredit Bustamante's account relative to the dishonorable action of Villaescusa. Hist. Mej., ii. 93. But the statements of Parra copied by Bustamante are corroborated by another document, a despatch written by José Lopez, an officer under Hermosillo, and who makes the same statements. Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., i. 376-7. The total dispersion of Hermosillo's army may be gathered from Gaz. de Mex., 1811, ii. 173-4. Negrete omits all mention of Hermosillo's defeat. Mex. Sig. XIX., iii. 82-3.
- ↑ This officer married a sister of the historian Alaman. Hist. Mej., ii. 94.
