elated the independents, and correspondingly depressed the royalists. The viceroy was greatly displeased, and ordered investigations resulting in trials of several officers by court-martial. The conde de Castro Terreño, moreover, was superseded in his command at Puebla by Brigadier Ramon Diaz de Ortega,[1] and returned to Spain much chagrined.
Calleja, fearing that Matamoros might make an attempt against Puebla or the neighboring villas, ordered Ortega to guard against it with a competent force. Matamoros went south, and Ortega took up a position at Cuernavaca with a force of 5,000 or 6,000 men, which was soon after dissolved, the troops returning to Puebla and Mexico, in view of the fact that Morelos showed no attempt of crossing the Mescala, this river being the boundary between the two parties. Morelos was occupied at Chilpancingo in augmenting his troops, whilst the viceroy reënforced the division stationed in Toluca. Moreno Daoiz and Armijo watched the Mescala, and an expedition was being organized for the invasion of Oajaca, whose inhabitants, it was claimed, desired the restoration of the royal authority over them, being tired of the abuse they were subjected to by the insurgents.[2] Some of the inhabitants were indeed in communication with the viceroy, and the influence of their former bishop, Bergosa, was great. It was to counteract this influence, as well as that of the friars and canons who were working for a counter-revolution, that Morelos was urgently advised by Cárlos Bustamante and Rocha, comandante at Oajaca,[3] to stop all trade be-
- ↑ Ortega was sent apparently as the conde's second in command, but really to remove him, which was proved by the viceroy's acceptance of an alleged previous resignation, a mere pretext, for it was known that the conde was getting ready to march into Oajaca. Bustamante, Cuad. Hist., ii. 377. Castro Terreño, it seems, preferred to wage war in a civilized manner, as he proved in Zacatlan, where he injured no one and kept his troops under strict discipline. He was rather friendly to the creoles. Id., ii. 285.
- ↑ So says Alaman, Hist. Méj., iii. 544.
- ↑ Rocha's letter of July 16, 1813, to Bustamante, and the latter officer's of July 27th, in Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., v. 83, 96-7.
