ing any encounter with the enemy, an uprising to support the movement at Jalapa took place in Mexico under a pronunciamiento entitled Plan de Quintanar,[1] which was aided by José Ignacio Esteva, governor of the federal district.[2] No step having been taken either by acting president Bocanegra or by Anaya, the comandante general, to check revolutionary attempts, the plotters, in the night of the 22d of December, assaulted both the palace and citadel, which were surrendered to them without resistance; and that shadow of a government, composed of Bocanegra, Viezca, and Moctezuma, vanished after an existence of five days, during which it could do nothing but helplessly witness the rapid advance of the revolution.[3]
The victorious rebels at once constituted an executive authority ad interim, composed of Quintanar, Lúcas Alaman, and Pedro Velez.[4] Lorenzo de Zavala, Manuel C. Rejon, and Fernando del Valle, who had taken refuge the previous night in the mint, were arrested, but released a few days later on promising to recognize accomplished facts.
- ↑ Rivera, Hist. Jalapa, ii. 572-4; Suarez y Navarro, Hist. Méx., 161-9, 177-82, 185; Atleta, 1829, Dec. 23. This paper, in its issue of Jan. 7, 1830, assures us that Guerrero, in his anxiety to avert bloodshed, had sent commissioners to treat with Bustamante, but Muzquiz detained them at Puebla. Meantime the revolt broke out in Mexico.
- ↑ After Tornel's departure as minister to Washington, Esteva was appointed by Guerrero his successor as governor of the district. He had a very direct part in the revolution at the capital. Alaman, Hist. Méj., v. ap. 84-5; Rivera, Hist. Jalapa, ii. 573.
- ↑ The plan involved a recognition of that of Jalapa, and was signed by eleven generals and sixteen colonels; among the former being Quintanar, the two Rayons, Terreros, and Zarzosa. Rivera, Hist. Jalapa, ii. 572.
- ↑ Quintanar was made a general by Iturbide, and since the latter's execution had been wholly out of political life. His physical courage was undoubted, but he lacked the moral qualifications to control and direct masses of men. His domestic qualities were respectable, and his wife's family relations induced him to serve now as the instrument of a rebellion. Velez was a native of Zacatecas, born in 1787; had been Gen. Cruz's legal adviser, and became the chief justice of the supreme court when it was founded in 1825; an honest man, and quite an able jurist. The rebels made use of him, and he, probably from fear, permitted them. He was minister of justice in 1843, always highly esteemed, and died the 5th of August, 1848. Zavala, Revol. Mex., ii. 219; Rivera, Gob. de Méx., ii. 144, 147. Of Alaman full information is given elsewhere. The act of congress of Dec. 23, 1829, appointing that executive under article 87 of the constitution, may be seen in Dublan and Lozano, Legis. Mex., ii. 210.
