CHAP. XXV.

IN MEXICO.

227

and unstable provincial government of nearly twoyears fanned the embers of insurrection, though itsuspended the explosion till 1810, when it burstforth with dreadful fury.

The priests were the chief actors in counciland the leaders in the field of the armies of theinsurgents. Their watchwords were, King Fer-dinand, God , and the Virgin of Guadaloupe.These operated powerfully on an ignorant popu-lation, who had been taught that the old Spaniardswere desirous of delivering Mexico to the Buona-partists and the Atheists . The agitation amongthe peasantry and miners in the provinces remotefrom the capital had been at work nearly twoyears, when, in September, 1810, it burst forth inall its fury. Hidalgo, a priest of Dolores, after anenthusiastic harangue whose effect is representedas an electric operation, was soon enabled tocollect around him forty thousand men. He wasspeedily joined by native regular regiments, both ofcavalry and infantry, and immediately marched toGuanaxuato, the capital of the mining district,a city then said to have been peopled with eightythousand inhabitants, and to have contained silverin coin and bars to the amount of five milliondollars. The garrison was small, and the inhabit-ants disaffected, and the hordes of Hidalgo wereadmitted without opposition. He established atthat place a kind of government, and by the helpof some officers of the army who had joined him,

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