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POLITICAL EVENTS

CHAP. XXV.

introduced some military arrangements among liisfollowers. He established a mint for coining thesilver, directed the bell-founders to cast cannon,and employed the most skilful mechanics andartists he could procure to work the mines. Adeputation from Valladolid, a city of forty thou-sand inhabitants, invited Hidalgo to visit thatplace, and receiving there fresh accessions of num-bers, he marched to take possession of Mexico ,the capital.

The insurgents appeared before Mexico witha force of regulars and irregulars amounting tomore than seventy thousand, who could be op-posed but by a few, and those ill-disciplinedtroops. The viceroy had sent two divisions ofhis forces in different directions, who had unitedin the rear of the insurgents; this so alarmed thelatter, that they abandoned the attack on thecapital, and retired upon Guanaxuato. They werethere attacked and defeated, and the city wasoccupied by the royalists, who inflicted the mostsummary and barbarous vengeance on the in-habitants.

Hidalgo collected the remnant of his forces andretired upon Guadalaxara, where the standard ofrevolt had been erected. Here again he was de-feated and his army dispersed; but as fast as areverse was experienced in one part of the country,such was the state of excitement, that equal num-bers quickly appeared in arms in some other.