Meanwhile another actor in this revolutionary army had appeared upon the stage. This was Xavier Mina, a guerilla chief of old Spain, who fled from his country, in consequence of the unfortunate effort to organize an outbreak in favor of the Cortes, at Pampeluna, after the dissolution of that assembly by the king. He landed on the coast of Mexico at Soto la Marina with a brave band of foreigners, chiefly North Americans, on the 15th of April, 1817. His forces amounted to only three hundred and fifty-nine men, including officers, of whom fifty-one deserted before he marched into the interior. Leaving one hundred of these soldiers at Soto la Marina under the command of Major Sarda, he attempted with the remainder, to join the independents in the heart of the country.
Mina pressed onwards successfully, defeating several royalist parties, until he reached Sombrero, whence he sallied forth upon numerous expeditions, one of which was against the fortified hacienda or plantation of the Marques of Jaral, a creole nobleman, from which the inhabitants and the owner fled at his approach. His troops sacked this wealthy establishment, and Mina transferred to the public chest one hundred and forty thousand dollars, found concealed in the house. This nobleman, it is true, had given in his adhesion to the royal cause and fortified his dwelling against the insurgents who hitherto refrained from attacking him. Nevertheless, the unprovoked blow of an independent leader against a native of the country, and especially against a man whose extensive farming operations concentrated the interests of so large a laboring class, was not calculated to inspire confidence in Mina among the masses of the people.
Whilst the guerilla chief was thus pursuing his way successfully in the heart of the country, and receiving occasional reinforcements from the natives, the garrison he left at Soto la Marina fell into the hands of Spanish levies, two thousand of whom surrounded the slender band. Notwithstanding the inequality of forces between the assailants and the besieged, the royalists were unable to take the place by storm; but, after repeated repulses, General Arredondo proposed terms which were accepted by Major Sarda, the independent commander. It is scarcely necessary to say that this condition was not fulfilled by the Spaniards, who sent the capitulated garrison in irons, by a circuitous journey, to the sickly Castle of San Juan de Ulua at Vera Cruz, whence some of the unfortunate wretches were marched into the interior whilst others were despatched across the sea to the dungeons of Cadiz, Melilla and Ceuta. This was a severe blow to Mina, who nevertheless was unparalyzed by it but continued active in the vicinity of Sombrero to which he retreated after an illjudged attempt upon the town of Leon, where the number of his troops was considerably diminished. Sombrero was invested, soon after, by a force of three thousand five hundred and forty soldiers, under Don Pascual Liñan, who had been appointed Field Marshal, by Apodaca, and despatched to the Bajio. This siege was ultimately successful on the part of the royalists. The fresh supplies promised to Mina did not arrive. Colonel Young, his second in command, died in repulsing an assault; and, upon the garrison's attempting to evacuate the town, under Colonel Bradburn, on the night of the 19th of August, the enemy fell upon the independents with such vigor that but fifty of Mina's whole corps escaped. "No quarter," says Ward, "was given in the field, and the unfortunate wretches who had been left in the hospital wounded, were by Liñan's orders, carried or dragged along the ground from their beds to the square where they were stripped and shot!"
Mina, as a last resort, threw himself into the fort of Los Remedios, a natural fortification on the lofty mountain chain rising out of the plains of the Bajio between Silao and Penjamo, separated from the rest by precipices, and deep ravines.
Liñan's army sat down before Remedios on the 27th of August. Mina left the town so as to assail the army from without by his guerillas, whilst the garrison kept the main body engaged with the fort. During this period he formed the project of attacking the town of Guanajuato, which, in fact, he accomplished; yet, after his troops had penetrated the heart of the city, their courage failed and they retreated before the loyalists who rallied after the panic created by the unexpected assault at nightfall. On retreating from Guanajuato, our partizan warrior took the road to the Rancho del Venadito where he designed passing the night in order to consult upon his future plans with his friend Mariano Herrera. Here he was detected by a friar, who apprised Orrantia of the brave Mina's presence, and, on the morning of the 27th of October, he was seized and conveyed to Irapuato. On the 11th of November, 1817, in the 28th year of his age, he was shot by order of Apodaca, on a rock, in sight of Los Remedios.
At the end of December the ammunition of the insurgents in this stronghold was entirely exhausted, and its evacuation was resolved on. This was attempted on the 1st of January, 1818, but, with the exception of Padre Torres, the commander, and twelve of Mina's division, few or none of the daring fugitives escaped. The wretched inmates of the fort, the women, and garrison hospitals of wounded, were cut down, bayoneted, and burned. On the 6th of March, the fort of Jauxilla, the insurgents' last stronghold in the central parts of the country, fell, while, towards the middle of the year, all the revolutionary chiefs were dislodged and without commands, except Guerrero, who still maintained himself on the right bank of the river Zacatula, near Colima, on the Pacific. But even he was cut off from communication with the interior, and was altogether without hope of assistance from without. The heart of the nation, and the east coast,—which was of most importance so far as the reception of auxiliaries by the independents was concerned,—were, thus, in complete possession of the royalists; so that a viceroy declared in his despatches to Spain, "that he would be answerable for the safety of Mexico without a single additional soldier being sent out to reinforce the armies that were in the field."
But the viceroy Apodaca, confident as he was of the defeat of the insurrection, did not know the people with whom he dealt as well as his predecessor Calleja, [62] who, with all his cruelty, seems to have enjoyed sagacious intervals in which he comprehended perfectly the deep seated causes of revolutionary feeling in Mexico, even if he was indisposed to sympathize with them or to permit their manifestation by the people. In fact, the revolution was not quelled. It slept, for want of a leader;—but, at last he appeared in the person of Agustin de Iturbide, a native Mexican, whose military career, in the loyalist cause had been not only brilliant but eminently useful, for it was in consequence of the two severe blows inflicted by him upon the insurgents in the actions of Valladolid and Puruaran that the great army of Morelos was routed and destroyed.
In 1820, Apodaca, who was no friend of the constitution, and who suffered a diminution of power by its operation, was well disposed to put it down by force, and to proclaim once more the absolute authority of the king. The elective privileges, which the constitution secured to the people, together with the principles of freedom which those elections were calculated to foster among the masses, were considered by the viceroy as dangerous in a country so recently the theatre of revolution. The insurrection was regarded by him as ended forever. He despised, perhaps, the few distinguished persons who yet quietly manifested their preference for liberalism; and, like all men of despotic character and confident of power, he undervalued the popular masses, among whom there is ever to be found common sense, true appreciation of natural rights, and firmness to vindicate them whenever they are confident of the leaders who are to control their destiny when embarked upon the stormy sea of rebellion.
Apodaca, in pursuit of his project to restore absolutism on this continent, fixed his eyes upon the gallant Iturbide, whose polished manners, captivating address, elegant person, ambitious spirit, and renowned military services, signalized him as a person likely to play a distinguished part in the restoration of a supreme power whose first favors would probably be showered upon the successful soldier of a crusade against constitutional freedom.
Accordingly the viceroy offered Iturbide the command of a force upon the west coast, at the head of which he was to proclaim the re-establishment of the king's absolute authority. The command was accepted; but Iturbide, who had been for four years unemployed, had, in this interval of repose, reflected well upon the condition of Mexico, and was satisfied that if the creoles could be induced to co-operate with the independents, the Spanish yoke might be cast off. There were only eleven Spanish expeditionary regiments in the whole of Mexico, and although there were upwards of seventy thousand old Spaniards in the different provinces who supported these soldiers, they could not oppose, effectually, the seven veteran and seventeen provincial regiments of natives, aided by the masses of people who had signified their attachment to liberalism.