CHAPTER XII.
THE SUMMONS.
Europeans, accustomed to the gigantic wars of the Old World, in which enormous masses of two to three hundred thousand men on both sides come into collision on the battle field, where armies have divisions of thirty or forty thousand men, a cavalry often of sixty to eighty thousand sabres, and in which the guns are counted by hundreds, have a difficulty in forming an idea of the way in which war is waged in certain parts of America, as well as the component strength of the armies of the New World.
In Mexico, a population of several millions can hardly collect ten thousand men under arms, an enormous number in those countries. The various republics which were formed on the dismemberment of the Spanish colonies, such as Peru, Chile, New Granada, Bolivia, Paraguay, &c., cannot succeed in assembling more than two or three thousand men under their banners, and that, too, with immense sacrifices; for these countries, which, territorially speaking, are each far larger than England, are nearly deserted, being incessantly decimated by civil war, which gnaws at them like a hideous leprosy, and left almost uninhabitable by the neglect of the various governments, which succeed each other with a giddy and almost fabulous rapidity.
These governments, submitted to rather than accepted by these unfortunate nations, although powerless for good, owing to their precarious duration, are omnipotent for evil, and profit by it to plunder the people, and load their creatures with riches, not troubling themselves about the abyss they are opening beneath their feet, and which, daily growing deeper, will eventually swallow up all these accidental nationalities, which will be dead almost ere they are born, and have only known liberty by name, though never in a position to appreciate its blessings.
Texas, at the period when it claimed its independence, in a contest of ten years, so obstinately, counted over its entire territory only a population of six hundred thousand—a very weak and modest amount, when compared with the seven million of the Mexican confederation. Still, as we have remarked in a preceding chapter, the Texan population was composed, in a great measure, of North Americans—energetic, enterprising men, of known courage, who, annoyed by the long lasting tyranny the Federal government exercised over them, through jealousy and narrowness of views, had sworn to be free at any price, and took up arms in order to guarantee the possession of their estates, and their personal security.
The combat had been going on for ten years; at first timid and secret, it had gradually widened, holding in check the Mexican power, and at length attained that final and supreme period when the alternative is victory or death.
The surprise of the conducta, so skilfully managed by the Jaguar, had been the electric spark destined to definitively galvanize the country, and make it rise as one man for this modern Thermopylae. The independent chiefs, who were fighting all along the border, had, at the unexpected news of the decisive success obtained by the Jaguar, assembled their cuadrillas, and, by common agreement, and through an heroic impulse, ranged themselves under the banners of the youthful chieftain, and pledged him obedience, in order to carry through the liberation of their country.
Thanks to the generous assistance on the part of all the Guerilla leaders, the Jaguar suddenly found himself at the head of imposing forces, that is to say, he collected an army of about eleven hundred men. Our readers must not smile at the name of army given to what would represent a regiment with us. Never before had Texas collected so many fighting men under one Chief. And then, after all, everything is relative in this world, and the greatest masses do not accomplish the most brilliant exploits. Did we not see, a few years back, in Sonora, the heroic and unfortunate Count de Raousset Bourbon, at the head of only two hundred and fifty ragged Frenchmen, half dead with hunger and fatigue, attack Hermosillo, a town of fifteen thousand souls, enclosed with walls, and defended by twelve thousand regulars and six thousand Indians, carry it in an hour, and enter it, sword in hand, at the head of his soldiers, who did not themselves dare to believe in their heroism?[1]