[V-68] Prado and Morazan offered peace to the Guatemalans on condition that the federal government should be fully restored. El Espíritu Púb., Feb. 14, 1829.
[V-69] He established his general headquarters in Ahuachapan, whence raids were constantly made into the enemy's territory.
[V-70] This took place on the 22d of Jan., 1829. The sedition, though soon quelled, rather hastened the action of Morazan with his allied Salvador and Honduras force.
[V-71] The repulse was so unimportant, however, that Morazan does not even mention it in his memoirs. Marure, Efem., 23; Montúfar, Reseña Hist., i. 61.
[V-72] Mem. Rev. Cent. Am., 123; Marure, Efem., 23, gives the 18th as the date. Morazan, Apuntes, MS., 14, says with reference to that defeat, 'Cerda acreditó en esta derrota su ineptitud y cobardía y el enemigo su crueldad con el asesinato de los vencidos.' After that the town was given the title of Villa de la Victoria; but later resumed its original name. This defeat was exaggerated in San Salvador, where it was reported that Morazan was besieged in La Antigua, and preparations to meet another invasion were hastily made.
[V-73] Morazan might have been besieged in La Antigua; for during his stay there he despatched a force to Quezaltenango, that should have been followed by another from Guatemala, and destroyed between the latter and the few forces that Irisarri might have brought against it in the hard roads of Istaguacan and Laja; instead of which, Irisarri retreated toward Soconusco, to be afterward undone and taken prisoner. Morazan's force occupied Los Altos, took many prisoners, levied contributions which Irisarri had failed to get from the Quezaltecs, and left the enemy powerless to recuperate. Mem. Rev. Cent. Am., 124; Morazan's Memoirs, quoted in Montúfar, Reseña Hist., i. 63.
[V-74] March 6, 1829. The disaster occurred at San Miguelito. Morazan, Apuntes, MS., 15. The place received, for that reason, the name of San Miguel Morazan. The Frenchman Raoul, now a general under Morazan, figures prominently in the military operations at this time.
[V-75] On the 15th of March. Marure, Efem., 23; Morazan, Apuntes, MS., 15; Montúfar, Reseña Hist., i. 62-3.
[V-76] The federal force that succumbed in Las Charcas was commanded by their mayor-general, Agustin Prado, not Col Pacheco, as supposed by some. The federals had no general now. Cáscaras had lost his reputation, and was distrusted by the serviles. Arzú would not take the command, or was not trusted on account of his ill success in the third invasion of Salvador. Morazan had defeated Milla, Dominguez, Aycinena, Pacheco, and Prado. Id., 63-4.
[V-77] The representatives were, Arbeu for Vice-president Beltranena, Pavon for Guatemala, Espinosa for Salvador, and Morazan for Honduras and Nicaragua. The last propositions of Espinosa and Morazan were the following, namely: 1st. That a provisional government should be formed in Guatemala, composed of the chief of the state Mariano Aycinena, Mariano Prado, and Morazan; 2d. That the two armies should be reduced to 1,000 men, Guatemalans and Salvadorans in equal parts; 3d. That the provisional government should be installed in Pinula, and afterward enter Guatemala with that force to give it strength and preserve order in the state; 4th. A general forgetfulness of the past. Morazan, Apuntes, MS., 5, 16; Montúfar, Reseña Hist., i. 65. It is claimed, on the other hand, that Morazan really wanted the federal vice-president and the chief of the state of Guatemala to throw up their offices, the legislative assembly and representative council to cease exercising their functions; and that of 1826, sitting at La Antigua, and which had made Zenteno chief, was also to dissolve; the supreme court of justice was to stop acting. Meantime, and until new elections took place, Morazan was to be clothed with executive, representative, and judicial powers. Under the pretext of restoring the sway of law and constitutional order, a dictatorship, emanating from a war treaty, would have been created, whose sole object was to reward the victor with an unlimited authority. The commissioners of the federal and Guatemalan governments refused to accede, and presented counter-propositions of a different nature, namely, to the effect that the existing high functionaries should resign their powers, and a provisional government be established, with one representative from each state, to govern till new elections and the restoration of the constitutional régime. There were also propositions respecting the government of the state of Guatemala. Full details in Mem. Rev. Cent. Am., 125-9, 231-6, which are widely different from those in Morazan, Apuntes, MS., 16. The government of Mexico, at the request of that of Guatemala, tendered its mediation on the 20th of February, but it arrived too late, and there was nothing left for it to do but to tender the hospitalities of the Mexican soil to the victims of persecution. The full correspondence is to be found in Méx., Mem. Rel., 1830, 2-3; also in Suarez y Navarro, Hist. Méj., 407-14; this authority claims that Mexican mediation might have been finally successful in restoring peace but for the opposition of the new chief of Guatemala.