Upon this basis the contest was resumed. It found favor in many parts of Mexico, and the independent troops, with their chiefs, very generally gave in their adherence at once to the Plan of Iguala.
As soon as the viceroy could recover from his surprise on waking up one day to find a brigadier of his own troops concerting a revolution, he issued manifestoes against the undertaking, and at once set about raising an army of six thousand men, which advanced but slowly to the field of action in the south, where the troops of the late brigadier had joined the insurgent forces. This gave time for the Independents to collect together the various forces of Bustamente and other chiefs of their way of thinking. Valladolid was compelled to capitulate for the third or fourth time in twenty years; afterwards Querétaro, and, finally, Puebla, which, besieged by the troops of Bravo and Herrera, surrendered to Yturbide, who made a triumphal entry into the city on the 2d of August, 1821. This was the first of the sieges which the City of the Angels has sustained, its position with regard to the capital exposing it to every ill wind that blows in that direction.
The viceroy, Apodaca, hearing of the rapid triumphs of the insurgents, adopted defensive measures. He established a permanent Junta of war, stopped the liberty of the press, and decreed the enforced enlistment of all men between sixteen and sixty. But desertions were constant, the public spirit was aroused against government, and except that the pure Spaniards were in favor of it, all social classes were decided to overthrow the old regime. Even the garrison of Mexico, losing faith in the viceroy, conspired against him. A meeting inspired by these discontented troops invaded the viceregal palace, and informed Apodaca that his charge was at an end. Francisco Novella, sub-inspector of artillery, was hastily set up into his place; the deposed viceroy left the capital next day with his family, and returned, with such haste as they could bring to pass, to Spain.
The sub-inspector of artillery went to bed in the palace of the royal viceroy; when he rose the next morning he found little or nothing to do. Like his deposed predecessor, he went on dictating measures, which nobody noticed, to check the revolution; but this had advanced too far for sub-inspectors to lay hands upon.
Not only the old insurgents came to the front, but the greater part of the chiefs of the royalists, Spanish as well as Mexican, declared for independence, Santa Anna, at Vera Cruz, among others. Yturbide placed himself at the head of all, and with such resources the campaign was swift and successful. Thus passed the month of July. On the 30th arrived at Vera Cruz a new viceroy, sent in advance, before insurrection was dreamed of at home, to replace Apodaca, the last governor ever sent from Spain, Juan O'Donojú, sixty-fourth viceroy since the coming of Mendoza.
He disembarked, took the oath of office before the governor of Vera Cruz, and assumed the position of governor and captain-general.
Yturbide hastened to meet him at Cordova on his way to the capital, and convinced him by the eloquence of his arguments and the proof of his power, visible in the ample number of troops within his control, that discretion was the better part of valor. The Treaty of Cordova, then and there settled between these two men, declared the independence of Mexico, with Ferdinand VII. or some other for its independent sovereign, establishing a Junta of government, to which O'Donojú stipulated to belong, provisional until a king should be found.
These things settled, Yturbide and O'Donojú, hand in hand, as Yturbide and Guerrero had come before, approached the capital. Sub-inspector Novella was summoned outside the city to a conference, and not unwillingly surrendered his brief authority to the two harmonious chieftains.
Yturbide paused at Toluca to collect all his forces and to draw in such Spanish troops as were now ready to accept him. On the 27th of September, his birthday, he made a triumphal entry into the capital with the army of the Independents, consisting of some sixteen thousand men, with sixty-eight pieces of artillery. They were received with immense enthusiasm, and great demonstrations of rejoicing signalized the end of Spanish domination, which had lasted three hundred years.