Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/286

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258
MEXICO IN 1827.

decided without an appeal to arms, had not the approach of a Royalist Division terminated the dispute; Torres's friends soon afterwards gave in their submission to Arago, and the Padre himself, after leading a fugitive life for some months in the mountains of Pēnjămŏ, was run through the body with a lance by one of his own captains, Don Juan Zămōră, whom he had attempted to deprive of a favourite horse. Ĕl Gīrŏ was surprised, about the same time, (July, 1819,) by some soldiers of the Royalist Colonel, Bustamante, and killed, after a gallant defence, in which he slew three of his adversaries with his own hand. Don Jose Mărīă Lĭcĕāgă, one of the oldest Insurgent chiefs, and the colleague of Rayon in the Junta of Zitācŭarŏ, was killed at the commencement of the year by an Insurgent officer, belonging to the district of Guanajuato; so that of all those, who had taken any lead in the Revolution, not one remained in July, 1819, when the Insurgent cause may be said to have reached its lowest ebb. Gŭerrērŏ, indeed, maintained himself on the right bank of the river Zăcātūlă, (near Cōlĭmă, on the Pacific,) but he was cut off from all communication with the Interior, and had little hope of assistance from without; so that, notwithstanding his military talents, his little force was not formidable to the Royalists, who were in undisturbed possession of almost all the interior of the country, with the whole of the Eastern coast.