in the reform agitation, was Don Melchor Ocampo, Governor of Michoacan. He had also been a cabinet minister under Alvarez, in 1855-56. Alike in his brilliant and studious youth, and in the dignity of his mature manhood, he devoted himself to the cause of emancipating his country from military despotism and from the tyranny of those retrograde ideas which had so long retarded her progress. He was a poet and a scholar, as well as a patriot, philanthropist, and statesman, and his pen and sword were alike consecrated to the service of his country. Like many of his contemporaries and fellow-workers in the field of reform, he did not live to enjoy the fruits of his labors; but who will therefore say his life was incomplete, or not fully rounded out?
His tragic death exemplified all the manly virtues of his life, and it is fitting to relate how grandly and calmly this Mexican hero died.
He had retired to his country place near Pomoca, where he sought a quiet interval from the cares of state, solaced by friendship and surrounded by his trees and flowers.
In the early morning of a day in May, 1861, a company of reactionary soldiers, with their captain, approached the house. They entered and arrested a gentleman whom they saw there, Don Entimio Lopez, under the belief that he was Ocampo. The soldiers were about to retire with their prisoner when Ocampo appeared on the scene. He had been in an inner room, and had just discovered the presence of the soldiers, and his friend's arrest. He approached the captain, asking, tranquilly:
"For whom are you looking?"
"Ocampo," was the reply.
"Well, I am Ocampo: release this gentleman; he is my guest."
Without giving him time to get even his hat, they marched off with him to Tepeji deJ Rio, where, on being presented to General Marquez, the cause of the proceeding was clear and the issue certain. This general had given orders that any one taken prisoner who had labored in the cause of reform, should be instantly shot.
