occasion, were placed by Morelos, at the disposal of Bravo, who offered them to the Viceroy Venegas, in exchange for his father, Don Leonardo Bravo, who was then under sentence of death in the prisons of the Capital. The offer was rejected, and the sentence against Don Leonardo ordered to be carried into immediate execution. His son, in lieu of making reprisals by the massacre of his prisoners, instantly set them all at liberty, "wishing," (as he said,)" to put it out of his own power to avenge on them the death of his parent, lest, in the first moment of grief, the temptation should prove irresistible!" So noble a trait requires no comment!
From this time. Bravo had the command of a separate division, with which he carried on hostilities in the province of Veracruz, where he fortified the Cerro of Cŏscŏmātĕpĕc, and defended it for two months, (September and October, 1813,) against a force of three thousand men, under the orders of Colonel Aguila. Forced at last, by want of provisions, to evacuate the place, he retired in the night without the loss of a single man, and rejoined Morelos in Oaxaca, with his whole division. But the most serious check received by the Spaniards, during the whole war, was that sustained by them in the second Battle of the Pălmār, on the 18th of October, 1813, where the regiment of Asturias, composed entirely of European troops, was cut off by Matamoros, after a severe action, which lasted eight hours. This regiment (which had been at the
