if the report of this murderous gun were the preconcerted signal for onslaught, the work of violence began.[1] Joined by the populace, the insurgents rushed in excited bands through the city, and erelong the houses of the Europeans were broken into, their furniture battered to pieces and cast into the streets, and every article of clothing, of common requirement, or of use in war, was carried off, and the rest was wantonly destroyed. Again remonstrances were laid before Hidalgo; but he maintained his previous views that numbers would insure success, and that a system of plunder would both weaken their foes and attract partisans to their own cause.[2]
In taking this ground Hidalgo, as patriot and revolutionist—for he was both—has been severely censured. But there is much to be said in extenuation. Hidalgo claimed that the Indians had been wrong fully dispossessed of their lands, property, and rights in the first instance, and consequently the wealth the Spaniards and their descendants had thereby acquired was not theirs, but belonged to the aboriginal occupants of the soil and their descendants. Robbery and murder had been employed by the Spaniards in wresting the country from the Indians, and they would adopt the same measures to win it back. Further than this, he argued, it was his only resource. He had but few trained soldiers, and he had no money to pay these except what he could take from the enemy. If war is ever justifiable, this one was; there is no more sacred cause man can fight for than personal and political independence. If it is right to wage war and afterward force the losing side to pay the cost of all, as the great nations of the earth seem agreed, it is equally right to rob and plunder as hostil-
- ↑ Mora says: 'La señal de posesion que se dió al vecindario fué una descarga general de todas las armas de fuego verificada en la plaza, y que fué el toque de llamamiento para el destrozo y el saqueo.' Max. y sus Rev., iv. 26.
- ↑ Zamacois, Hist. Mej., vi. 288; Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., i. 10.
surgent troops, Id., 384. This incident is not accepted by some authors. Negrete, Mex. Siglo XIX., ii. 24.
