volunteer companies armed with the muskets that had been hidden when Morelos came. The same measures were adopted at Chilpancingo; indeed, immediately after Morelos escaped from Cuautla and his army became dispersed, there was a general movement throughout all that country in favor of the royal cause.
Among the officers thus dispersed were Leonardo Bravo, José Mariano de la Piedra, and Colonel Manuel Sosa with twenty men, whose whole armament consisted of seven muskets, three fowling-pieces, two pairs of pistols, and five sabres. Journeying south through the valley of Cuernavaca, they arrived, worn out with fatigue, on the 5th of May, three days from Cuautla, at the hacienda of San Gabriel, the property of the archroyalist Gabriel de Yermo, the greater portion of whose laboring men had been serving as teamsters and otherwise to Calleja's army. But the few left to take care of the hacienda were neither less loyal to the crown nor less attached to their employer. They had kept concealed, to meet an emergency, a four-pounder, some muskets, and ammunition for a few days' defence. Led by a Philippine Islander named Domingo Perez, or El Chino, they disarmed the few soldiers and fell upon Bravo and his companions. Bravo and Sosa attempted to defend themselves; the former was thrown down and bound and the latter killed on the spot. Piedra quietly surrendered.[1] The three were taken to the city of Mexico and there tried, their judge being that bitter enemy of the creoles, Oidor Bataller. Indeed,
- ↑ Calleja in his despatch of May 6th speaks of the capture of Piedra, Bravo, and Perez, the last named a lieutenant-colonel who with a small party of twelve, also fugitives from Cuautla, fell into the hands of the San Gabriel men a few days after the others. Gaz. de Mex., 1812, iii. 488, 722-4; Negrete, Mex. Sig. XIX., v. 13; Bustamante, Cuad. Hist., ii. 73. An extract of the proceedings at the trial of Bravo and Piedra, published in the Diario de Mejico, Sept. 24th, shows the former to have been only a brigadier, and the latter to have had no military rank, though he had been employed collecting tithes under authority of Morelos, whose compadre he was. All the prisoners were sent to a place of safety in the barranca of Tilzapotla. Alaman, Hist. Mej., ii. 535-7.
