120 MEXICO. prohibiting the inliabitants from making wine, by which they were reduced to the greatest distress. Thus, private motives for discontent were added to those which he shared in common with the rest of his countrymen ; and this may account for the stern, inexorable spirit, with which he began the contest, and which, being met by a spirit equally stubborn, and unrelenting, on the part of the Spaniards, gave at once to the revolution that sanguinary character, by which it is distinguished throughout. To form a party willing to join him in the enterprise which he meditated, was no difficult task, since the minds of his countrymen were so well prepared for it beforehand. Indeed, so little caution does he seem to have observed, that his pro- jects were discovered before they had come to maturity, and orders issued for the arrest of himself and his associates, Al- lende, Aldama, and Abasolo, three Creole officers in garrison at Guanajuato, who were amongst the first converts to his opinions. This premature disclosure might have discouraged a man of less determination than Hidalgo ; but with him it produced no other effect than that of hastening the execution of his plan. Having been joined by Allende, on the 13th of September, 1810, and secured the co-operation of ten of his own parishio- ners, on the morning of the 16th of September, just two years after the arrest of Iturrigaray, he gave the signal for revolt, by seizing and imprisoning seven Europeans, resident in the town of Dolores, whose property he immediately distributed amongst his followers. The rapidity of his progress after this first exploit seems quite incredible.* The news of it spread in every direction, and was every where received with
- •* The flame which Hidalgo lighted at the little town of Dolores,
Bpread through the country with the rapidity of atmospheric plague." — Vide Appendix, 42nd paragraph of Representation.
