tures amongst his parishioners, and introducing the cultivation of the silk-worm; in which, in the year 1810, they had made a very considerable progress. He had likewise planted vineyards to a great extent in the vicinity of the town; but this attempt to increase the resources of his curacy was rendered abortive, by a special order from the Capital, prohibiting the inhabitants 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 projects were discovered before they had come to maturity, and orders issued for the arrest of himself and his associates, Ăllēndĕ, Ăldāmă, and Ăbāsŏlŏ, 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;
