Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/299

This page has been validated.
ANALYSIS OF CHARACTER.
283

they were to aim. Then the signal was given and the platoon fired. Though one bullet pierced his hand, it failed to touch the heart, and Hidalgo still remained erect in his seat, uttering words of prayer. A second volley was discharged, cutting the cords which secured him. He now fell upon the ground, but life was not yet extinct; and it was only after three more shots were fired, the muskets being held close to his breast, that he breathed his last.[1]

The heads of Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama, and Jimenez were sent to Guanajuato, and suspended in iron cages at the four corners of the alhóndiga. Their bodies were interred in the chapel of the third order of Franciscans in Chihuahua, where they remained till 1823, when, by order of congress, the remains were transferred with the skulls to the cathedral of Mexico, where they were deposited with solemn honors in the chapel of los Reyes, the former burial-place of the viceroys, and later that of the presidents of the republic.[2]

  1. Escudero, in Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., ii. 603-4; Negrete, Mex. Sig. XIX., iii. 335-6; Bustamante, Cuad. Hist., i. 262-3. During his incarceration Hidalgo had been attended by a corporal named Ortega and Melchor Guaspe, a Spaniard of Majorca. These men treated him with great consideration, and in token of his gratitude, the evening before he was executed he wrote on his prison walls with a piece of charcoal two stanzas, which were preserved, with the exception of one line. They are as follows:

    Ortega, tu crianza fina,
    Tu índole y est. lo amable
    Siempre te haran apreciable
    Aun con gente peregrina.
    Tiene protección divina
    La piedad que has ejercido
    Con un pobre desvalido
    Que mañana va á morir,
    Y no puede retribuir
    Ningun favor recibido.

    Melchor, tu buen corazón
    Ha adunado con pericia
    Lo que pide la justicia
    Y exije la compasion;

    ****

    Das consuelo al desvalido
    En cuanto te es permitido
    Partes el postre con el
    Y agradecido Miguel
    Te da las gracias rendido.

    Id., 270-1. This apophthegm was also found written on a wall of his cell: 'La lengua guarda el pescuezo'—The tongue is guardian of the breast. Alaman, Hist. Mej., ii. 206.

  2. Consult official documents in Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., ii. 605-11.