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RAYON PRESIDENT; MORELOS IN THE SOUTH.

mostly royalists or time-servers made no move in the matter. In later years they showed more spirit in claiming their rights or privileges, even to the pitch of fulminating anathemas against measures that did not concern religion. The revolutionary authorities, it must be acknowledged, had not on their part shown much better treatment to priests whose leanings were toward the royalist cause.[1]

It is now time to return to Tlalpujahua, where we left the president of the supreme junta engaged in fortifying his camp and making preparations for an active campaign. From his headquarters he kept up a correspondence with the guadalupes in Mexico, and with Morelos and other military chieftains. With the double view of rousing the inhabitants of the territory under his sway, and of securing the obedience, heretofore doubtful, of the Villagranes, Rayon left Tlalpujahua on the 26th of August, taking with him printing material for issuing proclamations and other docu-

    volume of 243 pages entitled Reftexiones sobre el bando de 25 de Junio. Venegas, to avert further trouble, allowed the matter to drop, and never had his edict carried out at the capital; so that no ecclesiastic was ever executed there till after the independence. The agitation in Mexico was great, and the junta de seguridad was the object of popular execration, which was made manifest in an attempt in open day to assassinate Bataller, and in many other ways. See Arechederreta, Apunt. Hist., considered very reliable upon events occurring in the capital. Alaman, Hist. Mej., iii. 214-20.

  1. A list of the cases of Fathers Bustamante, Estavillo, Flores, and others appears in Bringas, Impugn. Manif. Dr Cos, 47-8. From this time we have an insurgent source to draw from, in the form of a Diario de gobierno y operaciones militares de la secretaria y ejército al mando del Exmo Sr presidente de la suprema junta y ministro universal de la nacion, Lic. D. Ignacio Lopez Rayon. It begins on the first day of Aug. 1812, and ends on the 6th of Sept. 1814, and seems to have been kept by Rayon's secretary, José Ignacio Oyarzábal. The original is supposed to have been in the possession of Licenciado Ignacio Rayon, the general's son, and a full copy of it appears in Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., v. 614-84. The first event therein recorded, on the 5th of Aug., is the destruction of a town called San Agustin, near Actopan, for its leanings to the viceregal authority. Captain Rosillo with 50 men attacked the royalists, killing 53 in the action, and capturing two leaders, whom he shot, and finally destroying the place by fire. A royalist commander, Fernandez, reported that a Captain José Antonio Zamora had been on the 16th of July at the town, and shot 13 loyal Indians before the eyes of their friends; and that he, Fernandez, pursued Zamora and his party, overtook them, and killed Zamora and fourteen others, taking 25 prisoners, most of whom were wounded. Three had already died. Gaz. de Mex., 1812, iii. 843-4.