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544
OPERATIONS AGAINST RAYON AND VILLAGRAN.

The precaution of Calleja in sending a regiment to Tampico proved most opportune, for the insurgent Herrera was rousing the Indians of Nuevo Leon before Arredondo had crossed into Texas; and assisted by Marcelino García and others, with hordes of Lipanes and Comanches,[1] he overran the whole region from San Cárlos northward. Monterey was entered, and the commandant Sada would have had to surrender the last intrenchment but for the approach of the Spanish regiment under Armiñan, acting as governor of Nuevo Santander. The latter, in connection with Diez de Bustamante, governor of Nuevo Leon, Felipe de la Garza, sent by Arredondo, Perea and Melgares from the Occidente provinces, now pursued the insurgents hotly. García fell; Herrera among others was captured and shot; and the rest dispersed, leaving the revolution wholly suppressed throughout the Oriente.[2]

    also to open communication with the coast for his own departure as well as for bringing in arms; but Bravo failing to assist him in the northern Vera Cruz districts, he turned back. Bustamante blames him for indiscretion, whereby the royalists were put on guard against his movements, and for spending time to collect vanilla to defray the expenses of his mission. Cuad. Hist., ii. 347. Alaman thinks he should have taken cochineal and sought exit from Tabasco. He reproduces his commission, etc., in Hist. Méj., iii. app. 49-52, and so does Negrete, Mex. Siglo XIX., vi. 73-8, who approves the mission; but the fullest record is in Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., v. 18 et seq., 96; vi. 1036-43; i. 872-3, with an anonymous document expressing fears of foreign designs. Arraugoiz, Méj., i. 218, declaims vaguely against privateers from the north.

  1. The latter coming this year for the first time south of Rio Bravo. Mex., Informe Comis. Pesquis., 1874, 121.
  2. These statements are from the reports of Arredondo and his aids, in Gaz. de Mex., 1813, iv. 954-6, 970-1, 980, 992-4, 1081-2, 1229-30, 1245-6; 1814, v. 27 et seq.; to which Gonzalez adds details from the opposite side. Cuad. N. Leon, 248-327, passim.