CHAP. XXV. IN MEXICO. 227 



and unstable provincial government of nearly two 

 years fanned the embers of insurrection, though it 

 suspended the explosion till 18 JO, when it burst 

 forth with dreadful fury. 



The priests were the chief actors in council 

 and the leaders in the field of the armies of the 

 insurgents. Their watchwords were, King Fer- 

 dinand, God, and the Virgin of Guadaloupe. 

 These operated powerfully on an ignorant popu- 

 lation, who had been taught that the old Spaniards 

 were desirous of delivering Mexico to the Buona- 

 partists and the Atheists. The agitation among 

 the peasantry and miners in the provinces remote 

 from the capital had been at work nearly two 

 years, when, in September, 1810, it burst forth in 

 all its fury. Hidalgo, a priest of Dolores, after an 

 enthusiastic harangue whose effect is represented 

 as an electric operation, was soon enabled to 

 collect around him forty thousand men. He was 

 speedily joined by native regular regiments, both of 

 cavalry and infantry, and immediately marched to 

 Guanaxuato, the capital of the mining district, 

 a city then said to have been peopled with eighty 

 thousand inhabitants, and to have contained silver 

 in coin and bars to the amount of five million 

 dollars. The garrison was small, and the inhabit- 

 ants disaffected, and the hordes of Hidalgo were 

 admitted without opposition. He established at 

 that place a kind of government, and by the help 

 of some officers of the army who had joined him, 



