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or three hundred Indians, who fell back, closed up near the porch of the Cathedral, and in a few moments all fled, leaving the plaza, with all their ammunition, in the possession of the assailants. Rivera Paz and Don Luis Bartres, the chief and secretary of the state, were in the plaza at the time, and but few other white citizens. Car. rera did not want white soldiers, and would not permit white men to be officers. Many young men had presented themselves in the plaza, and were told that there were no arms.

In the mean time, Carrera, strengthened by masses of Indians from the villages around, attacked the division on the heights of Calvario. Morazan, with the small force left at San Juan de Dios, went to the assistance of Cabanes. The battle lasted an hour and a half, fierce and bloody, and fought hand to hand. Morazan lost some of his best officers. Sanches was killed by Sotero Carrera, a brother of the general. Carrera and Morazan met, and Carrera says that he cut Morazan's saddle nearly in two. Morazan was routed, pursued so closely that he could not take up his equipage, and hurried on to the plaza, having lost three hundred muskets, four hundred men killed, wounded, and prisoners, and all his baggage. At ten o'clock his whole force was penned up in the plaza, surrounded by an immense mass of Indian soldiers, and fired upon from all the corners. Manning the parapets and stationing pickets on the roofs of the houses, he kept up a galling fire in return..

Pent up in this fearful position, Morazan had time to reflect. But a year before he was received with ringing of bells, firing of cannon, joyful acclamations, and dep utations of grateful citizens, as the only man who could save them from Carrera and destruction. Among the few white citizens in the plaza at the time of the entry

of the soldiers was a young man, who was taken prisoner and brought before General Morazan. The latter knew him personally, and inquired for several of his old partisans by name, asking whether they were not coming to join him. The young man answered that they were not, and Morazan and his officers seemed disappointed. No doubt he had expected a rising of citizens in his favour, and again to be hailed as a deliverer from Carrera. In San Salvador I had heard that he had received urgent solicitations to come up; but, whatever had been contemplated, there was no manifestation of any such intention; on the contrary, the hoarse cry was ringing in his ears, "Muera el tyranno! Muera el General Morazan!" Popular feeling had undergone an entire revolution, or else it was kept down by the masses of Indians who came in from the villages around to defend the city against him.

In the mean time the fire slackened, and at twelve o'clock it died away entirely; but the plaza was strewed with dead, dense masses choked up the streets, and at the corners of the plaza the soldiers, with gross ribaldry and jests, insulted and jeered at Morazan and his men. The firing ceased only from want of ammunition, Carrera's stock having been left in Morazan's possession. Carrera, in his eagerness to renew the attack, sat down to make cartridges with his own hands.

The house of Mr. Hall, the British vice-consul, was on one of the sides of the plaza. Mr. Chatfield, the consul general, was at Escuintla, about twelve leagues distant, when intelligence was received of Morazan's invasion. He mounted his horse, rode up to the city, and hoisted the English flag on Mr. Hall's house, to Morazan's soldiers the most conspicuous object on the plaza. Carrera himself was hardly more obnoxious to

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them than Mr. Chatfield. A picket of soldiers was sta tioned on the roof of the house, commanding the plaza on the one side and the courtyard on the other. Orellana, the former minister of war, was on the roof, and cut into the staff with his sword, but desisted on a remonstrance from the courtyard that it was the house of the vice-consul. At sundown the immense mass of Indians who now crowded the city fell on their knees, and set up the Salve or hymn to the Virgin. Orellana and others of Morazan's officers had let themselves down into the courtyard, and were at the moment taking chocolate in Mr. Hall's house. Mrs. Hall, a Spanish lady of the city, asked Orellana why he did not fall on his knees; and he answered, in jest, that he was afraid his own soldiers on the roof would take him for a Cachureco and shoot him; but it is said that to Morazan the noise of this immense chorus of voices was appalling, bringing home to him a consciousness of the immense force assembled to crush him, and for the first time he expressed his sense of the danger they were in. The prayer was followed by a tremendous burst of "Viva la Religion! Viva Carrera! y muera el General Morazan!" and the firing commenced more sharply than before. It was returned from the plaza, and for several hours continued without intermission. At two o'clock in the morning Morazan made a desperate effort to cut his way out of the plaza, but was driven back behind the parapets. The plaza was strewed with dead. Forty of his oldest officers and his eldest son were killed; and at three o'clock he stationed three hundred men at three corners of the plaza, directed them to open a brisk fire, threw all the powder into the fountain, and while attention was directed to these points, sallied by the other and left them to their fate. VOL. II.-P

I state this on the authority of the Guatimala official account of the battle-of course I heard nothing of it at Aguachapa-and if true, it is a blot on Morazan's character as a soldier and as a man. He escaped from the city with five hundred men, and strewing the road with wounded and dead, at twelve o'clock arrived at the Antigua. Here he was urged to proclaim martial law, and make another attack on the city; but he answered no; blood enough had been shed. He entered the cabildo, and, it is said, wrote a letter to Carrera recommending the prisoners to mercy; and Baron Mahelin, the French consul general, related to me an anecdote, which does not, however, seem probable, that he laid his glove on the table, and requested the alcalde to give it to Carrera as a challenge, and explain its meaning. From that place he continued his retreat by the coast until I met him at Aguachapa.

In the mean time Carrera's soldiers poured into the plaza with a tremendous feu de joie, and kept up a terrible firing in the air till daylight. Then they commenced searching for fugitives, and a general massacre took place. Colonel Arias, lying on the ground with one of his eyes out, was bayoneted to death. Perez was shot. Marescal, concealed under the Cathedral, was dragged out and shot. Padilla, the son of the widow at Aguachapa, found on the ground, while begging a Centralist whom he knew to save him, was killed with bayonets. The unhappy fugitives were brought into the plaza two, three, five, and ten at a time. Carrera stood pointing with his finger to this man and that, and every one that he indicated was removed a few paces from him and shot. Major José Viera, and several of the soldiers on the roof of Mr. Hall's house, let themselves down into the courtyard, and Carrera sent for all who had taken

refuge there. Viera was taking chocolate with the family, and gave Mrs. Hall a purse of doubloons and a pistol to take care of for him. They were delivered up, with a recommendation to mercy, particularly in behalf of Viera; but a few moments after Mr. Skinner entered the house, and said that he saw Viera's body in the plaza. Mr. Hall could not believe it, and walked round the corner, but a few paces from his own door, and saw him lying on his back, dead. In this scene of massacre the Padre Zezena, a poor and humble priest, exposed his own life to save his fellow-beings. Throwing himself on his knees before Carrera, he implored him to spare the unhappy prisoners, exclaiming, they are Christians like ourselves; and by his importunities and prayers induced Carrera to desist from murder, and send the wretched captives to prison.

Carrera and his Indians had the whole danger and the whole glory of defending the city. The citizens, who had most at stake, took no part in it. The members of the government most deeply compromised fled or remained shut up in their houses. It would be hard to analyze the feelings with which they straggled out to gaze upon the scene of horror in the streets and in the plaza, and saw on the ground the well-known faces and mangled bodies of the leaders of the Liberal party. There was one overpowering sense of escape from immense danger, and the feeling of the Central government burst out in its official bulletin: "Eternal glory to the invincible chief General Carrera, and the valiant troops under his command!"

In the morning, as at the moment of our arrival, this subject was uppermost in every one's mind; no one could talk of anything else, and each one had something new to communicate. In our first walk through