While the authorities digested the amazing news of the outbreak, the
movement grew with surprising rapidity. Hidalgo's little band was joined
by the regiment of his comrade Allende, and a crowd of field laborers,
armed with slings, sticks, and spades, hastened in to swell their ranks.
So popular did the movement prove that in a brief period the band of
eighty men had grown to a great host, fifty thousand or more in numbers.
Poorly armed and undisciplined as they were, their numbers gave them
strength. Hidalgo put himself at their head as commander-in-chief, with
Allende as his second in command, and active exertions were made to
organize an army out of this undigested material.
The next thing we perceive in this promising movement for liberty is the
spectacle of Hidalgo and his host of enthusiastic followers marching on
the rich and flourishing city of Guanajuato, capital of a mining state,
the second largest in Mexico. This city occupies a deep but narrow ravine,
its houses crowded on the steep slopes, up which the streets climb like
stairways.
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