Оахаса.

It was garrisoned by the royalists under Brigadier Regules. The artillery of the insurgents soon silenced that of their opponents, and Regules determined to make a last stand on the edge of a deep moat, which surrounds Oaxaca, and over which there was no passage but by a single drawbridge, which was drawn up, and the approach to it defended by the royalist infantry. This new obstacle checked the ardour of the advancing column. But the intrepidity and heroic daring of a single man at once removed the difficulty. Guadelupe Victoria, who was in the front rank, threw himself into the moat, sword in hand, and swam across : the enemy were so astonished at his temerity, that they allowed him to land, and even to cut the ropes, by which the drawbridge was suspended, without receiving a single wound; the troops of Morelos rushed across it, and soon made themselves masters of the town.

After this success and the capture of Acapulco, Morelos resolved to convene a national congress, which was composed of the original members of the junta of Zitacuaro, the deputies elected by the province of Oaxaca, and others, again, selected by them as representatives for the provinces still in possession of the royal troops. This assembly held its first session on the 13th September, 1813, in the town of Chilpanzingo, and passed an act declaratory of the absolute independence of Mexico. Morelos had now reached the summit of his glory, but fortune soon began to frown upon him. Had his life been spared, it is most probable that the revolution would have been brought to a speedy termination, for his personal influence was unbounded, and his authority universally respected by all his followers. But it was otherwise ordained.

Morelos prepared an expedition against the province of Valladolid; after which he intended to strike a decisive blow against the capital itself. To effect this object, he collected seven thousand men and a large train of artillery, and after sustaining the greatest hardships in marching across one hundred leagues of country which mortal man had never before traversed, he arrived before Valladolid, where he found a formidable force prepared to receive him, under the command of Llano and Iturbide. Rendered too confident by his former successes, Morelos ordered his troops to advance on the enemy instantly, without allowing them any time to recruit their exhausted strength. He was repulsed with loss. On the following morning, Matamoros, ignorant of the real numbers of the garrison, imprudently ordered a general review of the army, within half a mile of the walls. In the midst of it, Iturbide, by a sudden sally, threw the Mexicans into confusion. They, however, rallied, and drove back the Spaniards. At this moment, a large body of cavalry approached the field, intending to support Matamoros but they had not agreed upon their signals, and the Mexicans mistaking them for enemies, fired upon them. They immediately made a furious charge upon the flank, and Iturbide, taking advantage of this mutual error, succeeded in routing

:

the whole army, with the loss of its best regiments, and the whole of the artillery.

This was the beginning of a series of reverses, which only terminated with the death of Morelos. Matamoros was taken prisoner and shot. Don Miguel Bravo was captured, and died on the scaffold. Galeana perished on the field of battle. The congress was driven out of Chilpanzingo, and the members were forced to take refuge in the woods. To place the national representatives in security, Morelos determined to undertake his expedition to Tehuacan, in the province of Puebla, where Teran had already assembled a considerable force. He commenced this ill-fated march with only five hundred men, across a country of sixty leagues, occupied by several divisions of the royalists. Some Indians gave information of the smallness of his escort to Don Manuel Concha, one of the Spanish commandants, who immediately resolved to attack them. Being surprised, Morelos ordered Don Nicolas Bravo to continue his march with the main body, as an escort to the congress, while he himself, with only fifty men, endeavoured to check the advance of the Spaniards. "My life," he said, "is of little consequence, provided the congress be saved. My race was run, from the moment that I saw an independent government established."

Thus resolved, this heroic chief awaited the advance of his enemies. They fired on Morelos and his little band, fearful of coming to close quarters with a man, who had set at defiance the whole Spanish government. When at length only one of his followers remained at his side, they rushed on him, and made him prisoner. There can be no doubt that Morelos had determined to die in this skirmish, and end his days by an act of devotion to his country. He was treated with the greatest brutality by the Spanish soldiers, who stripped him, and loaded him with chains. But Concha, to his honour be it recorded, behaved towards him

with kindness and respect. He was conveyed to Mexico, and sentenced to death. He walked to the scaffold with unshaken firmness, "confessed himself, embraced Concha, whose detachmeut had captured him, and then uttered the following short, but simple, and affecting prayer: "Lord, if I have done well, thou knowest it: if ill, to thy infinite mercy I commend my soul."

After this appeal to the Supreme Judge, he fastened with his own hand, a handkerchief about his eyes, gave the signal to the soldiers to fire, and met death with as much composure as he had ever shown when facing it on the field of battle.

Vol. I.-No. 4.

17

ON THE ORIGIN OF CARDS.

ABOUT the year 1390, cards were invented to divert Charles the Sixth, then king of France, who had fallen into a melancholy disposition. That they were not in use before, as has been sometimes conjectured, appears highly probable from the following reasons. 1. Because no cards are to be seen in any painting, sculpture, tapestry, &c. more ancient than the preceding period, but are represented in many works of ingenuity, since that age. 2.-No prohibitions relative to cards, by the king's edicts, are mentioned, although some few years before the year 1390, a most severe one was published, forbidding, by name, all manner of sport and pastimes, in order that the subjects might exercise themselves in shooting with bows and arrows, and be in a condition to oppose the English. Now, it is not to be presumed, that so luring a game as cards would have been omitted in the enumeration, had they been in use. 3. In all the ecclesiastical canons prior to the said time, there occurs no mention of cards; although, twenty years after that date, the clergy were interdicted from playing at cards, by a Gallican synod. About the same time, is found in the account book of the king's cofferer, the following charge: "Paid for a pack of cards or painted leaves, bought for the king's amusement, three livres." Printing and stamping not being then discovered, the cards were painted, which made them so dear. 4.-About thirty years after this, a severe edict was issued against cards in France; and another by Emanuel, Duke of Savoy; only permitting ladies this pastime, pro spinulis, for pins and needles.

The inventor proposed, by the figures of the four suits, or colours, as the French call them, to represent the four states, or classes of men in the kingdom. By the cœur (hearts) are meant the gens de chœur, choir men, or ecclesiastics; and therefore, the Spaniards, who certainly received the use of cards from the French, have copas, or chalices, instead of hearts.

The nobility, or prime military part of the kingdom, are represented by the ends or points of lances or pikes, and our ignorance of the meaning or resemblance of the figure induced us to call them spades. The Spaniards have espadas (swords) in lieu of pikes, which is of similar import.

By diamonds, are designed the order of citizens, merchants, and tradesmen; carreaux (square stones,) tiles, and the like. The Spaniards had a coin, dineros, which answers to it; and the Dutch call the French word carreaux, stienen, stones, and diamonds, from the form.

Tréfle, the trefoil leaf, or clover grass, (corruptly called clubs,) alludes to the husbandmen and peasantry. How this suit came to be called -clubs, we cannot explain, unless, borrowing the game from the

Spaniards, who have bastos (staves or clubs) instead of the trefoil, we gave the Spanish signification to the French figure.

The history of the four kings, which the French in drollery sometimes call the cards, is David, Alexander, Cesar, and Charles, which names still remain on a French pack. These represent the four celebrated monarchies of the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Franks under Charlemagne.

By the queens are intended, Argine, Esther, Judith, and Pallas, (names still printed on French cards,) typical of birth, piety, fortitude, and wisdom, the qualifications residing in each person. Argine is an anagram for regina, queen by descent.

By the knaves were designed the servants to knights. Knave originally meant only a servant, and, in a very old translation of the Bible which we have seen, St. Paul is called the knave of Christ. In France, in former times, pages and valets were only allowed to persons of quality, esquires, (escuiers,) shield or armour bearers.

Others fancy that the knights themselves were designed by those cards, because Hogier and Lahire, two names on the French cards, were famous knights at the time cards were supposed to have been invented.

AGRICULTURE OF GUERNSEY.

A very serious typographical error occurred in our last number, in the article on Montgomery Martin's History of the British Colonies. It was there mentioned that the "surface of Guernsey may be stated at fifty-four square miles," whereas, the true measurement is only twenty-four square miles.-Some few more particulars, as to the results of farming in Guernsey, cannot fail to interest both our local and English readers.

THE hay crops may be stated, in the uplands, well taken care of, to average three tons and a half, English weight, per acre; and they have been frequently known, in the best land and in favourable seasons, to amount to four tons and three quarters.

Field-roots for cattle are equally productive. Parsnips are no where grown with more success than in this island, and are probably, on the whole, the best root that can be cultivated. It is true that mangel wurzel give heavier crops, and are almost equally useful for milch cows, but for the fatting of stock of all kinds, they are not to be compared to parsnips. The mode of cultivating parsnips in Guernsey is well described by Dr. John MacCulloch, in his communication to the Caledonian Horticultural Society, in September, 1814. He was of opinion that it will form a material and valuable addition to the system of green crops, when it shall become better known; but it is chiefly on account of the power which it possesses of resisting the injuries of frost, that he points it out as an object of attention to the society. The produce per acre is considerably greater than that of the carrot. A good crop, in Guernsey, is considered about twenty-two tons per English acre. This is a less heavy crop than turnip, but it is much more considerable than that either of the carrot or the potatoe; and if we consider that the quantity of saccharine, mucilaginous, and, generally speaking, of nutritious matter in the parsnip, bears a far larger proportion to the water than it does in the turnip, its superiority in point of produce will appear in this case also the

greater. The allowance for fatting an ox is one hundred and twenty pounds per day, exclusive of hay. The animal is found to fatten quicker than when fed with any other root, and the meat turns out more sweet and delicate. Hogs prefer this root to all others, and make excellent pork, but the boiling of the root renders the bacon flabby. A hog may be fattened in six weeks by this food.

Too much can hardly be said in favour of the parsnip, or of the beef and pork fatted with that root. The meat sold in the Guernsey market about Christmas has no superior. The late dean of the island, the Rev. Mr. Durand, who was near ninety when he died, used to relate, that in his younger days he was invited to dine at an agricultural dinner in Hampshire, when some of the party, who had been in Guernsey, extolled the beef of that island: a dinner was betted, Guernsey against Leadenhall, and the dean was requested to send at Christmas a round and a sirloin from Guernsey: the opposite side procured the best that could be had in Leadenhall market. At the trial dinner, the superior excellence of the Guernsey beef was generally, if not unanimously, admitted.

On the 10th January, 1834, there was exhibited in the Guernsey market, a porker of twenty-two months, weighing neat seven hundred and thirty-three English pounds, which had never eaten any thing but raw parsnips and sour milk: finer meat was never seen. In the use of parsnips one caution is absolutely necessary. They ought never to be washed, but to be given as they are taken up from the ground; used in that way, they are found not to surfeit the hogs and cattle, and to fatten them better and quicker than they otherwise would; if washed, they are apt to satiate, and will, the farmers say, never thoroughly fatten.

THE PROPOSED NEW PIER AT GUERNSEY.

THANKS to the public press, so dreaded by a few old women not in petticoats, and the advocacy of a few individuals who can look to the future as well as to the present, there does appear now to be a strong probability that this important measure will be carried into execution. Various opinions are entertained as to the fittest position, and also as to the extent of the new harbour; this is to be expected in all public works, and indeed it is desirable that the question should be fully discussed in all its bearings, in order that sound and rational conclusions may be arrived at. In the present state of affairs, unanimity as to details cannot be hoped for, but it is gratifying to know that there is scarcely a dissentient voice as to the principle. All classes are sensible that the local trade has declined, and that some efforts must be made to prevent this retrogression proceeding further; this question does not apply solely to the town, but equally interests the country, for the rural population may be assured that whatever tends to impoverish the merchants and tradesmen and mechanics, will necessarily limit the demand and lower the price of agricultural produce.

It is not our intention, in the present article, to offer a single remark either as to the position or extent of the new harbour, but to confine ourselves solely to the question, How is the money to be raised? We have already shown, in the March number of this Magazine, that the wealth of Guernsey may be fairly estimated at £4,123,700, including the town and the nine country parishes, that is to say, the whole island, and that the wealth of the town, in proportion to the wealth of the country, is in the ratio nearly of three to one. Now, it appears to be the general opinion that a new harbour may be erected for the sum of £42,000, but as estì