the terrible insurrection of the Acordada, which had arisen out of the election of Pedraza as his successor. Santa Anna was, at the time of this election, at Jalapa, discharging the duties of Vice-Governor of Vera Cruz, when the people of the town surrounded his house and called upon him to pronounce against the election. Thus becoming implicated, he was forced to make a new insurrection. This third pronunciamiento of Santa Anna, was on the 5th of September, 1828.
He made his first stand at the Castle of Perote; but finding this too isolated a position, he marched to Oajaca, in the extreme southwest of the Republic, and took up his quarters in the Dominican convent of that city. As he was closely hemmed in by an active enemy, provisions grew scarce, and he was forced to resort to a novel method of supplying himself. On a feast-day, at the San Franciscan church, he dressed a party of his soldiers in the garb of monks, and, having placed them in a convenient position, he made prisoners of the whole assembled congregation, and then proceeded to divest them of all ready cash on hand, and then emptied the contribution-box of the money destined for the poor saints at Jerusalem, and retired and ended the war; for the successful termination of the insurrection of the Acordada in the city of Mexico accomplished the object for which Santa Anna took up arms—the declaration by Congress, that General Guerrero, a man of mixed blood was the real President elect, instead of Pedraza, a white man, and the candidate of the aristocracy.
CAPTURE OF THE ARMADA.
When King Ferdinand had regained his despotic authority, in 1825, by the aid of French bayonets, he bethought himself of Mexico, the most productive of his lost colonial possessions in America, which had yielded, to his predecessors, the total sum of $2,040,048,426, or rather an annual revenue in silver dollars of $6,800,000 during a period of three hundred years.