ifferent man from the
Mina of 1810. When fighting against the French, the sympathies of the
Navarrese were with him; now they were against him, and in a war of this
description, that difference was of immense importance. In spite of the
wintry season and of the badness of his health, one of the first things
he did on assuming the command was to make an excursion to Puente la
Reyna, Maneru, and other places, where, in days gone by, he had had his
headquarters, and which he had then never entered without being greeted
as a hero and patriot, and welcomed with enthusiastic _vivas_. He
flattered himself that this enthusiasm would be again awakened by his
appearance; and was so much the more shocked when he found himself
received with the utmost coldness and indifference. His illness was
aggravated by disappointment, and he returned angry and disgusted to
Pampeluna. Thence, incapacitated by his infirmities from exerting
himself in the field, he directed from his cabinet the operations of his
lieutenants, and issued orders, the cruelty of some of which soon caused
his name to be as much execrated in Navarre as it had there once been
venerated. At no period of the war was less mercy shown to each other by
the contending parties than during Mina's command. Besides shooting all
prisoners taken with arms in their hands, he caused the wounded whom he
found in the Carlist hospitals to be slain upon their beds, and
_garroted_ or strangled a gentleman of Pampeluna, for no reason that
could be discovered except that he had two sons with the Carlists.
Several forts having about this time being taken or battered by
Zumalacarregui, Mina determined to get possession of the guns with which
this had been done. He was aware of the difficulty the Carlists had in
obtaining artillery; and knowing that it could not easily be transported
from one place to another in that rugged and mountainous country, he
conjectured that they were in the habit of burying it, which was
actually the case. In order to obtain information as to the whereabout
of the mortars with which the enemy had been shelling Elizondo, he
decimated the male inhabitants of Lecaros, and then burnt the village
itself to the ground. Such atrocities as these, far from advancing the
cause of Queen Isabel, materially injured it, offering as they did a
strong contrast with the conduct of Zumalacarregui, who, at the taking
of Los Arcos, Echarri-Eranaz, and other places, had shown mercy, and