spirit of enterprise which he displayed, made him so formidable to the enemy, that his capture was considered by them as more important than a victory, when accident threw ♦XAVIER MINA MADE PRISONER.♦ him into their hands. Chance had delayed the advance of a convoy for which he was waiting: he was informed of the delay, but proposed to wait still; and went himself on horseback with only one companion, by moonlight, to reconnoitre the ground. The enemy, who would have thought no precautions necessary against a Spanish army at that time, stood in such fear of Mina, that they had formed a double line of outposts, and sent out patroles; by some of whom he and his comrade were surprised, dismounted, and taken. It is remarkable that he was not put to death as soon as identified, for he had been proscribed as a leader of banditti, and his capture as such was exultingly announced; but some person of more generosity than those who thus reviled him must have interfered; and where so little that has the character of honour or humanity can be recorded, it must be regretted that we know not to whom this redeeming act should be ascribed. ♦ESPOZ Y MINA ELECTED TO SUCCEED HIM.♦ When Mina’s followers had thus lost their leader, disputes arose concerning the command; and there being no one whose personal qualifications were generally acknowledged, it was resolved to choose his uncle for his name’s sake, for in that name there was a strength. His uncle, Francisco Espoz y Mina, was born in 1781, in the village of Ydozin, upon a little farm, the sole patrimony of his family, to which he succeeded on his father’s death. His education consisted in having merely been taught to read and write; and husbandry had been his only occupation, till under the impulse of the general feeling he took arms against the oppressors of his country; and having, according to his own account, done to them all the hurt he could as long as he remained in his own house, he enlisted as a volunteer in Doyle’s battalion. Soon afterwards, using that freedom which the times allowed, he joined his nephew’s guerrilla, and on the evening after the young hero’s capture, he left the band apparently with the intention of betaking himself to some other course of life; a deputation of seven persons followed him, and urged him to take the command, which having against his will accepted, he began to exercise with a strength of character that never halted in half measures. One of his first acts was to put down those who resisted the authority which he claimed as commander-in-chief of the guerrillas of Navarre, and in which the Junta of Aragon confirmed him. A certain Echeverria had aspired to this rank; he had some 800 men in his company, consisting mostly of German deserters, who inflicted more evil upon the peasantry than upon the French. Espoz y Mina, with about half that force, surprised and arrested him, had him shot with three of his principal comrades, and incorporated the men in his own band.