The duke of Arcos, profiting by the errors of Alonso de Aguilar, had made his arrangements with great circumspection. He soon came in sight of the Moriscoes, full three thousand strong. But, though well posted, they made a defence little worthy of their ancient reputation, or of the notes of defiance which they had so boldly sounded at the opening of the campaign. They indeed showed mettle at first, and inflicted some loss on the Christians. But the frequent reverses of their countrymen seemed to have broken their spirits; and they were soon thrown into disorder, and fled in various directions into the more inaccessible tracts of the sierra. The Spaniards followed up the fugitives, who did not attempt to rally. Nor did they ever again assemble in any strength, so effectual were the dispositions made by the victorious general. The insurrection of the Sierra Vermeja was at an end.[271] The rebellion, indeed, might be said to be everywhere crushed within the borders of Granada. The more stout-hearted of the insurgents still held out among the caves and fastnesses of the Alpujarras, supporting a precarious existence until they were hunted down by detachments of the Spaniards, who were urged to the pursuit by the promise from government of twenty ducats a head for every Morisco. But nearly all felt the impracticability of further resistance. Some succeeded in making their escape to Barbary. The rest, broken in spirit, and driven to extremity by want of food in a country now turned into a desert, consented at length to accept the amnesty offered them, and tendered their submission. [Sidenote: EXPULSION OF THE MOORS.] On the twenty-eighth of October Don John received advices of a final edict of Philip, commanding that all the Moriscoes in the kingdom of Granada should be at once removed into the interior of the country. None were to be excepted from this decree, not even the _Moriscos de la Paz_, as those were called who had loyally refused to take part in the rebellion.[272] The arrangements for this important and difficult step were made with singular prudence, and, under the general direction of Don John of Austria, the Grand-Commander Requesens, and the dukes of Sesa and Arcos, were carried into effect with promptness and energy. By the terms of the edict, the lands and houses of the exiles were to be forfeited to the crown. But their personal effects--their flocks, their herds, and their grain--would be taken, if they desired it, at a fixed valuation by the government. Every regard was to be paid to their personal conveniences and security; and it was forbidden, in the removal, to separate parents from children, husbands from wives; in short, to divide the members of a family from one another;--"an act of clemency," says a humane chronicler, "which they little deserved; but his majesty was willing in this to content them."[273]