There is no doubt that Morelos had many of the great qualities for a successful leader of men. He was born in poverty, with no antecedents of greatness; untaught, even in the rudiments of learning, until he was thirty; up to that time patiently driving mules along the steep paths of his native state. Whoever has watched the slow, though sure, progress of these animals, and the enforced loitering in the pace of him who accompanies them, must be impressed with the idea that patience is a virtue likely to be developed in such training. Great ideas then pervaded society. It is probable that Morelos was more than dazzled by the brilliancy of Napoleon's career. Military success inflamed many hearts and turned many heads in those days. There was the making of a military commander in the stuff of which Morelos was compounded. With the opportunities of Napoleon for creating large armies, well equipped with all the appurtenances of warfare developed by the skill and science of the time, Morelos might have arrived at his object, the liberty of his country. There is no reason to suppose that a personal ambition animated him. He made himself general-in-chief of his army, but that was a necessary step for the furtherance of his designs. His fixed idea was that of an independent Mexico. So little was he tempted by the trials of prosperity, it is impossible to say whether success, the sparkling foam of flattery, would have turned his head, as they did so many others, in the supreme hours of attainment. As it was, he died the death of a hero, leaving behind him a reputation pure and unsullied by the taint of personal ambition. His career was in no sense a failure. The object of his sacrifice was achieved in effect; the independence of Mexico, although not within his own grasp, was sure. Another idea of great importance was impressed upon the Spanish in Mexico, the Spaniards in the mother country and the world looking on: that the blood of the native Mexican was capable of great deeds, that the descendants of the Aztecs were something better than _peones_, slaves without the name. The lower class of the population of Anahuac raised their heads and listened. Low murmurs, as of a distant ocean, told them that the tide of their destiny was turned, that the day was coming when it would break with force against the bulwarks built up against it. Morelos could die content. He had achieved for himself no proud seat on the throne of the Montezumas; he asked no such reward. He had forcibly impressed upon his country the ideas first given to him and them by the Curate Hidalgo. The impression was not washed out, but made fast by the blood he caused to be shed, and his own. If glory was his aim, that he has attained. The Mexicans adore Morelos. His native town is baptized anew with his name, and the state bears the name of Morelos, which contains Cuautla, the town he defended for sixty-two days with the patience of the muleteer and the obstinacy of his animals.