The original rebellion was thus thrown from the hands of the creoles into those of the Indians. A war of _races_ was about to break out; and although there were not among the insurgents more than a thousand muskets, yet the mere numerical force of such an infuriate crowd, was sufficient to dismay the staunchest. The viceroy Venegas, and the church, therefore, speedily combined to hurl their weapons against the rebels. Whilst the former issued proclamations or decrees, and despatched troops under the command of Truxillo to check Hidalgo who was advancing on the capital, the latter declared all the rebels to be heretics, and excommunicated them in a body. Venegas ordered all the higher clergy "to represent from the pulpit, and circulate the idea privately, that the great object of the revolution was to destroy and subvert the holy Catholic religion, while he directed the subaltern ministers to sow discord in families by the confessional."[56] But the arms of the Spanish chiefs and the anathemas of the Roman church, were unequal to the task of resistance. Hidalgo was attacked by Truxillo at Las Cruces, about eight leagues from the capital, where the Indian army overwhelmed the Spanish general and drove him back to Mexico, with the loss of his artillery. In this action we find it difficult to apportion the ferocity, with justice, between the combatants, for Truxillo boasted in his despatch that he had defended the defile with the "obstinacy of Leonidas," and had even "fired upon the bearers of a flag of truce which Hidalgo sent him."[57] The insurgents followed up their success at Las Cruces by pursuing the foe until they arrived at the _hacienda_ of Quaximalpa, within fifteen miles of the city of Mexico. But here a fatal distrust of his powers seems first to have seized the warrior priest. Venegas, it is said, contrived to introduce secret emmissaries into his camp, who impressed Hidalgo and his officers with the belief that the capital was abundantly prepared for defence, and that an assault upon the disciplined troops of Spain, by a disordered multitude without fire arms, would only terminate in the rout and destruction of all his forces. In fact, he seems to have been panic stricken, and to have felt unable to control the revolutionary tempest he had raised. Accordingly, in an evil moment for his cause, he commenced a retreat, after having remained several days in sight of the beautiful city of Mexico, upon which he might easily have swept down from the mountain like an eagle to his prey.