New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-07-31


of Betcler, on the high road between Tolosa
and Pampeluna. was returning on his sturdy
mountain pony, from q distant town, whittier
he had been to receive the price of some maize.
the produce of his little farm, when he was
assailed. robbed, and ferociously murdered by
party Of highwaymen. The chief of these was
noted evil-doer, known as the Chaplain, he
having been originally intended for the Church
bis dissolute courses having frustrated all
hopes Of his admission to holy orders, his pa
rents cast him off, and after being long known
as dioer and drunkard, he mounted, at the
beginning of the war, the Carlist cockade col
lected few scoundres around him, and. under
pretence of aiding the royal cause, filled the
surrounding country with the noise of his crimes
Ihemurder above related was aggravated by cir
cumstances Of peculiar cruelty. The Chaplain
had an old grudge against his victim, and, be-
fore dispatehing him, he put him to torture. A
peasant woman, at work in an adjacent field,
and who witnessed, concealed and trembling be-
hind hedge, the blows and mutilation endured
by the unhappy wretch, took the account of his
death. and the names of the perpetrators, to
his native village. The intelligence excited
general horror, for Elorrio was harmless and
popular man. Above all, it made terrible i'm
preston on one of his sons, then a bold, active
lad, of nineteen, who, on learning his fathers
fate, and witnessing his mothers passionate
grief, swore deep and deadly revenge Two
days afterwards he Joined, as newly formed,
but since celebrated, corps of Chapelgorris, or
Red Caps, then in progress of formation by GEN
eral Jauregui, better known as Ell Pastor, or
the Shepherd s. 5 zel ahl
The smart person and quick intelligence of the
young Elorrio procured him the notice of his
chiefs, and the lapse of q couple Of months made
him a sergeant in this irregular but most eff
cient regiment of Light infantry. He never lost
sight of his object in joining it no joy at pro-
motion, nor hopes of further advancement, could
drive from his memory his fathers cruel death,
and his own VOW of revenge. Fortune favored
his pious vindictiveness. He had been but a
very short time q sergeant, when one day,
while returning from Hermann to Tolosa, he
came up with a small detachment of Spanish
troops of the line, defending themselves, each
moment more feebly, against the Chaplain and
his band. The regulars were overmatched,
they had had hard struggle, but were about
to lay down their arms and resign the bales Of
military clothing they had been sent to escort.
Elorrio, who was at the head of dozen men,
instantly charged the Carlists so vigorously as
to turn the scale Of victory. Those who had 50
nearly been vietors began to retire, when
Elorrio singled out the leader of the band
called to him by name, loading him with oppro-
brious terms, and bidding him halt and defend
himself against single assailant The Chap
lain, not deficient in courage, and despising his
youthful antagonist, accepted the challenge
and murderous hand -to-hand conflict ensued
ending by Elorrio stabbing his enemy to the
heart with knife, when he had broken his
frelock and was grappled by his older and
more powerful opponent. The whole of the
banditti were exterminated. They were, almost
to a man, natives of Tolosa, a town noted for
its Carlist addictions, and to whose inhabitants
Eorrio resolved to play trick, singular for its
savage ingenuity. Collecting bullock carts in
the neighborhood of the sesse Of the brief but
bloody engagement, he loaded them with the
bodies of the Garlists, covering them with straw,
and placing on the top of each pile one Of the
slain Christinos. Then desiring his men to as
sumo as forlorn and lamentable countenances
as possible, and himself reclining on q car as if
severely hurt, he entered Tolosa. 1t was the
dusk of the evening, and the people of the town,
rejoiced at the sight of SO many vehicles filled
with dead and wounded, whom they supposed to
be all Chapelgorris, ran from house to house,
congratulating each other on the agreeable
event, and looked with complacency from their
windows at the funeral procession. Placing a
guard over the carts to prevent too close in
spection, Elorrio retired to his billet But in
the dead of the night he got up and removed
his own slain; then stripped the bodies Of the
Carlists and laid them out in the market place.
The head Of the Chaplain he sent to his widow,
who was resident in the town, in requittal of a
similar attention shown by the deceased to the
Sonora Elorrio, on the occasion of her husbands
death. At daylight he sent round crier tc
give notice that any person having relations
with the {Garlists might seek them among the
corpses in the Square, and give them Christian
| burial The inhabitants thronged to the place
and their feelings may be imagined when they
beheld their own friends in those dead, ovei
whose fall they had rejoiced. Besides this, by
| attending to the summons, they declared theii
political tendencies, and General Jauregui i'm
posed heavy fine on all who visited the bodies
basing the punishment upon the rather sweep