18 INTRODUCTION. 



Figaroa took refuge in the convent of San Domingo, where he was 

 discovered the next day and brought out and shot in the placa. * 



Meantime the business of election proceeded, and in June the 

 congress met. Don Bernardo O'Higgins, who was afterwards to act 

 so conspicuous a part in the Revolution, being the deputy from 

 Chilian. The first act of the representative body was to depose the 

 junta, and constitute itself a legislative assembly, confiding the 

 executive power to the commission of three men, Rosas, the pre- 

 sident of the former junta, Don Martin de Incarada, and Don 



Mackenna. But Rosas was, at this time, absent at Conception, called 

 thither by a species of civil discord which had nearly ruined the 

 patriot cause. Conception having had some former claims to being 

 considered the capital of Chile, being in fact nearly in the centre of 

 its provinces, and situated on a harbour the most advantageous for 

 commerce, had also been the most forward in furthering the cause 

 of independence. Its inhabitants, therefore, insisted that the seat of 

 government should be there placed, and particularly that the con- 

 gress should sit there. The people of Santiago, however, who had 

 long enjoyed the advantages attendant on having the metropolis fixed 

 in their city, were not disposed to give them up. They pleaded also 

 the safety of their situation, equally removed from the Indians and 

 the sea ; whereas Conception, so near the Araucanian Indians, who 

 might easily be prevailed on to invade and waste their lands, (as 

 indeed they have done since,) was too much exposed to be proper for 

 the assembly of the legislative body. The prudence of Rosas for 

 the time quieted the clamour of the people of Conception ; and, as 

 he still remained among them, Don Juan Miguel Benevente was 

 appointed his proxy as one of the executive triumvirate. 



The first act of the legislative assembly was to abolish slavery. 

 All children of slaves were from that moment born free, and all 



* May 5th, 1810. The viceroy, Cisneros, unable to resist the public voice at Buenos 

 Ayres, had called together the first junta of government to resist the French claims on 

 that province, and to establish a provisional government. In 1811, Artigas began to dis- 

 tinguish himself; — there has been scarcely a three months' cessation of civil war in that 

 wide province since. 



