( 347 ) 



supplanted in their authority. Shortly afterwards, however, a great conspiracy 

 was disclosed, that threatened to destroy a proceeding which the agents of despo- 

 tism and corruption could not bring themselves to sanction. The passions of the 

 functionaries from the metropolis began to take effect ; these men could not easily 

 condescend to regard as free men, those who had heretofore been slaves. Monte 

 Video was the first town which refused to conform to the established alterations ; 

 and, notwithstanding that the first negociations which were opened for securing 

 the conformity of that people with the system of the capital, took effect for some 

 time, yet on the arrival of a post at a subsequent period, announcing the installa- 

 tion of a Council of Regency, was sufficient to induce them to condemn the pro- 

 ject, and even to insist that the restoration of the Viceroy was the only means of 

 avoiding a rupture. 



The Government of Buenos Ayres, who knew nothing of the Council of Re- 

 gency but by report, not having received official dispatches to accredit its exist- 

 ence, and to justify its assumption of the rights of sovereignty, refused to ac- 

 knowledge it under the pretext of these informalities j or, at least, deferred doing 

 so, until they could satisfactorily examine the title by which that Council had 

 placed itself at the head of the nation, after supplanting the Central Junta. And, 

 indeed, if we are to regard the matter with the circumspection it merits, this re- 

 serve on the part of the New Government cannot be blamed ; nor is it strange, 

 that, after having admitted two reigns in the course of two years, they should 

 rather hesitate at receiving a third, for otherwise there might have been danger, 

 that, after blindly submitting, first to one and then to another, they would be 

 driven at length to acknowledge the claims of Joseph Buonaparte. 



On the side of Peru, the innovators beheld no clearer a prospect; Li- 

 niers had headed the opposition which was to destroy their projects ; but of all 

 the forces that could be collected in the interior provinces, only two small armies 

 were formed, one under the command of that chief, and another in Potosi, under 

 the orders of Marshal Nieto. Both were completely beaten by a military force 

 v^fhich the Junta of Buenos Ayres dispatched against them, and the leaders in this 

 ■disgraceful contest forfeited their lives for their rash enterprize. Liniers, Concha, 

 Allende, Rodriguez, and Moreno, were executed in the vicinity of Cordova, pur- 

 suant to a formal sentence awarded against them as conspirators ; and Nieto, Sanz, 

 and Josef de Cordova, were put to death in the principal square of Potosi, with 

 the public solemnity usual in such cases. 



To the north, the province of Paraguay had adopted the example of Monte- 

 Video, and had also united with the opposition, through the advice of Velasco the 



Y Y 2 



