The Oidor Don Felipe Fuertes Amar was remarkably timid, in fact he was a complete coward, and this weakness brought him to the gallows, during a commotion of the indians in 1810.
The Fiscal Don Tomas Arrechaga was a native of Oruro, said to be the offspring of a friar of San Juan de Dios and a mestisa of Oruro. The Count Ruis took him when a boy under his protection, educated him, and brought him to Quito to establish him in the profession of the law, which he had studied. Arrechaga was brutal in his looks, his manners, and his actions; he was possessed of all the subtle cruelty peculiar to the caste of chinos, which is a mixture of African and indian blood: his mother was of the latter race, and his father was not entirely exempt from the former. Arrechaga would have waded through the blood of his countrymen to secure promotion; and from the first discovery of the country this had been too often the means of obtaining it.
Don Manuel Arredonda was the son of the Viceroy of Buenos Ayres, and nephew to the Regent of the Royal Audience of Lima; he was in search of reputation, fame, and promotion—not in the cannon's mouth—no, for indeed he was the original fop described by Hotspur, he was effeminate, proud and cruel, the general qualifications of a coward soldier; an imperious tyrant when in prosperity, but the most abject of all wretches when in adversity.
The person chosen to convey to Santa Fé the whole of the proceso was Dr. San Miguel, a young advocate who had become the constant companion to Arrechaga. Not less than six reams of written paper formed the important charge, for the safety of which a piquet of horse was ordered to escort San Miguel as far as Pasto, lest some of the outlaws might surprize him on the road. The prisoners expected no favour at the hands of the Viceroy, because he was the uncle of the Oidor Fuertes who had tried them. It was natural to suppose that he would not extend his mercy against what he would consider the justice of the law as expounded by his nephew; for, although it may appear very strange in England, that the inclinations of persons in such elevated situations should be biassed by personal interest, this was too frequently the case in South America.
CHAPTER II.
Second Revolution at Quito....Massacre of the Prisoners....General Meeting held....Spanish Troops leave Quito....Revolution at Santa Fé....Arrival of Don Carlos Montufar at Quito....Arredonda invades Quito....Arrives at Huaranda....Flies from....Montufar marches towards Cuenca....Desists from attacking the City....Returns to Quito....My Appointment to Esmeraldas....Capture and Escape....General Montes enters Quito....Death of Montufar....Quito taken by General Sucre.
After the departure of San Miguel for Santa Fé many of the soldiers who had belonged to the insurgent army returned to the city, supposing that the prosecution had closed; but they were apprehended, and sent to the presidio. Several individuals also who came from different parts of the country were apprehended on suspicion, and, although they were liberated after examination, the alarm flew from one place to another, so that none would bring their produce to market, and a consequent dearth of provisions began to be experienced in the city. This, instead of producing conciliatory measures for procuring them, enraged the Spanish soldiers, who committed several depredations, and the injured individuals through fear abstained from complaining to the officers, or if they ventured to do it, they were insulted with the epithets of rebels, insurgents, and traitors. Thus the evil increased daily till the second of August, 1810, when some of the soldiers confined in the presidio surprized the guard, and depriving them of their arms, and putting on their uniforms, ran to the barracks at one o'clock in the afternoon; the disguise prevented all suspicion on their approach, and they succeeded in driving the sentry from his post at the door, and securing the officer of the guard: at this moment a bell was rung in the steeple of the cathedral, as an alarm: the officers who had just sat down to dinner in the palace rushed into the plasa mayor, and observing a considerable degree of commotion at the door of the barracks not fifty yards from that of the palace, the guard was ordered to fire on those at the barracks, which firing was returned by the opposite party. This lasted about ten minutes, when, all being silent, an officer ran to the barracks to inquire into the cause of the disturbance: on being informed of what had taken place, as well as that all was then safe, he returned with the report to his commandant, Arredonda. Another officer was immediately sent to inquire into the state of the prisoners, and he as briefly returned with the news, that they were all dead. Some had been shot during the uproar by the sentries placed over them, and many had been murdered by a zambo boy, one of the cooks to the soldiers, who had entered their cells, and despatched them with an axe. Terror and consternation for a moment were visible in the countenances of the president and officers, when, on a sudden, the Spanish soldiers rushed from the barracks into the streets, shouting revenge! revenge! our captain is murdered. Scarcely was the alarm given, when the infuriated soldiers abandoned their posts, and running up and down the streets, murdered every individual they met with, without distinction either of age or sex: the drums in different parts of the city beat an advance, and murder and pillage raged in this horrid manner till three o'clock, all the officers standing on the esplanade of the palace, without making any effort to check the massacre: at length, the soldiers having expended their stock of cartridges began to return to the barracks, some of them so laden with plunder, that they had left their arms they knew not where.
The number of prisoners confined in the cells, many of whom were secured with irons, and who fell a sacrifice to the insubordination of the soldiery, and the imbecility of the officers, was seventy-two; a clergyman of the name of Castelo, and an individual of the name of Romero, were the only prisoners that escaped, and they saved their lives by feigning to be dead. Morales, Quiroga, Riofrio, and Salinas perished; but to the memory of these, and their fellow sufferers, the government of Venezuela ordered a day of mourning to be kept annually; thus paying to them the greatest possible respect; they also afterwards determined to call them the martyrs of Quito. In the streets of Quito about three hundred individuals perished, including seven of the Spanish soldiers, who were killed by some indian butchers, whom they had repeatedly insulted. Such was the fury displayed by the pacifying troops, that a party of them having met a captain in his uniform, who belonged to the Guayaquil cavalry, a soldier seized the sword of his captain, and ran him through the body with it, laying him weltering in his gore not fifty yards from the door of the barracks.