Monteverde paid no attention whatever to the terms of the capitulation. The prisons were filled with citizens; Bolívar hid himself, but all except two of the other members of the secret tribunal were among the prisoners. Many died in the dungeons, and the Canarians had their revenge in the open plunder of all who had taken part against them.
Miranda was sent to Puerto Cabello and loaded with chains. From his dungeon he addressed a memorial to the Supreme Court, demanding, in the name of the new Spanish Constitution, the liberty of his comrades as guaranteed by the capitulation, but he asked nothing for himself. His protest was unheeded, and he, being sent to Spain, languished for three years in a dungeon at Cadiz, where he died miserably on the 14th July, 1816, and was buried in the mud banks, over which the waters of the Mediterranean ebb and flow, in front of that city.
Bolívar, after remaining for some days in hiding, was presented by a Spanish friend of his to Monteverde, who gave him a passport “in recompense for his service to the King in the imprisonment of Miranda.”
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE REVOLUTIONS IN NEW GRANADA AND QUITO.
1809—1813.
THE events in Spain in the year 1808 produced great excitement in New Granada, which was increased in the following year by receipt of advices of the revolution in Quito, mentioned in the last chapter. On the 9th September, 1809, Amar, the Viceroy, summoned an assembly of the Corporations and of leading citizens of the capital, and sought counsel from them. Men of American birth, who were members of this assembly, not only spoke in favour of the Junta of Quito, but asked for the establishment of a similar government at Santa Fé de Bogotá. Spaniards advised the immediate dissolution of the revolutionary government. Amar followed the counsel of the latter, and sent a column of 300 men to dissolve the Junta; at the same time the Viceroy of Peru sent 800 men on the same errand.
The Junta of Quito had already raised three battalions of infantry, and sent two companies with three guns against the detachment from New Granada, but these troops, while on the march, were completely routed by the inhabitants of the Province of Pasto on the 16th October. The revolutionists, dismayed at this disaster, on receiving promise of an amnesty, replaced Castillo, the late captain-general, in command.
When the two expeditions reached Quito the amnesty was set aside. The leaders of the revolution were arrested, some were sentenced to death, others to penal servitude. The indignant populace attacked and captured one of the barracks, but were promptly driven out again by the soldiery and dispersed. The soldiers then proceeded to the public gaol, where the prisoners were confined, and killed twenty-five of them; after which they spread about the streets, and killed eighty citizens, among the victims being three women and three children. The butchery was only stopped by the intercession of the Bishop.
Castillo, horrified at these excesses, hastily convened an assembly of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities and of leading citizens. With their concurrence he proclaimed a general pardon, and sent the Peruvian troops, who had taken the lead in the massacres, back to Lima.
Word of these atrocities reached New Granada at the same time that news arrived of the revolution in Venezuela, and produced an immediate effervescence throughout the country.
In New Granada, according to one of their own writers, “all the races of the world had come together to mingle their blood, their traditions, their strength, and their character, and united in the work of civilization.”