The Junta, on learning this unlooked-for result of a campaign from which so much was expected, resolved to strike a decisive blow, in order to intimidate the partisans of the royal cause.
General Liniers was much loved by the people, for he had rendered them many great services. They could have been saved and freed by him. It was necessary to avoid this misfortune.
Don Juan José Castelli consequently received the orders to go in advance of the captives; he obeyed, and they met in the neighbourhood of Mont Pappagallo.
Then there transpired a horrible scene, that history has justly branded with disgrace. Without form of trial, in cold blood, all the prisoners' throats were cut; the bishop of Córdoba alone was spared—not out of respect for his sacred office, but merely to flatter the popular prejudices.
Thus died, cowardly assassinated, General Liniers, a man to whom France justly boasts of having given birth, who rendered such great services to his adopted country, and whose name will everlastingly live on American shores, by reason of his noble and splendid qualities.
A new storm burst over the independent party.
The viceroy of Peru sent, under the command of Colonel Córdoba, a corps d'armée against the Buenos Aireans.
On the 7th November, the two parties met at Hupacha. After a sanguinary fight, the royalists were conquered, and the greater part made prisoners.
Castelli, who, we have seen, massacred Liniers and his companions, had followed the royalist troops in their march. He did not wish to leave his work incomplete: the prisoners were all shot on the field of battle.
The viceroy of Peru, dismayed by this disaster, asked a truce, which the Junta consented to accord to him.