"Why should we fear these English? Far distant from their own country, they can but obtain a temporary footing on our soil. Let these dogs of war, the paid agents of tyranny and misrule, rend each other in their struggle for a dominion which is not theirs. Let the Spaniards and the English fight out their quarrel by themselves, while we steadfastly prepare to assert against either or both our own dominion on our own soil, the inalienable right of all free-born men to make their own laws and govern themselves. I have spoken!"
As the speaker ceased he struck the table with his hand, and looked round him proudly, as though he would defy anyone to dissent from any word he had spoken, and a deep silence fell upon all.
To most there present these words and ideas were entirely new. They had listened in wonder, now they looked one at another in doubt and dismay; what had been said was nothing less than treason, and they knew not but that in listening, merely, they were themselves traitors.
But there were others there to whom these ideas were far from new, they were ideas which they themselves had cherished, but had hidden in their hearts, saying to themselves that the time had not yet come. Don Manuel Belgrano sat with his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands. Marcelino Ponce de Leon made strokes on the paper which lay before him with a pen which had no ink in it, ever and anon glancing up at the speaker, and as quickly again dropping his eyes to the paper, while his thoughts wandered to a time not long past when Don Carlos Evaña had told him how he had met in London an exile from Venezuela, who had spoken to him just such words as these.
And there was one there present upon whom these words had a different effect to what they had on any other. This was not the first time that Don Santiago Liniers had heard such words as these; they carried him back in memory into the far-off past, when he had learned to look upon men holding such opinions as impious in the sight of God, outcasts among men, and had hated them with a bitter hatred, envenomed since then by the losses he had suffered at their hands. In silence he listened, leaning upon the back of a chair; there was to him a fascination in the sound of that deep sonorous voice which spoke treason in accents of firm conviction. His heart sank within him, and as that voice ceased, a cold shiver, for which he could not account, ran through his frame. He looked up at the speaker, and met the glance of a pair of dark eyes fixed sternly upon him; again the cold shiver ran through him, he turned away his gaze and looked anxiously around him, eager to note the effect of these words on others.
Then rose Don Gregorio Lopez from his seat, and leaning with both hands upon the table before him, said in a low voice, and speaking with great deliberation:
"My friends, each man has a right to entertain such ideas as he please, but we are not met together this evening to discuss ideas. I am sorry to see that there is much division of opinion amongst us; it is thus impossible that we unite cordially together in any one plan of action. The object for which I invited you to meet me this evening has thus failed. For my part I say, 'Out with these English!' Those who think as I do will each act as he thinks best, in his own way, to bring about this result."
"Afuera Los Ingleses! Fueran!!" was the answer from all sides. After which the meeting resolved itself into groups, in which men talked eagerly together for some minutes, discussing together their several plans, and announcing their intentions. Then the door being thrown open they gradually dispersed to their several homes.
Don Carlos Evaña was one of the last to leave. As he shook hands with Don Gregorio, the latter said to him: