Don Martin Alzaga was looked up to by every Spaniard as the champion of what all Spaniards thought their birthright, the right to rule after their own fashion and their own will all the colonies of Spain. Don Martin knew himself also that he was their champion and thought that he possessed every qualification necessary for a leader in such a cause. Tall, stern-featured, and spare of flesh, with a deep, harsh voice and an authoritative manner, his outward appearance gave the exact index to the man within. The events passing round him taught him nothing, the belief was innate in him that Napoleon was invincible, and that the Bourbons would never again rule in Spain. Acting upon these beliefs of his, he conceived the idea of erecting a new Spain in America, of which Buenos Aires should be the capital, and of which the government should be entirely in the hands of Spaniards, looking to Ferdinand VII. as their king, and acknowledging the authority of the Junta Central of Spain so long as any such Junta should exist.
Don Martin had devoted great attention after the defeat of Whitelock to enrolling and equipping an artillery corps composed entirely of Spaniards. With this new corps and the Spanish infantry regiments previously existing, he considered that he might safely set the Patricios at defiance. So long as Liniers remained Viceroy, native influence was paramount in the State, and nothing could be done towards recovering the ground already lost. He took counsel with such of the leading Spaniards as were in his confidence, among whom was Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon. Together they wrote to the Junta Central of Spain, then established at Seville, advising the recall of Marshal Liniers.
After the despatch of this letter, Don Roderigo counselled patience, stating that with the arrival of a new Viceroy would come a fair opportunity for the adoption of severe measures of repression. But patience was by no means any part of the character of Don Martin Alzaga, he chafed at the delay, and purposed within himself to take the supreme authority into his own hands, until such time as a new Viceroy should make his appearance, to whom he could surrender his power intact.
Colonel Don Francisco Elio, at that time Governor of Monte Video, was a man of the same stamp as Don Martin Alzaga. To him Don Martin imparted his plans. The first result of their understanding was that on the 24th September Colonel Elio, justifying his proceedings by the friendly reception given by the Viceroy to the envoy of Napoleon, which he stigmatised as treachery to Spain, arrested the unfortunate envoy, who was then in Monte Video, and openly rebelled against the authority of Marshal Liniers, whom he denounced as a traitor.
Marshal Liniers took no steps whatever to crush this rebellion; the Spaniards of Buenos Aires hailed the event with joy, as a presage of what they would presently do themselves, and native Argentines were filled with well-grounded alarm. Don Martin Alzaga exulted at the success of his first step, and steadily prepared to follow it up.
Yet among the Spaniards there was one who felt alarm at this first success. Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon saw that the deposition of the Viceroy would be a much more difficult matter to achieve in Buenos Aires than it had been in Monte Video, and that any false step would bring on a collision with the people in which not only the power of the Viceroy but Spanish rule altogether, might be overturned.
And among native Argentines there was one who for precisely the same reason heard of the event with exultation. Don Carlos Evaña hailed with joy any event which might bring his fellow-countrymen into open collision with their rulers.
October passed over and nothing was done, so also November. Towards the end of November, one warm afternoon on which the sun shone down upon the city from a sky of intense blue, uncheckered by one white cloud, when the white-washed houses cast a glare upon the streets such that it was a torment to walk abroad, when steady-going citizens were just rousing themselves from their siesta in the coolest recesses of their houses, one man braved both the sun and the glare, left his house and walked slowly along the deserted street till he reached the house of Don Fausto Velasquez. Entering by the open doorway, he crossed the first patio, passed through the zaguan into the second, and paused to clap his hands. A mulatta girl issued from one of the side rooms at his summons, smiled at him as she saw him, and came up to him saying:
"At your service, Don Carlos. What may be your pleasure?"
"The Señora Doña Josefina; will it be possible for me to speak with her?" replied Don Carlos Evaña, for he it was who had thus come to disturb the siesta of Doña Josefina.