"It is too late, America must be for Americans alone."
Don Manuel Belgrano, revising the proofs of his Diario, heard these shouts, and turned over with his fingers the sheets of a series of fiery articles he had received some days before, saying to himself:
"I might almost venture them now; they do but say what men now shout aloud at the street corners."
Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon, in the quiet of his own study, heard these shouts and said nothing, for his heart was heavy with a foreboding care.
To the Viceroy, surrounded by his guards and sentries, came these shouts, and he shrugged his shoulders and thought nothing of them. To him they were but as the utterance of a fact, and conveyed no warning.
"Spain has fallen!" said old men, joining hands together, and reading each in the face of the other the realisation of a hope long deferred.
"Spain has fallen!" shouted men in the vigour of life, throwing back their heads proudly, and striding through the streets of their own city, treading the soil of their own country with a joyful sense of freedom.
"Spain has fallen!" shouted young men, as they saw the world opening up before them with prospects of which their fathers had known nothing, and who saw themselves the centre of proud hopes, as yet but dimly discerned through the mists of the unknown future.
"Spain has fallen!" So throughout the great, straggling city was heard the voice of the people, asking nothing, demanding nothing, proclaiming only a fact known to all.
Yet was this voice both a warning and a menace to those who sought to rule the people for their own ends. Buenos Aires had looked to Spain as to a mother, yet in this voice there was no pity. Buenos Aires still looked upon Spain as a tyrant, yet in this voice there was no fear.