The new Junta met the next day, the 26th May. Their first step was to appoint two secretaries—
Dr. Don Mariano Moreno
and " " Juan Josè Passo.
whom they incorporated into their body, thus raising the total number of the Junta to nine.
To this committee of nine men, Buenos Aires entrusted her destiny, the destiny of the Argentine people. They ruled Buenos Aires and directed her energies in the name of Ferdinand VII., King of Spain and the Indies. They styled themselves the Junta Gubernativa of the provinces of the Rio de la Plata; they yet acknowledged as their King a Spaniard of the House of Bourbon, who lay in a French prison; they yet considered their country as a part of the wide empire of Spain; but they looked upon the men of Buenos Aires as the people from whom they held their authority and to whom alone they were responsible; they were, although they knew it not, the founders and the first rulers of the Argentine Republic.
[CHAPTER VI]
LIONS IN THE PATH
On the 26th of May Don Gregorio Lopez gave a dinner-party to a number of his friends to celebrate the installation of the new Junta. Don Cornelio Saavedra was there as the principal guest, also Don Manuel Belgrano, and other members of the one time secret committee; of course Marcelino Ponce de Leon and Don Carlos Evaña were present, but the chair which had been placed for Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon was vacant.
At the bottom of the table sat Colonel Lopez, who had only that morning arrived in town from his estancia, and was now eager to learn all the particulars of the events of the memorable days just flown.