General Concha and the others denied the authority of the court, and demanded to be sent for trial to Buenos Aires.
When the prisoners had been removed, many of the officers who had served under Liniers, and were anxious to save him, demurred to the sentence of death, but the influence of Dr Castelli, seconded by Don Carlos Evaña, overcame all opposition. It was determined that the five prisoners should be shot on the following day, and buried with military honours, in consideration of the past services of Marshal Liniers.
The prisoners being recalled, the sentence of the court was read out to them by Dr Castelli. General Concha and the three others protested against the sentence as unjustifiable, but Marshal Liniers had given up all hope of life when he surrendered his sword.
"What would you from the agents of a revolutionary Junta?" said he to his fellow-prisoners; then turning to the court, he added:
"To one only of you have I a word to say—to you, Don Carlos Evaña. My fate I have brought upon myself, by listening to the words of those who induced me to spare you, when I had you in my power. I have long known you as a dangerous conspirator. I have known you as one of those reckless men, who care nothing what evils they bring upon a people in the prosecution of their own extravagant ideas. But beware! this people whom you have led to rebellion against their legitimate rulers, will learn quickly the lesson you would teach them. As ruthlessly as they now cast aside that authority and allegiance which has for centuries watched over them, so will they trample underfoot any such ephemeral government as you may attempt to set up. The people know no gratitude for past services, and the day will come when they will turn upon you and destroy you, in payment for the lessons you have taught them.
"Beware, Don Carlos Evaña! Here in America you have raised up the fiend of revolution. You, and those who work with you, take to yourselves pride, in that you have liberated a great people from the power of a crushing despotism. You have done no such thing. You have but raised up among them an evil spirit whom your puny efforts will be powerless to curb. This people, this Argentine people, will themselves destroy the work which you labour to accomplish. You are to-day the murderer of five innocent men, condemned to death for no crime but because they stand in the way of your own insensate ambition."
Here Marshal Liniers was interrupted by Dr Castelli, who commanded the officer of the guard to remove the prisoners.
"I pray you, Señor Presidente, to let him speak," said Don Carlos Evaña. "We, conscious of the rectitude of our own hearts, may well suffer our motives to be impugned; it is but another sacrifice we make upon the altar of our country."
"You are to-day my judges, to-morrow you will be my executioners," continued Marshal Liniers, looking haughtily round him, heedless of the interruption; "but I tell you that the day is not far distant, when the Argentine people shall themselves call you to account for the blood so unjustly shed, and shall deliver you over to be torn in pieces by the evil spirit you yourselves have raised—a spirit which will soon deluge in blood those same streets of Buenos Aires in which I have twice led you to victory—you who are to-day my murderers."