"Again," replied Marcelino, "but for another cause; this is to celebrate another victory. Belgrano has forced the passage of the Parana, and the army of Velazco has fled before him. Everywhere the Junta is victorious."
So joyously and gloriously ended the year 1810, with the booming of cannon and the loud clangour of the bells. So, decking her brows right early with the laurel leaves of victory, there rose up in the New World a new nation. As a young man, glorying in his strength, rejoices in the difficulties and dangers which beset his path, so Buenos Aires, recking nothing of the toils and dangers she entailed upon herself, set her hand zealously to the task she had undertaken, scorning to count the cost of the great work she purposed to accomplish. Manumission from the thraldom of a tyrant is purchased by the lives of men, and Buenos Aires sent forth her best and her bravest to bear the standard of freedom in the fore-front of the battle. Over the whole continent of South America the sun of May rose resplendent, awakening enslaved peoples from the sloth in which they wallowed, calling upon them to claim their place among the nations.
"Then there will be no more fighting now," said Magdalen; "the authority of the Junta is established."
"That I cannot tell," said Marcelino; "but one truth I know, which you have taught me, that he who works out zealously the life-task which God gives him to do, need fear nothing that may befall him in the future—as his day is so will his strength be."
[GENERAL EPILOGUE]
[I. THE VICEROYALTY OF BUENOS AIRES]
The Spanish colonies of La Plata were, from the conquest up to the year 1776, annexed to the Viceroyalty of Peru, but in that year, the same in which the revolted colonies of Great Britain declared themselves an independent republic, King Charles III. of Spain created by royal edict the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires.