Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/118

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88
THE EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA.

mind, ordered the rest of the troops to march against the mutineers. The two forces met in the Plaza and opened fire on each other simultaneously, at close quarters. The affair soon ended in favour of the Patriots, young Manuel Dorrego, of Buenos Ayres, at that time a student of the University, particularly distinguishing himself in the fight.

Figueroa took refuge in a convent, where he was captured by Rozas at the head of a party of citizens, was tried that same night, sentenced to death "as a traitor to his country and the government," and was shot the next morning at four o'clock. The bodies of five of the mutineers who had been killed, were hung on a gallows in the Plaza on the afternoon of the 1st, and next day proclamation was made that all who conspired against the State would be similarly punished.

Immediately afterwards the Audiencia was dissolved, and with it disappeared the last semblance of monarchical authority in Chile.

Meantime the elections passed off quietly in the rest of the country. In the Centre the Creole oligarchy triumphed, the great proprietors being elected by their tenants without opposition; but in the South and in some of the northern districts, the Radicals were successful.

Following the example of Buenos Ayres, the Deputies were incorporated with the executive, in spite of the just protest of the Cabildo, which revenged itself by procuring the election of twelve deputies for the capital in place of the six it ought to have had according to the electoral census.

On the 6th May the interrupted election took place in Santiago. The candidates of Rozas being defeated from this day his power waned.

Congress met on the 4th July. Out of forty members Rozas could only count upon thirteen votes. On the same day the Junta resigned, and the "High Congress" assumed the executive power. Rozas in an eloquent