To Xatruch, a Legitimist refugee, he had written, nine days after the signing of the treaty, begging him to foment hostility against the new administration. In a similar strain he wrote to Guardiola, the Honduran Servile leader, conjuring him to arouse the Legitimist element everywhere against the American intruders: "Nicaragua is lost, lost are Honduras, San Salvador, and Guatemala if they let this thing prevail. Let them come quickly, if they would meet auxiliaries." General Martinez, commanding at Managua, was also implicated in the treason, but received warning in time to fly the country. Walker at once requested the President and Cabinet to meet him, and laid before them the evidence of Corral's guilt. A court-martial was convened, the members of which were all Americans, such, it is said, being the wish of the accused, who knew that he could expect no mercy from his countrymen. From the same motive, he did not deny his guilt, but threw himself on the mercy of his judges, relying, as it proved, over-much on the magnanimity which the Americans had heretofore displayed. He was sentenced to die by the fusillade at noon of the next day, November the 7th. The time of execution was subsequently postponed two hours. The friends of the condemned made earnest appeals for mercy in his behalf, being seconded by the leading public citizens, and particularly by Padre Vijil, the gentle apostle of peace; but Walker, though much moved and fully aware of the odious construction which his enemies would put upon the act, firmly refused the petition. The treason was too flagrant, the example unfortunately too necessary, and mercy to such a traitor would have been injustice to every loyal man in the state. Corral died at the appointed hour, and the lesson was not wholly lost upon his accomplices. Walker has been bitterly censured for this piece of stern justice, especially at home in the United States, where the act was misrepresented as that of a suspicious tyrant who thus rid himself of a dangerous rival. But there is not the slightest reason for regarding Corral's death as aught but the well-merited punishment of an utterly unscrupulous villain. His whole conduct in connection with the late war was consistent with his last and fatal treachery. Even the morality of Nicaragua, loose as it was in matters of public faith, while lamenting the fate of Handsome Ponciano, confessed that he was well-named "Corral," the beautiful but deadly serpent of the country.