Not content with imprisoning those persons who might be termed the ringleaders, the soldiers were taken into custody, and placed in a separate prison, called the presidio. This alarmed the lower classes, who began to steal into the country, and seek in the mountains and woods an asylum against the systematic persecution that now pervaded the miserable hut of the labourer as well as the residence of his employer--the cabin of the indigent as well as the mansion of the wealthy. Provisions became daily more scarce in the city, the soldiery in the same ratio became more insolent, when, to crown the state of desperation among all classes of the inhabitants, except the natives of Spain who resided here, the examination of the prisoners was concluded, and the _vista fiscal_ was drawn up. This horrible production, worthy of its author, Arrechaga, divided the prisoners into three classes, but sentenced them all to death: their number was eighty-four, including the prisoners and the absent, who were outlawed; even the Bishop was not excluded, although, according to the laws of Spain, he could only be tried by the council of Castile. Distress, affliction, and grief now reigned triumphant: mothers, wives, and daughters filled the air with their cries for mercy on their sons, their husbands, and their brothers, who had been torn from them and immured in dungeons, where they were not allowed to visit them; and who lay under sentence of an ignominious death, no hopes being left, except that the president would not confirm the sentence, and in this hope they were not deceived. When the proceso was concluded, and required no more than the veto of the president, it was presented to him; but instead of concurring in the opinion of the fiscal, and giving way to the entreaties of Colonel Arredonda, he ordered the papers to remain in his cabinet. The agitation of the old count was now truly distressing, and he frequently said to me, that he would prefer signing his own death-warrant to the sacrificing of so many deluded victims, the greater part of whom had only committed an error of judgment, founded, perhaps, on a mistaken sense of loyalty; at last he determined to refer the case for revision to the Viceroy of Santa Fé, to the inconceivable chagrin of Fuertes, Arrechaga, and Arredonda, who all founded their hopes of preferment in Spain on the execution of the prisoners, who had been denominated traitors. The Count Ruis was at this time eighty-four years of age; he had resided in America upwards of forty; first in the capacity of Corregidor of Oruro, then of Governor Intendent of Huancavilica, afterwards as President of Cusco, and lastly of Quito. When at Huancavilica he commanded the troops, in 1780, against the unfortunate Tupac Umaru, who was taken prisoner, and quartered alive in the plasa mayor at Cusco, by being tied to four wild colts, which were driven to the four opposite angles of the square.