Shortly after the arrival of his Excellency the Count Ruis de Castilla at Quito, the capital of his government, the collegians of San Fernando presented him with four theatrical representations, at which the whole of the nobility attended as spectators. The pieces chosen were Cato, Andromacha, Zoraida, and the Auraucana, the whole of them tending in their design and argument to inculcate a spirit of freedom, a love of liberty, and principles of republicanism. However, as is often the case with people who visit public exhibitions with a predetermination to be pleased, this tendency passed unobserved by the president and the other members of the government. Inattentive to what the state of affairs in the mother country might produce in the colonies, the American rulers judged that they themselves were surrounded by the same obedient vassals whom their predecessors had governed, without ever dreaming that the people were awake to what was actually passing in the parent state; for, although the opportunity of deriving information from the press was prevented by the government, yet the Americans who resided in Spain at this period were very actively employed in communicating to their friends in America the true state of affairs, and the natives were generally better informed of what passed in the mother country, than the Spaniards resident in America or even the government itself; because Spanish correspondents being loath to place their property in America in jeopardy, or judging that the colonists had only to obey whatever orders they might receive, either gave indistinct or favourably exaggerated accounts; or else treated the Americans with that contempt which as their superiors they fancied they had a right to exercise. After the performance of the pieces, I became gradually acquainted with the individuals who had selected them--Dr. Quiroga and Don Manuel Morales; the former an advocate of some respectability, a native of Arequipa in Peru, married in Quito; the latter, a native of the city of Mariquita in the Viceroyalty of Santa Fé de Bogotá, had been secretary to the government when the Baron de Carondelet was President; but having offended him, Morales was discarded from his situation by the orders of the Baron. He hoped to have been restored on the arrival of the Count Ruis; but this chief having in his suite a young advocate of the name of Don Tomas Arrechaga, whom he had educated, and for whom he wished to provide, the claims of Morales were disregarded, and Arrechaga was nominated secretary to the government.