During these atrocities the Junta seem to have been panic-stricken, making no effort to exert an authority which never was so much needed. The Canon was not satisfied with this timid and unwilling acquiescence; he wished to involve them in the responsibility for these wholesale murders, or to bring them into discredit and danger by making them act in opposition to the wishes of the multitude whom he guided. With these views he commanded five Frenchmen to be led to the door of the hall wherein they held their sittings, and sent in a messenger to ask in his name for a written order to put them to death. The intention was readily understood, but the moment was not yet come for acting decisively against this merciless demagogue, and the Conde de Cervellon replied, “You have killed many Frenchmen without an order, and none can be wanted now.” Mr. Tupper went out to the assassins, and addressed them on behalf of the prisoners; he was struck at with a knife by one who called him a Frenchman himself; the blow was parried, voices were heard crying that he was an Englishman, and one man declared he would put to death the first person who should offer violence to the English consul. But any interposition for the miserable French was in vain; they were knocked down and stabbed, and their bodies were left upon the steps of the hall. There were still several Frenchmen concealed in the city, who were in danger every moment of being discovered and massacred. Mr. Tupper, when he found that all appeals to the humanity of the mob were unavailing, had recourse to a different method, and proposed to an assembly of ruffians, armed with the knives which they had already used in murder, and were eager to use again in the same service, that the survivors should be given up to him, that he might send them prisoners to England, promising in exchange for them a supply of arms and ammunition from Gibraltar. By this means their lives were preserved. ♦PUNISHMENT OF THE ASSASSINS.♦