indeed should I be silent; how should I suffer the fire of patriotism to be extinguished, seeing the sacrifice of so many victims in our glorious cause; faithful wives murdered with their daughters, after the most foul and unutterable outrages; nuns driven from their cloisters, some wandering about, many more the prey of lustful impiety; ministers of the altar forced from the sanctuary; temples turned into stables and dens of uncleanness; towns reduced to servitude; opulence to squalid beggary; armies composed of the bravest spirits of the nation, which have disappeared in the hottest struggles of their native land, consumed by hunger, naked, and destitute; seeing, in fine, that such revenues and the liberal donations of Spain and America have not even supplied the first necessities of the soldier? How could I remain a tranquil spectator of such great and mournful objects, and not think them superior to the nearest personal interest, to our self-love, and to our very existence? As a Spaniard,” he concluded, “I am ready to suffer a thousand deaths in defence of our liberty; and in my rank I have rendered homage to the descendant of the Pelayos, the Jaymes, and the Garcias. As a general, I will join myself to the last soldier who shall have resolution to revenge his country in the last period of her independence; but as a representative of the nation, I must be excused from occupying that distinguished place, unless a legitimate government be immediately established, which foreign powers will not hesitate to acknowledge, which will represent our sovereign, and which will save a people who are resolved to die for their God, for their king, and for the happiness of their posterity.” ♦REPLY OF THE JUNTA.♦