"There are men among you who have travelled in other lands as I have done, who have seen the great uprising of the people which now shakes the earth. Returning to their own land, they have sought to do something to enlighten the ignorance of their own countrymen, they have sought to raise them from the barbarism in which they live. How have their efforts prospered? They have been reviled as infidels, they have been stigmatised as rebels, and have been fortunate when they have escaped fines and imprisonment as dangerous to the State. Why then should we risk our lives for Spain? This land which our fathers conquered and we possess is our land, it is nothing but a worn-out tradition which holds us in bondage to Spain. Give ear to me, my countrymen, and know that this disaster which has fallen upon our city is no disaster, but is the first step towards our deliverance. There are many among you would think it sacrilege to stretch out your hand and tear down the flag under which you were born, under which you have lived, but if a foreigner tear it down for you and cast it forth from our country he in no wise injures you, he does but free us from a tyranny under which we have groaned for centuries. "We cannot look upon these English as friends, for they come to take our country into their possession, but neither need we fear them as enemies. They could not hold their own colonies in subjection when they rose against them, although half the colonists were their friends, as many of you to-day are the friends of Spain. How then shall they bring us into subjection among whom they have not one friend to aid them? This enterprise of these English is rash folly which will recoil upon their own heads, but they may do us good service in driving out from among us these Spanish rulers who have too long tyrannised over us. "Why should we fear these English? Far distant from their own country, they can but obtain a temporary footing on our soil. Let these dogs of war, the paid agents of tyranny and misrule, rend each other in their struggle for a dominion which is not theirs. Let the Spaniards and the English fight out their quarrel by themselves, while we steadfastly prepare to assert against either or both our own dominion on our own soil, the inalienable right of all free-born men to make their own laws and govern themselves. I have spoken!" As the speaker ceased he struck the table with his hand, and looked round him proudly, as though he would defy anyone to dissent from any word he had spoken, and a deep silence fell upon all. To most there present these words and ideas were entirely new. They had listened in wonder, now they looked one at another in doubt and dismay; what had been said was nothing less than treason, and they knew not but that in listening, merely, they were themselves traitors.