There was now no going back. The next step was to announce the fact of the revolution to the gunboats, in the harbour, which were still a doubtful factor. Two of them, the _Padilla_ and the _Chucuito_, remained silent; but the third, the _Bogota_, sent word that if the generals were not released by ten o'clock it would turn its guns on to the city. The generals were, of course, not released, so at ten o'clock the _Bogota_ launched three shells into the city. One of these killed an unfortunate and innocent Chinese coolie near the barracks, and that was the only casualty that occurred during the whole course of the great Panama revolution. Then the _Bogota_, that deed of slaughter accomplished, steamed out of the harbour. The next morning the gunboat _Padilla_, which had been considering the situation during the night, suddenly made up its mind, steamed in to a snug anchorage under the fortified sea-wall, and hoisted the flag of free and independent Panama. The _Padilla_ might have been called upon to make good its new allegiance, for a report was spread that the terrible _Bogota_ was returning to bombard, this time to good purpose. So a letter was drawn up by the consuls of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Ecuador, Guatemala, Salvador, Denmark, Belgium, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Honduras, and Peru, protesting against the bombardment of a defenceless city without due notice to the consular corps as contrary to the rights and practices of civilized nations. What answer the justly enraged commander of the _Bogota_ would have returned to this rather representative address cannot be known, for the _Bogota_, no doubt unnerved by the sensation of casting three live shells into a live town, never returned to witness the devastation it had wrought.