On the night of the 9th of August, 1809, the chiefs of the movement, with the officers of the troops, met in the house of Dona Manuela Canizaries, the Madame Roland of Ecuador, and assigned to each the role which he was to play in the _coup d'etat_. The officers went to the barracks, led out the troops, and took possession of the government buildings in the name of the revolutionist committee. The president and those Spanish officials who proved recalcitrant were imprisoned, a governing junta of nine with Juan Montufar as chief was appointed, and an open cabildo summoned which confirmed these acts. The junta notified the viceroys of Bogota and Lima that it had assumed the government, and sent messengers to the provincial capitals demanding that they expel their Spanish authorities, adhere to the new order of things, and recognise the supremacy of the Quito junta. But the movement met with no favourable response from the rest of the presidency. The governors of Popayan, Cuenca, and Guayaquil immediately began to enlist troops to defend themselves against an attack from Quito. The junta prepared for war, but though plenty of ambitious young Creoles volunteered as officers there were not firearms enough to go around. At last an expedition set off to the north against Pasto and Popayan only to be easily defeated by the hasty levies the Spanish authorities had made among the sturdy Indians of those regions. Frightened by this defeat and their hopeless isolation, the junta resigned under promise of amnesty and in October Castilla returned to Quito and resumed the reins of government. But his position was insecure, and rumors of a fresh conspiracy soon drove him to repressive measures and the imprisonment of leading Creoles. The feeling grew bitter and in August, 1810, a desperate effort was made by the Creoles to get possession of the barracks. Its failure was followed by a frightful massacre in which many of the most popular men in the place were murdered.