For the first time in its history the capital of Uruguay lay beneath the command of a Uruguayan. By one of the first acts of the new régime a national coat of arms was instituted, and a flaming proclamation promised nothing short of the millennium. All this would have been very well had it not been necessary for this new benignity to be put immediately to the test. It then became evident to the depressed Montevideans that with each change of rulers their load of evils had increased. With his talents essentially confined to the field of battle, there was probably no man in Uruguay who possessed less of the lamb in his disposition than Otorgues. The temperaments of his subordinates, reckless at the best of times, had been further excited by merciless warfare. Thus the inhabitants, at the mercy of the utterly licentious Gaucho soldiers, continued to groan for relief in vain. Artigas himself had not approached the city. From points of vantage along the great river system he had ceaselessly harassed the forces of the Junta, until Alvear, its director, goaded to exasperation, collected into an army every soldier that he could spare, and, determined to put all to the hazard, sent the imposing expedition against the Gaucho leader. The adventure involved complete disaster to the director. Ere it had passed the frontiers of Buenos Aires Province, the army, encouraged by Artigas, revolted, and its chief, Colonel Alvarez Thomas, returned to Buenos Aires to depose Alvear, with whose office he invested himself. The power of the famous Oriental chief had now reached its zenith. The new director, Alvarez Thomas, acutely conscious of the Protector's power, thought of nothing beyond conciliation. Among the measures employed was one that redounded very little to his credit. Not satisfied with the public burning of the various proclamations hostile to the _Caudillo_, he bethought himself of a stake that should win for ever the regard of Artigas. To this end he arrested the seven chief friends of Alvear, and sent them as a combined sacrifice and peace-offering to Artigas's encampment. As a specimen of grim and sycophantic courtesy the callousness of the offering of seven bodies can scarcely have been exceeded in the world's history. But Artigas, contrary to the Director's expectation, failed to make the intended use of the gifts. Indeed, he treated them with no little consideration, and sent them back whence they came, bidding them tell Thomas that the General Artigas was no executioner. The next move was of the legitimately political order. The voluntary acknowledgment of the independence of Uruguay was offered in exchange for the abandonment of the protectorate over the provinces of Entre Rios, Santa Fé, Córdoba, and Corrientes. This was also refused by Artigas, who maintained that the provinces of the River Plate should, though self-governing, be indissolubly linked.