SUPREMACY OF THE JUNTA.

99

was issued that the members of the municipality and of other corporations, lay and ecclesiastic, as well as all the great functionaries of the state and general officers, should take the oath of allegiance to the quasi-regal power of the Junta, and this was administered in the following remarkable terms :—

"Do you swear before God, and on the Holy Evangelists, that you acknowledge the Provisional Junta of the Provinces of the River Plate, governing in the name of Don Fernando Septimo, and guarding his august rights; that you will obey the Junta's orders and decrees; and make no attempt, directly or indirectly, against its authority, but aid publicly and privately in maintaining its security and respect?"

This being assented to, the administrator of the oath added," If you shall so do, God be your stay, and if not, God and your country make you answerable."

On the 30th a solemn mass with Te Deum was celebrated, after which a levee was held, at which, among all the notables of the city, the Oidores and the ex-Viceroy Cisneros attended.

These proceedings were given to the public by means of one solitary little press which then alone

100

OIDORES, OR JUDGES.

existed, and which, oh mutability of human affairs! had belonged to the Jesuits!

Monte Video, under the strict and energetic rule of Elio, refused to concur in the acts of Buenos Ayres; and, so far from doing so, took up at once a hostile attitude. A weak act of the Junta, Mr. Moreno calls it deference, was to allow the greater part of the Spanish vessels-of-war stationed at Buenos Ayres to slip through their fingers, although they knew that in all probability they would soon return to make war on the young Fernando Septimo Republic.

The court of Oidores was, from the first day of the republican proceedings, inimical to them. They were staunch to the mother-country, and looked with wrath and disdain on the rebellious Junta.

Having received a loose copy, "without signature, without proof of its legitimacy, and without authority," of a proclamation of the installation of the new superior council of Regency, in Spain, the Oidores sent it to the Junta demanding the recognition of the legitimate Head of the Spanish nation. The Junta refused to do so, drily alleging in its "decision," that the rights of Don Fernando were superabundantly guaranteed by the oath of alle

OIDORES, OR JUDGES.

101

giance to the Junta, of which we have already given the wording.

There were no such proud, haughty, and overbearing functionaries of Spain, in all her vice-royalties, as the Oidores. They considered their persons as sacred, and long usage had accustomed them to look on their decisions and their proceedings as irrevocable law, and to enforce them accordingly.

The Oidores of Buenos Ayres were at no pains to hide their disgust with the proceedings of the Junta, and they took every opportunity of showing it. They did not dream of their being made to pay personally and individually for such proceedings. They rested on the inviolability of their character, and doubted not that their good cause would triumph in the end.

But the people watched the contest between these arrogant judges and the Junta with the utmost anger and impatience, to such a pitch, indeed, that one night the Fiscal del Crimen, or Attorney-general, was waylaid, and, in the language of the Junta, "received a formidable caning." They intrigued with Monte Video, and Cisneros coalesced with them. At length their increasing boldness roused

102

EXPULSION OF THE OIDORES.

the Junta to a sense of the immediate danger which threatened, and it was resolved to get rid both of Cisneros and the royal court of Audiencia.

Their expulsion was well managed. The ex-Viceroy and the five principal Oidores were invited to the government palace or fort, to a conference. They were so infatuated that they all went in state,Cisneros in full uniform, and the Oidores with their gold-headed canes, thinking they were about to be reinstated in all their honours, that the Junta were ready to call peccavi.

They were promptly undeceived. As soon as they were ushered into the saloon, Casteli, the most decided as well as the most talented man of the Junta, rose and said, "The Junta think it proper to send your excellency and your lordships before the majesty of the throne, there to answer for your conduct." Not a word more passed: the night was very dark, and, in profound silence, a detachment of troops, with lighted torches and lanterns, conducted the coaches of the bewildered Viceroy and Oidores to the Mole. An English vessel was in waiting to take them to the Canary Islands, dependencies of Spain; and before the public knew

EXPULSION OF THE OIDORES.

103

an iota of the matter, the next morning the expelled viceroy and judges were sixty miles from Buenos Ayres, with a fair wind, fast leaving the River Plate never more to return.

One Oidor, less culpable than his brethren and full of years, was left unmolested; and while all was changing around him, he continued to occupy the presidential chair of the supreme court of justice. The places of the expelled were supplied from among advocates, natives of the country.

The day after the expulsion, the Junta issued a long manifesto, containing a detail of the whole proceedings. Among many grave charges gravely urged was this very odd one,-that on the occasion of taking the oaths of allegiance the attorney-general went indolently up to the table, picking his teeth with a tooth-pick; and that subsequently, as if to add to the insult, the Oidor Reges approached to the same solemnity, not using even a tooth-pick but his nails, in cleaning his teeth. These were provoking little acts of contempt, no doubt; but one cannot help smiling to find them noted with gravity in a state paper addressed to the nation.

While the Junta, however, disposed of its domestic enemies, as we have related, it was pressed and