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"Thank God I am not a Spaniard."

"Marcelino! my son! what new heresy is this?"

"It is no new heresy at all, my mother; it is a fact. Thank God I am not a Spaniard. I am an American, and the day will come when we Americans will show the world that we are men and not slaves."

"Marcelino! Be comforted, my son; it is the fortune of war. You at any rate did your duty, and did not fly till you were left alone. I should have mourned for you if you had been killed. My heart would have been desolate, my son, if I had lost you; now I have you yet, and I am proud of you."

As the stately lady spoke thus, she laid her hands upon her son's shoulder, while he sat gloomily on a low chair; and bending over him, kissed him fondly on the cheek; then, still leaning on him, she raised one hand to his head, running her taper fingers through the tangled locks of curly black hair which covered it. As she thus caressed him, the look of sullen gloom gradually vanished from his face; he looked up at her with eyes the counterparts of her own in their lustrous blackness, but differing from hers as those of an eager, passionate man differ from those of a compassionate, tender-hearted woman.

"Mother," he said, raising his hand to his head, and taking her hand in his own, "sit down and let us talk, for I am going."

"Going! at such a time as this!" answered she, drawing a stool towards her, and seating herself on it beside him, still resting with one hand upon his shoulder, and leaning upon him.

"Yes, mother, going. There will be no more fighting here now, our citizens do not like that work, they told us so to-day pretty plainly when we tried to make them stop and meet the English in the suburbs."

"Going! but where will you go?"

"Anywhere where I can be of more use than here. I cannot stop to see the disgrace of my native city. To-morrow the English will march in in triumph, with their flags flaunting in the air, and their music playing before them. They will march through these streets of ours I tell you, mother; the English flag will fly from the flag-staff in the fort to-morrow, and Buenos Aires will be an English city. Our Buenos Aires, my mother, will be an English city, an English conquest."

"To what God sends there is nothing but resignation, Marcelino."

"God has nothing to do with it, mother; Spain has decreed that we are slaves and not men. Had we been men, do you think a handful of English could take a city like this?"

"They took us by surprise, when we were not ready for them. Wait till Sobremonte has time to collect troops, he will soon drive them back again to their ships."

"Sobremonte! If you had seen him at the fort to-day, mother, you would not have much hope from him. The most helpless old woman would have been as much use as he was to-day. The only man to whom we can look now is Liniers. Sobremonte and all the rest will give up their swords and swear fidelity to Great Britain to-morrow."

"So your father told me just now, Marcelino; he says it is the only thing they can do."

"He is a Spaniard, and thinks as a Spaniard; of course he must go with the rest. Thank God I am not a Spaniard."

"The Spaniards will soon drive the English out again. Huidobro will send troops from Monte Video, or they will send an army from Spain."

"And why should we look to Spain? Are there not plenty of us to drive away not one thousand but ten thousand English? But what has Spain ever done for us that we should fight her battles for her? We have no quarrel with these English; for my part I should like to be good friends with them; but give up my country to them, and let them rule over us—never!"

"No, we will never do that, Marcelino; but you spoke just now of Liniers. What can he do?"

"He is a brave man, and a soldier; with the few troops he had he beat off the English when they tried to land at Ensenada; so they came nearer, and landed at Quilmes, and our army fled from them like sheep. If Liniers will head us we will soon get enough paisanos together to drive these English into the sea."

"Sobremonte will not permit him to do anything of the kind. What can gauchos do with their lassoes and boleadores against troops?"

"Liniers is not a Spaniard, he is a Frenchman, and would care very little for Sobremonte if he had men behind him; and men he will have for the asking, that I can promise him."

"All that is nonsense, Marcelino; you must not go away, you must stop here with me, you will ruin yourself with these strange ideas. Do not leave me; promise me that you will not go away."

So talked a mother and a son together in the city of Buenos Aires on the evening of the 26th June 1806. An army of invaders had landed on the coast, and was now encamped close to the city; the soldiers of Spain had fled before them. On the morrow these invaders proposed to themselves to march into the city, and to take possession of it in the name of the King of Great Britain.

Marcelino Ponce de Leon was the eldest son of one of the Spanish grandees, who ruled over the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires; but his mother was a Creole, the daughter of a Creole, and Buenos Aires was his native city.

About the year 1780, Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon left Spain for Buenos Aires in the employ of the Spanish government. Don Roderigo was a scion of the noble house of Ponce de Leon, whose great ancestor, his namesake, the Marquis of Cadiz, is famed in song and story as the chief of those mighty warriors whose valour crushed for ever the power of the Moors in Spain. He it was who captured the fortress of Alhama, the first victory in that long series of victories which left Ferdinand and Isabella joint sovereigns of the whole of Spain. A victory chronicled in the Romance mui dolorosa del sitio y toma de Alhama, in which the distress and consternation of the Moors is vividly set forth:

"Por las calles y ventanas,

Mucho luto parecia,

Llora el Rey como fembra,

Que es mucho lo que perdia,

¡Ay de mi! ¡Alhama!"[1]

Don Roderigo was proud of his ancestry, but in the diplomatic service of Spain he had in his youth travelled in France and in England. He had mingled with the young nobles of the Court of Versailles, whose talk was of the rights of man, witting not that they themselves stood in the way of these rights, and would presently be overwhelmed in that mighty flood of revolution which reduced their theorising to practice; who talked of liberty as of a glorious dream, and later on stood aghast when their dream became a reality. In London he had met men of sterner mould, who could even smile at the defeat of the arms of their own country, and think it no misfortune, since this defeat had given birth to a new nation, whose constitution based itself upon the will of the people; to a nation of freemen, who made laws for themselves, who appointed themselves their rulers, and obeyed them willingly. As he walked in the streets of that great city, he found himself among a people who, in comparison with his own people, were free; among a people who thought for themselves, and who spoke their thoughts openly, none daring to stay their utterance. When he returned to Spain, he looked around him upon the stalwart men and graceful women, whose nationality was the same as his own, and he said within himself, Are not these equal to those others? cannot they think and act for themselves? Yet he saw that they were as children, following blindly the behests of such as had authority over them; then, in spite of the traditions of his class, his heart was sore within him at the degradation of his own country. Out of the fulness of his heart he spoke, and there were many who listened to him, till the great lords, the elders of his family, looking seriously into the matter, saw therein much danger to their own order, and finding that opposition but strengthened those pestilent errors which he had learned in his travels in other countries, they washed their hands of him by procuring him an honourable post in the colonies.

He came to Buenos Aires, and was received with the distinction his own talents and great connections warranted him to expect, but at first no important trust was given into his hands, and he soon felt that his mission to South America was nothing more than an honourable but indefinite exile.

Before he had been two years in Buenos Aires he married Doña Constancia Lopez y Viana, a daughter of Don Gregorio Lopez. This gentleman was a wealthy Creole who had immense estates in various parts of the province of Buenos Aires, where he reared vast herds of cattle, whose hides and tallow yielded him a very sufficient revenue. The manners and customs of the Argentines in those days were very simple, the harsh restrictions on commerce and on intercourse with the rest of the world preserved them from luxury. When living on one of his estancias Don Gregorio was little better housed and fed than his peons, but he ruled over them with an iron hand; short of life and death his power was absolute over most of them, for most of them were slaves. His residence in the city was a large rambling mansion, one storey high, with flat roofs and large patios. Here he spent most of his time, surrounded by a crowd of dependants of all ages and conditions; to all he dispensed with a lavish hand, exacting only in return implicit obedience.

Don Gregorio had been twice married, his first wife had left him one son who bore his own name; the children of his second wife had added their mother's surname to his, and were known as the Lopez y Viana family; among them Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon had found his wife Constancia. They had lived happily together up to the year 1806, in which this story opens, having three sons, Marcelino, Juan Carlos, and Evaristo, and one daughter, Dolores, who differed greatly in appearance from all the rest of the family, having grey eyes shaded with long dark lashes, and hair of a bright chestnut colour which flowed over her shoulders in broad curls almost to her waist, surrounding her if she stood in the sunshine with a halo of glistening gold. This peculiarity endeared her to her father, who saw reproduced in her the traditional features of the ancient house of Ponce, features which time and intermarriage had almost obliterated in their family.

Though Don Roderigo was an outcast from his own family, though new interests and new ties bound him to America, yet he remained at heart a Spaniard, he felt himself one of the dominant race, and could not look upon a native American as his equal. His haughty manners estranged him somewhat from his wife's family, but recommended him to the then Viceroy, who soon forgot the unfavourable report he had received of him, and advanced him from one post to another, till at the close of the last century many thought that the highest post open to any Spaniard in the colonies would at the next change be his.

About that time there arrived in Buenos Aires a naval officer, who had distinguished himself in the service of Spain, and sought promotion and further opportunity for distinguishing himself by service in her colonies. This man was not a Spaniard by birth. Don Santiago Liniers y Bremond was a Frenchman of noble origin, driven by the misfortunes of his country and his class into foreign service. Of an ardent and lively temperament, with distinguished manners, and a high reputation for military skill, he had the art of gaining popularity wherever he went, and soon became a great favourite with the warm-hearted Creoles of Buenos Aires, and not less so with their Spanish rulers, who entrusted him with some of the highest commands at their disposal.

Between Liniers (he dropped his second surname in America, and is known to history as General Liniers) and Don Roderigo an intimacy sprang up which quickly ripened into friendship. Long and earnest were the conversations they held together concerning the events then passing in Europe. As they talked together the warm aspirations of his youth came back to Don Roderigo, visions passed before his eyes of the glorious future that might yet await him, should Spain follow the example of the other peoples and rise and emancipate herself. That she might do so he believed possible, but he saw that it could only be possible after a fierce struggle, in which he could and would bear an honourable part.

Liniers listened willingly to the warm confidences of his friend, though he was far from feeling sympathy with his ideas, but Don Roderigo found others who did sympathise with him, more especially among the better educated of the Creoles. Before many years passed his opinions were known in Madrid, the favour which had been extended to him was withdrawn, and he found himself a marked man in the country which he had hoped before long to rule. His friend Liniers also fell into disfavour, and from being Commandant-General of the Navies of Spain in La Plata he was relegated to the command of a small garrison at Ensenada, which post he still held at the time of the invasion of the English under Beresford.

Marcelino, the eldest son of Don Roderigo, inherited from his mother much of her pliant Creole nature, and his amiable disposition rendered him a favourite with all those with whom he came in contact, but he had also inherited much of the courageous enterprising spirit of his father, and his character had been further modified by his friendship with a man some few years older than himself, who had been sent to Europe to complete his education and had returned early in the year 1805 deeply imbued with the revolutionary ideas then prevalent in France, where he had spent the greater part of his time during his absence from Buenos Aires.

This friend, Don Carlos Evaña by name, was the only son of a wealthy Creole, who, falling under the displeasure of the Spanish authorities, had died in a dungeon, leaving his then infant son to the guardianship of Don Gregorio Lopez.

Marcelino Ponce de Leon had received what was in those days considered a very superior education, had spent three years at the University of Cordova, was well read in the Latin classics, could speak French fluently, and had some knowledge of English. He had returned from Cordova without taking a degree, when his father had wished him to visit Europe, but Marcelino listened to the earnest entreaties of his mother and remained at home, safe, as she thought, from the contagion of those new ideas which she had been taught to look upon with dread.

Mother and son sat far into the night talking earnestly together, the mother daring not to leave him lest he should go she knew not whither, and finding her influence totally unavailing to turn him from what she considered his mad purpose. So they sat on a cold June night in an uncarpeted, fireless room, in which the darkness was made visible by the dull flame of a shaded lamp; so they sat, wrestling together for the mastery; love and tenderness on the one side, love and reverence on the other, equally fearful of giving pain, equally determined not to yield. As the clock in a distant chamber chimed the midnight hour, the husband and the father stood before them. A well-built man of medium stature, with dark-brown hair and eyes, and with a clear, almost ruddy complexion. His son, as he stood up on his entrance, seemed taller by the head, but was more slimly built.

"Marcelino is going," said Doña Constancia; "he will not submit to these English."

"He may stay and yet not submit," answered Don Roderigo. "Sobremonte has fled; they cannot occupy the whole city, and cannot know who are in it, save those who present themselves. I have orders to present myself and shall do so," he said somewhat bitterly, "but there is no reason why you should do so too, unless you wish it."

Marcelino Ponce de Leon remained that night in his father's house, and the next day he heard the sound of the English trumpets and drums from afar off, but he saw them not.

The next day, the 27th June 1806, 1500 British troops under the command of General Beresford marched into the city, a city of 70,000 inhabitants, with their drums beating and their colours flying, and took peaceable possession thereof; General Beresford establishing his headquarters at the fort and hoisting the English flag upon the flag-staff. Most of the local authorities hastened to give in their submission, and Buenos Aires became an English city.

[1]

"And from the windows, o'er the walls,

The sable web of mourning falls,

The King weeps as a woman o'er

His loss, for it is much and sore.

Woe is me! Alhama!"

Byron's translation—last verse.