Welsh Journals

party had been appointed to bring a relay of horses and to change postilions as is the custom but I had no time for reflection as they were upon us in an instant. The Governor, on their leader advancing close to the coach, said 'Que es este comandante' in a tone of surprise. The other made no reply but first casting a glance at the postilion, he took a horse pistol from under his poncho and then eyeing cooly the Governor, he put it through the window of the coach, its muzzle within a few inches of my shoulder and discharged it at the Governor's head. He then took a second one with the same sang froid and was already lifting his hand for a second discharge when, perceiving the affair was becoming a serious one and fearful that perhaps I might share the same fate, I thought it was time to bestir myself and make some attempt at least to escape; the windows of the coach were open and the blinds drawn, so making a rapid bolt past the secretary and through the front window. I was on the ground in an instant. Numerous voices cried out 'Stop him! stop that man!' and I am told some of them pointed their pieces at me; this I did not see but an officer, one of those who had overtaken us, placed himself before me on horseback saying at the same time 'No tenga ciudado' and ordered the postilion to take care of me and from that moment I was a spectator of the tragedy. The Governor, apparently, was panic struck for he did not move or open his lips until the second pistol was fired at him. I then heard him cry out 'No me mate por Dios' and these words repeated until he expired were the only ones I heard him utter. After the leader of the armed party had discharged his pistols, one or two of his men came close to the coach and thrust their lances as far as I could judge through the Governor's heart and body several times. At their hands he received the finishing death stroke. He struggled hard lifting himself off his seat several times, his head striking against the roof of the coach; when he expired he fell with his neck against the window panels of the coach, maintaining his seat as though in a reclining posture. Although then dead to all appearances, one of the party cried out 'Give him another thrust lest the rascal be only feigning sleep'. A soldier, thereon, taking firm hold of his lance with both hands and resting on his saddle, dug it into his body twice or thrice with all his force but the Governor gave no symptom of life, the corpse merely rocking with the violence of the thrusts. At the very commencement of the scene, immediately on my jumping out of the coach, one of the party calling to the drivers said 'No hay cuidado muchachos, con vosotros no hay nada. This tyrant and scoundrel is the only one we have to do with'. This restored the spirits of all of us for the first idea that occurred to our minds, at least to mine, after the discharge of the first pistol was that the same sweeping and indiscriminate massacre that had been perpetrated on Quirago and all his attendants not three years before was now about to be repeated on us. I saw amongst them a person I knew; he at the same time recognised me and after assuring me of my personal safety, asked if I had anything in the coach and ordered the soldiers to deliver to me my portmanteau. They then took the two boys out of the coach and told us to go to the convent of Las Lules which was within half a mile of the spot where the murder was committed. The whole party, reinforced by the Governor's escort of 5 cuirassiers who joined them now, set off at full gallop for the city uttering cries of 'Viva la libertad, muerte al tirano'. Meanwhile Rosas was ruling Argentina with great harshness and equally great efficiency. An invasion of Buenos Aires by Argentine exiles, a conspiracy in the capital among Rosas' own supporters, a revolt among the gauchos in the south and the attempted defection of a number of the provinces were all ruthlessly suppressed. So Jones in 1842, still violently opposed to Rosas left Tucuman for La Paz in Bolivia from where he wrote home in March with a request for supplies to set him up in trade. La Paz 18 March 1842. The reason for my leaving Tucuman was the war which then raged in the Argentine Republic and which threatened that province. My apprehensions have but too fearfully been realised. Tucuman is almost literally a desert. The enemy has triumphed and scenes of horror and