Page:A history of Chile.djvu/158

142 clergy and government officers, who desired that the juntas of Spain should be recognized as authority; the patriots formed the other party and advocated the formation of a junta nacional de gobierno, or national governing body, to take charge of the government during the captivity of the king. This latter party was supported by the cabildo of Santiago and the leading Chilean families. These were called rebels by the royalist party, and feeling became intense.

In the month of May, in the year 1810, party feeling ran so high that the captain-general, Carrasco, arrested several leading patriots. There were frequent gatherings of the principal Chileans of revolutionary sentiments at the house of Don José Antonio de Rojas, the old revolutionist. One night Carrasco sent an armed body of troops to the house and arrested Rojas, also Don Juan Antonio Ovalle, proctor of the cabildo, and Don Bernardo Vera Pintado, an eminent lawyer. (Vera became afterward "the poet of the revolution.") This violence precipitated the revolution. The people of Santiago requested the release of the patriots, but they had been sent to Valparaiso to be taken thence to Peru. The clamor was so great that Carrasco at last yielded and dispatched an order for the patriots to return to the capital. But two of them had already embarked. Vera had remained in Valparaiso on account of sickness.

The agitation increased; news came that the patriots of Buenos Ayres had formed a junta de gobierno and this made the patriots of Chile bolder and more persistent in their demands. On the 22nd of June, the captain-general convened the inhabitants of the capital in the palace square to announce to them the orders of Ferdinand and enjoin obedience to the French regency, when a tumult arose and public indignation was