Chapter XXV: Epilogue: To Books I. and II

THE MONUMENTS AND THE REWARDS OF VICTORY

The Plaza Mayor, in which the fierce horsemen of Don Juan Martin Puyrredon trampled underfoot the choicest troops of General Beresford, bears to this day the name of the "Plaza Victoria," in commemoration of the victory of the 12th August, 1806.

Don Juan Martin led his horsemen to victory by the street now known as the "Calle Victoria," which is thus to this day a monument to the prowess of the wild horsemen of the Pampas.

The Calle Reconquista, the street by which General Liniers led his Spanish troops on that same 12th August, is to this day a monument of that feat of arms by which he himself gained the title of the "Reconquistador."

The Calle Defensa, in which stand the church of San Francisco, the church of Santo Domingo, and the Residencia, is by its name a monument to the heroic defence of their city by the militia and citizens of Buenos Aires on the 5th and 6th July, 1807.

The vacant space which early in this century lay in front of the house of Don Isidro Lorea is now a public Plaza, planted with trees, laid out with walks, one of the breathing-places of the great straggling city. It is known as the "Plaza Lorea," and is a monument to the heroic courage and untimely fate of Don Isidro Lorea and his wife Dalmacia.

Twenty cannon-shot imbedded in the brickwork of the eastern tower of the church of Santo Domingo tell to this day of the desperate lengths to which the citizens of Buenos Aires were ready to go rather than yield one foot of ground to a foreign invader. When the tower needs white-washing these cannon-shot are carefully painted black; they speak to all who look upon them of the days when as yet the Argentine Republic was a dream, when an infant people yet in tutelage dared to defy the power of a mighty nation.

Within the church of Santo Domingo, under the dome, hang six colours, the flags of English regiments which laid down their arms, defeated on the 12th August, 1806, and on the 5th July, 1807. One is the flag of the 71st Highlanders, seized by Don Juan Martin Puyrredon with his own hand.

Nearly 1000 armed slaves had taken part in the defence of the city on the 5th and 6th July. To some of them their own masters gave freedom as their reward. The Patricios raised a subscription amongst themselves, and purchased the freedom of seventy slaves, drawn by lot from all who had been under fire.

When the Mendicant Asylum was opened in the year 1860, the first admitted into the institution was a worn-out old man, who was son to the twice victorious General Liniers.

The native Argentines found their reward in the knowledge of their own strength, and in the organization of their militia, which they preserved after all danger from Great Britain had vanished, in spite of the opposition of their Spanish rulers. The regiments of the Patricios and the Arribeños were afterwards the nucleus upon which were formed those conquering armies which eventually annihilated the power of Spain in South America.