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THE MURDERER BARCENA
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struments, were sent out with a party to scour the country for the purpose of impressing as many men as they could find, but the inhabitants took care to escape, so that they were not very successful in their day's hunt, and returned with only eleven persons who were shot upon the spot. Don Inocencio Moral, an uncle of the governor, with his two sons, one only fourteen years of age, were among the victims of that day. There was also among them a Don Mariano Pasos, who had once before incurred the anger of Quiroga. When he was starting on one of his previous expeditions, this man, seeing the disorderly troops, had said to a fellow-merchant, "What men for fighting!" Quiroga hearing it, had the two criticizers brought before him; one was tied to a post and received two hundred lashes, while the other stood by awaiting his share. The latter, however, was spared when his turn came, and afterwards became the governor of Rioja and a great friend of Quiroga.

Meanwhile, Governor Moral, knowing what he might expect, fled from the province, but he was eventually caught, and received seven hundred lashes for his ingratitude, for it was he who had shared the eighteen thousand dollars extorted from Dorrego. That Barcena before mentioned was ordered to assassinate the commissioner of the English mining company; and I heard from himself the details of this atrocious murder, which he committed in his own house, desiring his wife and children to stand out of the way of the balls and sword-cuts.

Barcena accompanied Oribe in his expedition to Cordova; and during a ball given in honor of the triumph