ness upon the President and upon General Urquiza the importance of saving the Republic from a day of mourning, by removing Virasoro, their recent gubernatorial appointee.
On the 16th of November, they published a joint letter, signed also by the Governor of Buenos Ayres, which at last gained what had been so anxiously solicited; but on the very day that President Durqué revoked the appointment, Virasoro fell in a frightful conflict with the rebellious people.
A commission was despatched to San Juan, for the purpose of pacifying the disturbance, but while on its way, the old hostility of faction poisoned the minds of its members, and under the influence of General Urquiza, then living apart on his own estates, who tampered with the forces that passed by his residence, it became the instrument of a bloody revenge. Among other victims, Dr. Aberastain, who had been made governor after the fall of Virasoro, was cruelly and uselessly sacrificed in a horrible massacre, among hundreds of other victims, by that very Saa, who within a year has again headed an insurrection in the western provinces.
Everything was again thrown into confusion, and on the receipt of the news, Colonel Sarmiento withdrew from the ministry, as his continuance in office would have misled the public as to the nature of the resolutions forced upon the government of Buenos Ayres, for circumstances made it seem the personal interest of the minister that this war should be made, while in fact the contest which he fain would have averted, had already become inevitable. At this time he also re-
