Note 364 — SECTION VI: CHAPTER III

I find the story of Cuesta’s projected coup d’état (in Toreño, i. 267), which was supposed to rest on the authority of Castaños alone, completely corroborated in Sir Charles Vaughan’s private diary. On Sept. 15 Vaughan, while passing through Segovia, met Cuesta, who told him ‘that two measures were absolutely necessary: (1) the abolition of the provincial Juntas, and the restoration of the ancient authority of the Captains-General and Real Audiencia; (2) The exercise of military force over the Junta at Ocaña (i.e. the supreme ‘Central Junta’) sufficient to compel them to elect an executive council of three or five persons to be placed at the head of different departments, and to be responsible to the nation at large.’ This is precisely what Cuesta proposed to Castaños.