"You call yourselves politicians?"
Baltasar's voice cut through the chamber with controlled severity.
"You are nothing but caretakers of a house already on fire. You have allowed Carlos to treat this colony as his own backyard—his influence growing under the protection of the Crown itself. And now," he paused, letting the weight of his words settle, "now it has turned into open rebellion."
He looked from one face to another, measuring their silence.
"Tell me—do you still find this situation amusing? Does the Cincinnatus Mandate still sound like a harmless philosophical exercise… now that it stands with a bayonet at your throats?"
His fist came down sharply upon the map, striking the course of the Magdalena River.
"I have no interest in your excuses," he continued, his tone tightening. "Nor in your so-called 'local complexities.' I am interested in results. If you cannot govern your own cousins, your business partners, your neighbors—then you are of no use to the Crown."
