sentences:  Afro-Argentines believed that the British expedition came mainly to give them their independence, but the British general, William Carr Beresford, had no sympathy with this movement.The spokesman for the Creoles in Buenos Aires, Juan Martín de Pueyrredón argued that the region's economic base would be ruined if slavery were immediately abolished.He demanded action on behalf of their estates; General Beresford announced that slaves would not be freed, and Pueyrredón said "they were stopped in time" ("se los atajó a tiempo") in July 1806, in a letter to his father-in-law in Cádiz.