Pablo Morillo finally captured Santafé on May 6, 1816. Like the other leaders of the Independence movement, Caldas escaped the city, originally with the goal of getting to Buenaventura to escape abroad. On the way, however, future viceroy Sámano is victorious over the republican troops in the Battle of la Cuchilla de El Tambo, and reconquers Popayán, and Caldas is forced to hide in the Paisbamba Farm in Sotará, where he is soon arrested by the Spanish royalists in 1816. He was then sent back to Santafé, and executed by a firing squad on October 29, 1816, in the San Francisco Plaza by orders of Morillo, Count of Cartagena. When Caldas was about to be executed and the people present at the place appealed for the life of the scientist, Morillo responded: "Spain does not need savants" (Spanish: "España no necesita sabios"). Before dying Caldas wrote on the wall a large Greek letter θ, which has been interpreted as exclaiming "Oh long and dark departure!" (Spanish: "¡Oh larga y negra partida!". In classical Athens, Theta was used as an abbreviation for the Greek θάνατος (thanatos, “death”).