EXECUTION OF THE GUILTY PARTIES. 167

bitants do illuminate their houses to night and to morrow night, taking care to set up a greater number of lights than usual, between sunset and break of day.

(Signed) "FELICIANO ANTONIO CHICLANA.

"MANUEL DE SARRATEA.

66 JUAN JOSÉ PASSO."

Of the men concerned in this insurrection, twelve were shot, and afterwards gibbeted; while a greater number were sentenced to various periods of banishment. Then came the Government's address to the troops in pretty much their usual style; and in a few days more, all was tranquillity and order.

Your's, &c.

THE AUTHORS.

LETTER XXXIV.

THE AUTHORS to GENERAL MILLER.

Intrigues of the Brazilian Court-Elio, nominal Viceroy-The Aspirations of Artigas-His Success-The Skirmish at Yapeyù— Ascuenaga-Don Pio Tristan-General San Martin and Carlos de Alvear-The General Assembly-The Contribution-Political Arrangement-Mrs. Clarke-Mission to North America-Elio and the Portuguese-General Belgrano-The Action between Tristan and Belgrano-Alzaga's Conspiracy and Execution.

London, 1842.

THE part taken by the court of Brazil on the outbreak at Buenos Ayres against the Spanish authorities, and during the vacillating state of affairs which followed, was tortuous and suspicious in the extreme. Sometimes their emissaries went to Buenos Ayres, trying to arrange for the succession of Doña Carlota,-sometimes to Monte Video, offering to uphold Elio and the Cortes. Sometimes they acted as if they would make the Banda Oriental their own; and committed, as they gradually encroached upon that territory, many acts of depredation,—some of open hostility.

THE ASPIRATIONS OF ARTIGAS.

169

Elio was at length able to induce them to take a decided part with him, as the legitimate viceroy of the River Plate; and when pressed by the besieging army from Buenos Ayres, he called the Portuguese troops into the fortress, where they constituted his chief force. Meantime no one viewed with such a keen and watchful eye as Artigas the wily operarations of the auxiliaries; and though he made himself a party to the treaty for raising the siege of Monte Video, he never lent himself cordially to that measure. His jealousy of General Rondeau, the commander of the Buenos Ayres army, and of the influence exercised by it over the affairs of the Banda Oriental, was but poorly masked by his reluctant semblance of cordiality. His hatred of the Portuguese was irreconcileable; and his ambition to be himself sole arbiter of the affairs of his own native soil gradually became his ruling passion, constantly chafed into action by the real or fancied grievances which he considered were inflicted upon himself.

Under the allegations, therefore, whether founded in truth, or frivolous and vexatious, that the Portuguese, instead of withdrawing to their own territory, were protracting their return, and committing

VOL. II.

I

170

THE SUCCESS OF ARTIGAS.

outrages on the inhabitants of Gualiguay, Arroyo de la China, and Belen; he attacked and routed them at the latter place; sent bitter complaints to Buenos Ayres; and peremptorily demanded reinforcements to enable him to drive the enemy back to their own frontiers.

He next invited Don Elias Galvan, governor of Corrientes, to co-operate with him on the Uruguay; the Portuguese were worsted in several rencontres; they complained to the governor of Monte Video; and, as usual on such occasions, violent and recriminatory letters passed between all the parties to the treaty, each accusing the other of having openly or secretly, scandalously or treacherously, broken it; so that though the compact was to be firm, binding, permanent, observed with the most scrupulous fidelity, and regarded with the most sacred inviolability, yet not four months had elapsed since its ratification (21st October, 1811) by Elio, when his successor, Vigodet, the Junta, General Sousa, and Artigas, were at variance as to its meaning, and each at daggers drawn, defending his own interpretation of it. The treaty, in short, was given to the winds. Preparations for active hostilities were recommenced on both sides; the troops of

Buenos Ayres recrossed the Uruguay, and were incorporated with those of Artigas; and this Chief marching to Yapeyú, on the 13th of April, there defeated about nine hundred of the Portuguese.

Ascuenaga, in January of this year, was appointed governor-intendant of Buenos Ayres, in order to relieve the executive from its self-imposed burthen of details.

News were received about this time, published in the "Morning Chronicle" of the 11th September, 1811, that Great Britain had offered her mediation, and Spain accepted it, for the pacification of the Spanish colonies. The British government had already appointed Captain Cockburn, R. N., to proceed to South America on this affair; but as the “indispensable basis" of the friendly interference was, that the colonies should acknowledge the Cortes, and send representatives to this body; the mediation, instead of being effective, was met by a bitter tirade on the part of the Junta against the English Government, for its unacceptable and inadmissable interference in a matter so delicate upon such odious conditions.

Notwithstanding this, the Junta, now for the first