Letters on South America; comprising travels on the banks of the Paranà and Rio de la Plata. By J. P. and W. P. Robertson

Front matter

VOLUME I. COMPRISING TRAVELS ON THE BANKS OF THE PARANA AND RIO DE LA PLATA. EV J. P. and W. P. ROBERTSON, AUTHORS OF "LETTERS ON PARAGUAV," AND •■FRANCIA'S REIGN." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1 843. LONDON : Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamjjird-Street. DEDICATION lc_> GEORGE FREDERICK DICKSON, Esq., CONSUL GENERAL FOR THE UNITED PROVINCES OF THE RIVER PLATE. Dear Sir, In dedicating, by your permission, the fol lowing sheets to you, we have undeniably good reasons for so doing. You are so thoroughly conversant with the events which they detail, as to offer, by the mere connexion of your name with them, a sort of guarantee for their authenticity and truth. You are, and have so long been, our personal friend, as to make it particularly gratifying to us to offer you such a testimony of our respect for your character, and acknowledgment of your kindness, especially as developed by your intercourse with ourselves.

Finally, holding, as you do, a high public station VI dedication. in the service of the country which we have en deavoured to describe, we have thus the means of bearing at once testimony to your fitness for the honourable appointment of Consul-General of a foreign power, and to the impartiality, assiduity. and politeness with which you have exercised it. Nothing could be either more enviable nor ho nourable to your character than the fact that, after residing so long among the South Americans as a merchant of the strictest integrity, you should have been intrusted, when you left them, with the highest appointment, in a mercantile point of view, which they could have delegated to any one of their own most favoured citizens. These are facts which we shall not attempt to weaken by the introduction of the garbage of praise.

Kappy the man who covets it not, but still happier he who requires it not. We are, dear Sir, Your faithful and obedient servants, The Authors. London, January 2, 1843. TO GENERAL WILLIAM MILLER, FIELD MARSHAL OF PERU, &C..&C. Dear Miller. By the permission which you have given us to address to you the following letters, you have conferred upon us the singular favour of showing that we are the friends of a well-known and gallant soldier, — ofa great and good man. No doubt your name will travel down to pos terity, not in the frail records of our fleeting me moirs, but on the page of history, when, with graver pen, she shall pourtray the revolution of a world. That revolution had its origin in the ploughshares being driven in by men like yourself, merely to open the soil for the reception of the germ of in dependence which is destined to bud and blossom, letter to general miller.

Preface

. After having written " Finis" in our third volume, and glanced over the remarks contained in " Letter First, Introductory," we find we have very little to say in the way of preface. It is not without hesitation that we put forward our new volumes on a subject not generally con sidered by our bibliopolists of the capital as at tractive — that of South America: but then we have to plead, that what we have already given has not been unacceptable to the public ; and some kind friends, moreover, having persuaded us that we may reckon on a favourable hearing for what we have yet to say touching the infant republics of the New World, we have ventured^ to publish another series of Letters on South America. X

PREFACE.

. We have embodied in these epistles a rapid poli tical review of the River Plate provinces ; but we must guard our readers against the supposition that we class our sketch as one rising into history. It has no pretence to rank in that higher walk of literature. We shall be content if future and more able historians than ourselves can find, in our review, some impartial data and some useful hints, on which to found more ample annals of one of the leading republics in the immense territory which once con stituted the Transatlantic colonies of Spain. In drawing up this historical sketch we have been assisted and encouraged by our old friend his Excellency Don Manuel Moreno, Minister at our Court for the United Provinces of the River Plate; and we take this opportunity of making him our grateful acknowledgments for the service he has rendered us. As in the case of our Letters on Paraguay, too, we have been essentially indebted in the present series to Sir Woodbine Parish for the free access

PREFACE.

. XI we have enjoyed to his valuable collection of works, state papers, MSS., and other documents con nected with the history of the River Plate republic. Our readers will discover some errata scattered through the three volumes; but we have not thought them of sufficient importance to constitute a formal list. London, January 2, 1843. .31 59 CONTENTS ap THE FIRST VOLUME.

Letter I. The Authors To Their Readers

Page Introductory ........ I

Letter III

J. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. Landing at Corrientes — Its Traffic — Misery — Artigas's Tactics — Personal insecurity — A New Acquaintance — Don Pedro Campbell and his Page — An Irish Gaucho — A Harangue — The Gaucho and the Governor — Campbell's History — Reflections ......

Letter IV

W. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. The Piragua — Sailing into the confluence of tlie Rivers Paraguay and Parana — Arrival at Corrientes, aud a meeting there — Origin of the name of Corrientes — An attack by Artiguefios gallantly repulsed by an Englishman

Letter V

W. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. Corrientes Hucksters — And a harangue about them — South American Hospitality — A Corrientes Levee

Letter VI

J. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. More of the Irish Gaucho, Don Pedro Campbell — His proposals and enterprising character — His squire, Don Edwardo — Tbe two are dispatched to re-organize the " Camp," or Country — Prospect of their Success .... CONTENTS. f_9 95 157

Letter VII. The Authors To General Miller

Origin of Corrientes, and of its Inhabitants — Their high pretensions to descent from the best Spanish Nobility — Reflections — Passion Week — Penitentes — Dona Florinda, the Corrientes Maniac ....... 68

Letter VIII

J. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER, Dona Florinda's person, character, and habits — The cause and result of her aberrations — Her exulting account of the Penitentes, contrasted with that of Don Ysidoro — The real state of the Case ....... 84

Letter IX

J. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. The population of Corrientes — Classes of Inhabitants — Productions — The learned Prior and Dinners in the Refectory — Don Ysidoro Martinez y Cires — Don Agustin Saenz and his Polacca — Smuggling — The way of endowing Brides

Letter X

J. F. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. Fresh Trip to Buenos Ayres — Don Pancho Calafate, alias the Zapo — His Habits and Manner of Life — A Contrast to the Zapo — George Washington Tuckerman, Esq. — Female Quacks — More of Mr. Tuckerman — The passage with him in the Skiff — He is in love — Family Secrets — A Hurricane on the Parana — Arrival at Buenos Ayres . . .111

Letter XI

W. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. The port of Goya — Don Pedro Quesney — Artiguefio Freebooters — More of Don Pedro ..... 140

Letter XII

W. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. Departure from Corrientes for Goya — Road to Goya — Don Ponciano Delgado, the Indian Schoolmaster — First interview with Don Pedro Quesney — His Hospitality — Goya Society ........ CONTENTS. XV pa| 187 190 227

Letter XIII

W. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. Mode of doing Business in Corrientes — Habilitaciones, or Credits — Don Pedro Campbell among the Estancieros, or Country Gentlemen — Among tbe Gauchos in the Camp — Mercantile Revolution — Don Pedro Marote* — Corrientes Caravans . . . . . . . .174

Letter XIV

W. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. More of the South American Caravan — It sets out — Crossing a River — The Encampment — The Repo9e .

Letter XV

J. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. Journey from Buenos Ayres to Goya with George Washington Tuckerman and Philip Parkin, Esquires

Letter XVI

W. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. Commencement of active Operations — Mosquito Sport and Slaughter — Don Pedro Quesney once more on the Boards — An Arrival at Goya — The Supper — A Scene of some Excitement — The Alarm — Don Felipe Parkin — A Disturbance — The Alarm unriddled and accounted for — G. W. Tuckerman's courage fails him .... 205

Letter XVII

J. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER" Journey trom Goya to Corrientes — Description of a Post-House — and ofa Night Scene there — The Guitarrero — The Bedroom — The Expulsion — The Yankee and John Bull — Preparations for a winding up .....

Letter XXII

W. P. R. TO GENERAL MILLER. The Family of Mr. Postlethwaite — Their arrival at Goya — The Beauty of the new Comers — Don Pedro's Extacy — George Washington Tuckerman, Esq., acts the Physician — His Apostrophe — The Love Affair — Don Jorge pines — He is in Extacy — Weeps — And seeks for the " Dorado"'

Letter XXIII

J. P. R. TO GENERAL MIDLER. Don Agustin Saenz, Captain of the Polacca — His Dainties — An Arrival — The Family of the Postlefhwaites— Change in Domestic Habits — Don Ysidoro and Mr. Postlethwaite — Final Departure from Corrientes . . . .310 LETTERS ON SOUTH AMERICA.

Letter I

The Authors to their Readers. INTRODUCTORY. London, 1842. It has been matter of surprise to some of our personal friends that, after the success of our work on Paraguay, we should so long have postponed the fulfilment of the promise made in that work, — contingent only on its success, — that of giving a continuous history of our twenty-five years' sojourn in South America. Our success has been unequivocal, our encourage ment to go on the strongest ; mais V homme propose, et Dieu dispose. Who is unacquainted with the facility of laying down plans, as contrasted with the difficulty of carrying them out ? Who knows not vol. i. B INTRODUCTORY. the interruptions which spring from the vicissitudes of life, — new and more imperative avocations, bad health, indolence, domestic calamities, and, in short, "the thousand ills which flesh is heir to?"

Nay, who is prepared to say that, in spite of the very success which so unexpectedly attended our first literary labours, we may not have found the full force and meaning of the exclamation, " Oh that mine adversary had written a book ! " Be that as it may, we have at last determined to resume the thread of our story, and to carry it out as time and opportunity may permit, with the proviso always that we find we can instruct or amuse as we go along. We can scarcely promise to exhibit again to your gaze such a rara avis in terra as Doctor Francia ; but we think we have enough in store to satisfy a moderate curiosity in regard both to South America itself, and to South American travels. It would not be easy to find two individuals more closely linked by the ties of blood and friend ship, as well as of worldly interests, than we have been ; while yet it has happened that, during the best five and twenty years of our life, viz., from 1810 to 1835, we never contrived to spend alto- INTRODUCTORY. 3 gether two years in each others society.

We were scarcely ever a month at a time in the same place. We ranged alternately from England to Paraguay, from Corrientes to Buenos Ayres, and from Buenos Ayres to England. Sometimes while the pere grinations of one were limited to those places, the other crossed the Andes, stretched along the shores of the Pacific, from Conception, in Chile, to Truxillo, in Peru ; and so, vice versd. In con clusion, the senior writer left South America, for good, in 1830, the junior in 1834. From this latter year to the present day, our personal observations have been confined to our native country, and to an occasional glimpse at the Continent. But by means of private correspondence, official accounts, and personal intercourse with South Americans in London, we have en deavoured to observe and scan the course of events in South America.

The result of our constant change of domicile, and of our moving generally in distinct orbits, (if we may use a rather high metaphor,) has been a correspondence between us, uninterrupted for almost thirty years. It naturally embraces a b2 INTRODUCTORY. great variety of subject, and is illustrative through out of the times in which we have lived, of the countries in which we have sojourned, and of the people among whom we have dwelt. That we may not break in upon the chrono loorical order of our personal narrative, we would entreat our readers to accompany us, incidentally, out of our proper sphere of action in South Ame rica. We shall seldom, however, occupy our pages with matter unconnected with that country, which shall engage our chief attention, and em brace by much the larger portion of our space.

Our object, in fact, is to throw light on the late Spanish South American colonies ; any other matter introduced being merely to preserve the unity of our recital. We are aware that no class of writing requires more circumspection than that which is designated personal narrative. We shall endeavour to restrict ours, first, to the recital of events involving principles of action calculated to instruct, or developing character likely to interest the reader ; and, secondly, to such sketches of scenery and incident of travel as we consider may probably amuse, INTRODUCTORY. allowing only the mention of ourselves, when ne cessary, for the purpose of completing the characters of the drama in course of representation. We shall keep to our original plan of giving the general text, something remodelled for publica tion, of the letters which we possess, written at the period when the events related were passing.

At the same time we shall not scruple to make use of other documents, when we find we can do so with advantage to our subject. Such is the latitude we propose taking to ourselves in our personal narrative. The historical accounts of South America, which have been given to the public, are meagre and incomplete ; and, indeed, the recentness of the events of the revolution has left as yet little time for any professedly historical work to appear. On the other hand, our newspapers have always been scantily supplied with accounts of passing events, and their details have generally been erro neous in every way. Availing ourselves, therefore, of such opportunities as we have had of collecting authentic information, we hope our political review, as well as our sketches of public characters, may not be devoid of interest to those who may con- INTRODUCTORY. descend to peruse our pages.

We think, also, that we may not only convey to the English reader some more distinct idea than he now has of South American affairs, but that we may be of service to the states themselves, by showing them that their movements are understood here, — their backslid ings marked and reprobated, — their improvements and ameliorations appreciated, — and their every step in advance towards a state of higher civilization and more enlightened government, hailed as a happy omen of their future rank and importance among the free countries of the world. The Authors.

Letter II

The Authors to their Readers. MORE MINUTELY INTRODUCTORY. London, 1842. Before hastening into the medias res of South American adventures, we crave permission of our readers, more especially of those who have perused our last volume, entitled ". Francia's Reign of Terror," shortly to revert to that book. By some of our respected critics doubts have been expressed, not of our veracity, but of our impartiality, in the account which we have given of the extraordinary man who was the subject of our memoir. While they implicitly rely at once upon the verity and vraisemblance of our personal observations in this matter, they feel themselves bound to pause for farther evidence ere they lend entire credence to the history of Francia, as sup ported merely by the testimony of others, conveyed by us into our pages. introductory.

Now, while we cannot but express our sense of obligation for the credit attached to our personal record, we must confess ourselves at a loss to account for the reluctance, in some journals, to accord the same degree of credit to that of the numerous witnesses who strengthened our facts by their accumulated testimony in regard to Francia. We never, from personal observation, pretended to give that tyrant's history, subsequently to 1815; and if we have carried it down to 1838, it has been upon the abundant and corroborative evidence which others supplied, not we, — evidence adduced in so minute a manner, that, comparing it with all we personally knew, and with what was, more or less, in Buenos Ayres, matter of notoriety, it was impossible to resist. If history may not be written upon such data, — if facts, because apparently improbable, (and yet not the worst of them without example,) must be disregarded on any mere hypothesis of incredibility, we know not how the chain of historical truth, and especially that which links preceding ages to posterity, can be maintained unbroken.

Most historical writers spring up after the age of which they give the annals. Few of them, indeed, have had an introductory. opportunity of consulting the contemporaries of the events which they record. They are forced, — and forced from the very nature of the case, — to rely upon written evidence, however contradictory, and upon that alone. Surely, then, those who have an opportunity of sifting, cross-examining, and com paring with their own knowledge, the oral testimony of living witnesses, are in a better position for writing a history or memoir, than those who have lacked such opportunities. When the writer can confide in the integrity, impartiality, and judgment of his informants, he is enabled to draw up a record of which he can conscientiously say, it is one of truth. And such, we think, we can affirm our's of Francia to be.

In order to corroborate our statement, we gave up the names of more than twelve persons, — some of them our own agents, and men of high character. All of our witnesses were respectable and intelligent, — all had been personally cognizant of Francia's deeds of cruelty and despotism ; and three-fourths of them were victims of his capricious policy and cruel sway. We adduced the unimpeached and unimpeach able testimony of Messrs. Renggher and Longb introductory. champs in support of our statements, in regard to the worst points of Francia's character, and to the most atrocious of his deeds. Yet, while some critics have doubted them from the mere horror of the facts which they embody, others have asserted that we had given no authority for our repre sentations. One celebrated and ably conducted periodical (the Quarterly Review for April, 1839), although it admits the veracity and favourably reviews the production of Messrs. Renggher and Longchamps, repudiates some of our facts, and hesitates a doubt of others, which, notwithstanding, are the identical facts related by the Swiss authors in question, whom the reviewer characterizes as sober and impartial writers.

In truth, all the worst of Francia's tyrannical acts, — of those least credible from their enormity, — are told, every one of them, by the Swiss gentlemen in question, and to their book we expressly referred in support of what we said. The Dictator's cruelty to the old Spaniards, for instance; his dungeons, prisons, gallows, chains, torture-chamber, Tevego (place of exile), — his murder of the Pelado, and the mode of it, — his introductory shooting in the market place of his old comrades and associates, — his arrest and treatment of our own agent, Gomez,* the tyrant's persecution, even unto chains, imprisonment, and death, of the most respectable inhabitants of Assumption, — his ruth less demolition of the city, and his wretched efforts to rebuild it, — are all acts of Francia's cruel reign minutely and gravely related by Messrs. Renggher and Longchamps.

In adopting their story as that of trustworthy journalists, and eye-witnesses of the things they record, the reviewer necessarily adopts the above related facts. They are precisely those which we ourselves detailed in " Francia's Reign ;" and it is "*__> ' for the public to consider how far that reviewer can be consistent who pronounces of one and the same events, that they are sober and authentic when related by the Swiss gentlemen, but turn to exag geration, and lose their credibility, when told by us. We have only one solution to offer of this rather novel, not to say enigmatical, critique, and it is the following : — o Though the facts related by the authors men tioned, and ourselves, are identical, yet they and we * See Appendix, No. 1. introductory. wrote under widely different circumstances.

They wrote while yet trembling under the recollection of the despot's iron rule, and oppressed by the as sociations which during their six years captivity had accumulated in their minds, as day by day they witnessed the doom of others, and trembled sor their own. In common with all the Dictator's prisoners and detenus, they were reduced to a state of mental numbness which paralized their powers of free delineation and expression. Thus they softened into shade features of character which it was our duty, as faithful and not intimi dated historians, to bring out boldly and promi nently on the canvass. But farther, in giving to the world the life and actions of so bad a man as the ruler of Paraguay, we found it impossible, neither did we think it proper, to withhold the expression of our abhorrence, indignation, and contempt, for which many of those actions called.

Possibly, while ihus offering our com ments on them, stigmatizing the general principles on which they had their rise, and warning the South Americans against their withering and pestilential effects in time to come, we overstepped the limits permitted by the reviewer to the free introductory. expression of our reprobation of all such principles. In the work of the Swiss gentlemen, little, if any thing, of this kind is to be found ; and hence perhaps, (but we speak hypothetically,) the re viewer's complacency with the work containing simple facts, almost timidly stated, and his dis relish of the work containing the same facts, an nounced with unqualified condemnation as regards themselves, and with warning as regard the principles from which they emanated. One daily paper has remarked that we gave no authority for the statement that Francia ordered the sentinel to fire upon all who stood loitering about his palace.

It is one of the facts distinctly stated by Renggher at p. 108 of his little work. The same paper asks whether Francia's subsequent revocation of this barbarous edict was not a proof of his humanity ? It was at most one of his caprice ; for to say that it was humane to give up the plan of shooting innocent loiterers, were a very unwonted stretch of charitable indulgence. That the order was given and acted upon there is no dispute ; but it might as well be said that the abandonment of the system of proscription at Rome, after it had answered its object of spreading introductory. universal terror, was a proof of the humanity of the Triumvirate, as that the Dictator's counter-order was an evidence of his clemency. Again, it has been objected that had the treat ment of M. Bonpland been such as described by Mr. Renggher, and subsequently confirmed by the botanist to ourselves, it is not in the nature of things to believe that he should have been so anxious to return to Paraguay.

Now, in the first place, we very expressly stated that Bonpland's expulsion from Paraguay was as cruel as his seizure, for he had acquired, during his captivity, a considerable property there, which he cultivated with fondness, and superintended with care. That property was his all, and though not confiscated, it was virtually taken from him when he was driven, at an hour's notice, out of the Re public. This property Bonpland was anxious to recover, which he could only do by Francia per mitting him to re-enter Paraguay and to dispose of his possessions. In the second place, who knows not the enthusiasm of philosophers when they engage in an ardent and absorbing pursuit ? Who is there, acquainted with Bonpland, that does not know and INTRODUCTORY. 15 admire his inextinguishable love of botanical research ? and who, that knows this, would be sur prised to hear that, at any risk, he was anxious to renew a series of experiments, and to complete an interesting collection of the rich varieties of plants and valuable medicinal herbs of a terra incognita like Paraguay ?

A work of high authority, by Sir Woodbine Parish,* has been published since we wrote ours, and many of ow\ statements concerning Paraguay and Francia, as well as regarding M. Bonpland, have been amply confirmed by that author. See especially pp. 226 to 237 of his volume. While not one of our facts is contradicted or even im pugned, Paraguay is said (p. 226) to be "under the despotic rule of Dr. Francia." At page 228 it is said of him — " A sort of Mephistopheles, he was not long ere he set the members of the Govern ment by the ears, and by his intrigues brought about their resignation." Farther on (pp. 233, 234) we find His Majesty's Charge d'Affaires saying, " Francia's nomination, in the first instance, * Buenos Ayres and the provinces of the Rio de la Plata, by Sir Woodbine Parish, K. C. H., many years his Majesty's Charge d'Af faires at Buenos Ayres.

London. John Murray. 1838. INTRODUCTORY. was for three years, at the expiration of which time he took care to have his power confirmed for life. The Deputies, who passed this Act in their simplicity, returned to their houses, exulting in an arrangement by which they were saved all farther trouble; whilst the tyrant they had set up com menced a reign which, for systematic selfishness, cruelty, and unrestrained despotism, is almost unparalleled in any country. " His first object, as may be supposed, was to put down all opposition, and this he did by impri soning, banishing, or putting to death every indi vidual of wealth or influence who could in any way interfere with him in his despotic sway. His spies were in every house ; the most trivial expression of dissatisfaction was construed into treason; and ere long no man dared to speak to his neighbour for fear of being denounced.

Thus he silenced, by terror, all opposition from within, and, lest any should be attempted from without, he proceeded to establish a system of non-intercourse, which for nearly twenty years he has rigorously en forced." M. Bonpland's case is shortly stated at pp. 236 and 237, in the latter of which the Supreme INTRODUCTORY, Dictator's government is spoken of as "the tyran nical rule of a crazy old despot." So much in vindication of our statements, as well as general reflections, touching the reign of Dr. Fran cia, — a vindication which we have been the rather induced to put forth, because, once admit a doubt as to the truth of his appalling history, and the whole benefit intended by its narrative for mankind, but more especially for the South Americans, is lost. History based on truth, like the stage when used for its legitimate purpose, is intended " To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, its form and pressure."

But history, distorted and disfigured by unfaith ful chroniclers, like the stage degraded by buffoons, gives up" things rank and gross in nature merely." We see no more in the one case than the other the pure imagery of truth ; and divested of it, Francia's life and that of Tiberius come to make upon us no more serious impression than we imbibe on wit nessing, upon the boards, the feats of Blue Beard or the heroics of Tom Thumb. Our book has now been published for upwards of three years, and it has circulated all over the late INTRODUCTORY. Spanish colonies. It was from those quarters that we were to look for a refutation of our statements, if erroneous, exaggerated, or untrue ; for there, and particularly in the River Plate provinces, parties knew, as well as ourselves, the real state of affairs in Paraguay.

But what is the fact ? Why that without any inter ference on our part, nay, wholly without our previous knowledge, the " Letters on Paraguay and Fran cia's Reign of Terror," translated into .Spanish, are in actual process of publication by monthly num bers in Montevideo.* Passing over the compliments which are paid to the work, in the public announcement of its republication in a Spanish garb, we will merely say that the translator (we do not even know his name) states that the truthfulness of the whole book forms its great recommendation to the South American native reader. And we have only, in conclusion, to observe that, ours is the first English work on South America which has been translated into the Spanish language by a native of the very countries we have described. * " El Nacional — Diario Politico, Literario y Comercial.