Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session of the Fortieth Congress

Mr. Asboth to Mr. Seward

No. 22.]

Legation of the United States, Buenos Ayres, April 23, 1867.

Sir: I had the honor to inform you in my daily memoranda, forwarded as enclosure D, with report No. 20, that an epidemic bearing some of the symptoms of cholera morbus made its appearance in Rosario towards the end of last month, and that some cases of the same disease had occurred here in Buenos Ayres and in Montevideo. This malady has eventually developed itself into real Asiatic cholera morbus. It was imported from Brazil to Corrientes on steam transports crowded with troops for the army invading Paraguay, and from thence has spread down along the river to Rosario and Buenos Ayres. At Corrientes, in the military hospital alone, the deaths have numbered 200 daily. Within the last week the mortality in the city of Buenos Ayres has increased from 15 to 150 per day, and on Good Friday we had 190 deaths from cholera. A complete panic has seized the inhabitants, and, by the official returns of the railways, it appears that since the 16th instant more than 50,000 of its population have fled from the city. The rush to the country is as immense here as in Rosario and Corrientes, and every country town between Buenos Ayres and Rosario is so crowded as to oblige people to live in bullock carts.

In the Brazilian camp at Curuzu the mortality by cholera has been frightful. On Palm Sunday more than 500 fell victims to this scourge, and on the following Monday almost an equal number, whereupon the troops were ordered to encamp outside the fort. The disease has also broken out on board the Brazilian squadron, and as some few cases have also occurred at Itapiru, the lauding and principal depot, and at Tuyuti, where the bulk of the allied army is quartered, it is thought that the allied troops will have to move off from their present position, and possibly ascend the river to Candelaria, or succumb to a foe more deadly than the undaunted Paraguayans, from the ravages of which no frieudly and humane mediation like that proffered by the United States may save them.

The national government here is about to prohibit vessels from Corrientes from touching at this port, owing to the stupendous mortality at Curuzti.

A few cases of the prevalent epidemic having occurred in Montevideo, the government there, by a decree dated yesterday, has closed Montevideo and all the ports of the republic to vessels coming from Buenos Ayres or any part of the Argentine Confederation, so that the only communication between the two republics is by means of the telegraph. This measure causes incalculable injury to the general commerce of the river Plata.

People here and in Montevideo, of course, lay all the blame of the introduction of this pestilence on the Brazilians, and there is, indeed, reason to regard it as a distressing adjunct of the Brazilian alliance.

We have no reliable information whether the cholera has already passed over to Paraguay, but there are vague reports that such is the case, and the probability is that they are true. No one can deny that the long resistance of Paraguay against the allied forces has been heroic, but the progress of this fearful epidemic cannot be obstructed by patriotic bravery, and if it should visit that country in its present state of destitution, the loss of human life would be so immense that humanity and Christian charity alike demand that this war of misery and devastation should cease. The Argentine and Uruguay republics, as already reported, can no longer afford to keep up their respective contingents in the allied army, and however formidable the power and great the resources of Brazil may be, the sacrifice of life and money has been so immense, and utterly out of all proportion to the interests at stake or the advantages to be gained, that the sooner the war can be brought to a close the better it will be for Brazil also. The sad reality has gradually opened upon the mass of the people, and the extracts from La Prensa Entre Riana, Tribuna, and Jornal do Brazil, in enclosure A, show the general indignation both in Brazil and in the river Plata at the rejection of the United States mediation.

The steamer Proveedor brings news of a partial but sanguinary engagement in an advanced line of the Paraguayans at Curupaiti, which was victoriously taken by a Brazilian division of Ouruzu; but while the latter were wheeling round the guns on the retreating enemy, a mine sprung under their feet which blew the whole place high into the air, and great numbers of the imperialists perished.

The civil war in the provinces of Cuyo seems to be at an end. The success of General Paunero over the insurgents alluded to in my daily memoranda, enclosure D, with report No. 20, has been fully confirmed. On the 2d instant a column of 1,600 men, under the command of Colonel Arredondo, was attacked by an insurgent force 3,500 strong, headed by the brothers Saá, Videla, and Rodriguez, at a place called San Ignacio, in the province of San Luis, and the latter were completely routed. Another victory was obtained further north at Bargus, province of Rioja, on the 10th instant, by the national forces, under the orders of General A. Taboada—about 2,600 strong—over a revolutionary force of 5,000 men headed by Varela. These two actions appear to have decided the fate of the campaign, the insurgent leaders Saá, Colonel Videla, Governor Rodriguez, Varela, and others having fled to Chili, while Colonel Arredondo with his division had, by last dates, entered the town of Mendoza, General Paunero, with the main body of the army, following close upon him.

The period fixed by the constitution for the annual meeting of the Argentine congress, the 1st of May, is fast approaching, and as yet not a single deputy from the provinces has made his appearance in Buenos Ayres, owing to the reactionary troubles in the interior and the epidemic here. It is therefore believed that the opening of that body will be necessarily deferred. General Mitre being resolved to resume the command-in-chief of the allied army, will, as currently reported, call upon the congress as soon as it assembles to name the person who is temporarily to replace him in charge of the executive, as Dr. Paz, the vice-president, declines to act again as chief magistrate.

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. ASBOTH.

Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washiyigton, D. C.

[Translation.—From La Prensa Entre Riana, 7th April, 1867.]

More Blood.

It is not enough that 15,000 Argentine victims have been immolated on the altars of ambition raised in honor and for the profit of the Brazilian empire.

The war with Paraguay must go on, exhausting the treasury of the nation, damaging its commerce, sacrificing more Argentines, in order that the Brazilian territory in possession of Paraguay may be recovered.

Elizalde, minister for foreign affairs of the republic, communicates to Mr. Asboth, minister of the United States, that the Argentine government declines the offered mediation because fits bases negative the purposes of the alliance.

A final stop has been put to the American mediation, which might have brought about peace, saving Argentine honor and interests imprudently compromised by a man who decreed [victory and promised in the face of the people of Buenos Ayres to be in Asuncion within three months.

Until when will the people be the tool of speculation?

Is not the opinion of the press sufficient, which, as the faithful interpreter of the feeling of the people, clamors for peace?

New sacrifices of blood and republican honor have been decreed because Mr. Britos, the (imperial minister, insists upon it. And the people bend their necks to receive the yoke and drag the cart of degradation and ruin.

The Argentine cabinet, which, confounding its members with the mother country, has grasped by the neck all who boast of patriotism to lead them tamely to the charnel house at Tuyuti, replies in the negative to the humane mediation offered by the enlightened government of Washington, in order to be consequent with the men who do not desire peace, because it promotes the progress of the neighboring republics, and because they are afraid of the democratic element in their own bosom.

To-day we believe in an armed intervention, because North America, jealous as it is of its good name, will not allow its officious mediation to be slighted with impunity.

This result was to have been expected from the silence of the Argentine government to Mr. Asboth’s notes, and in presence of the warlike policy of the Argentine government.

It appears beyond doubt that the American minister expressed himself in these words: “That if one of the belligerents accepted the mediation, it would be obligatory upon the other.” If such is the case, the honor of the model republic is compromised in the present question.

We deal, however, with a fact—the negative of the Argentine government, which for itself and by itself has resolved to continue the war, anticipating its answer to the meeting of the sovereign national congress, the only judge in a matter of such paramount importance to the republic, and committing itself against the manifest will of the Argentine people to carry on a crusade anti-republican and ruinous to the country.

What is General Urquiza about, who, in his banquet at San José, expressed his longing for peace? What are the people of Entre Rios about, who protested against the warlike policy of the Argentine government? Will they allow the butchery of their fellow-citizens to continue? Will they permit by their silence and inactivity that their fellow countrymen should be once more sent to the seat of war in chains, in order that their corpses may serve as stepping stones to the imperial hosts? Will they consent to see the will of the majority of the Argentine people trampled upon by the continuation of a war in which are staked its interests, its future, and its republican honor, with no other recompense save that of serving the ambition of some and the plans of distinction of others?

If the people remain silent, we owe it to justice to say that it deserves the despotism inflicted upon it, and on the word of republican patriots we disown the traditions of the Argentine people.

Will the United States, after the rebuff they have received, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru after their protest against the treaty, look with indifference on General Mitre’s negative? We do not believe it, because the first is highly compromised in the question, and the others have a flagrant proof that the sovereignty and independence of a sister republic are invaded upon as a consequence of the purposes of the alliance. But the purposes of the alliance are to upset the government of Lopez, to demolish the fortifications of Paraguay, to strip it of its armament, and to lay hold of its territory; that is to say, the allies would accept the mediation if they could attain the object they seek by arms. We can give no other interpretation to the purposes of the alliance.

Everybody clamors for peace, the army as well as the people, victims of the war; and the clamors of all are lost in the paltry passions and interests of a circle, poor yesterday, rich today. which, in the midst of its luxury and orgies, pretends to turn the situation to its own profit, even though the acquisition of its ends should cost the blood of an entire generation, the country’s dishonor, and the bankruptcy of the Argentine people. These vultures cry for more blood. Two years of a war in the exterior; five years of a civil war which deci mates the peoples of the interior; a war in perspective with the republics of the Pacific, are the consequences of the war which rides in coach since 1852, and of the policy of a cabinet that has produced nothing but evils, and that chooses to spill Argentine blood in holocaust of foreign interests, and in realization of its Machiavellian plans. The mass of the people must resist this ruinous policy, and defend its sovereignty, withholding its vote of confidence accorded to those who have looked to nothing else save their own private advantage, to those who have done nothing else save lead it to degradation and to ruin.

Enough of blood!

Enough of war!

Let the peoples raise the standard of peace, and place their trust in those who will know how to save them from the calamitous situation through which the republic is passing, as they know how to force them from a twenty years’ tyranny.

If it be necessary, in order to obtain peace, to wage war, let it be done; for thus will be consummated the work of Caseros, and thus the authors of so many calamities, the executioners of the republic, the squanderers of the public rents, will be forever buried in the dust, branded with the mark of reprobation. The dismal future of our mother country is reflected on the dark horizon that surrounds the republic. The storm may be conjured off, if the Argentine peoples remember their manliness and their glories, and if the conqueror of Caseros, on whom all eyes are turned, chooses to realize his propaganda of peace, union, and fraternity.

In entering upon a crusade of civilization and humanity, we may reckon upon the opinion of the martyr people, and upon the sympathy of foreigners, whose interests suffer as much if not more than those of the natives. Let war be substituted by peace: let tranquillity take the room of agitation; let union and fraternity make their appearance among the children of a same people, and among races who profess the same political faith, and the Argentine Republic shall be great and powerful, and will bless the strong hand that gives it the glory it longs for.

Enough degradation!

ENOUGH BLOOD!

[Translation.—From La Prensa Entre Riana, 12th April, 1867.]

The note from the Foreign Office to General Asboth.

The following document which we publish deserves to be read very calmly and with great deliberation, in order to discover in its studied phrases the iniquitous, criminal, and shameful policy which has suggested it. It is the most characteristic trial of the men of the situation.

With the greatest effrontery they own therein the unjustifiable tendencies of the alliance, of that compact ominous and unauthorized, since it has no other legal sanction save the will of the men who compose what until to-day has been called the Argentine government.

The speculators on the war have required two months to concoct an answer to his excellency the minister of the United States, because they had to wait until Don Pedro I should deign to manifest to them his imperial will; and those who thus lower the dignity of the Argentine people dare pretend, notwithstanding, to be the representatives of its honor and its glories.

We doubt whether Dr. Elizalde’s note will satisfy the American plenipotentiary, because it is only an agglomeration of futile pretexts, and does not bring forward one single reason that justifies or even palliates the continuation of the war.

Dr. Elizalde’s note is a ridiculous blustering, a stupid bravado, an arrogant bragging, pronounced by order of Pedro I. The Argentine government has not the means of continuing, against the will of the people, the war which has thrown us into mourning and which is our ruin.

But leaving on one side the impossibility of continuing the war, what reason does Dr. Elizalde adduce to palliate this calamity? None. He simply says that “the resolutions presented in so friendly and brotherly a manner by the American minister negative the purposes of the alliance.”

But what are the purposes of the alliance? The treaty, with its protocol, explain them very clearly: to deprive Paraguay of its territory and give it to Brazil; to demolish the Paraguayan fortifications, in order that the Brazilians may, without any obstacle, take possession of the rivers and dictate the conditions that suit them; to strip Paraguay of its arms and all articles of war, and thus depriving it of the possibility of defending itself even from the invasions of the savages of the Chaco; lastly, to oblige Paraguay to pay the expenses of the war; that is to say, make that country for whole centuries a fief of Brazil—these are the purposes of the alliance. And can the Argentine people sacrifice itself one day longer to obtain them?

The first man of the Argentine Confederation, the nation’s highest and only prestige, the enlightened General Urquiza, deeply affected, has exclaimed from his retirement, “peace, union, and fraternity,” understanding by the depth of his genius that only by that means can be cured the deep wounds inflicted on our mother country by her bad sons. And while this distinguished citizen raises his influential voice to put an end to our calamities, while the highest military authority asks for peace, and makes himself the echo of the people’s clamor, the coxcomb Elizalde—he of the international marriage—the ridiculous aspirant, who pretends to raise himself to the presidency of the republic by leaning on the crutch of Pedro I, shouts with a discordant voice, War without truce, slavery, death.

The man inured to dangers, he who has ever shown to our soldiers the road to victory, he who most disinterestedly and with the greatest abnegation is studying the question of the day, asks for peace, as the only termination to our disasters, equally hoaorable as dignified; while he who never has been and never will be amidst dangers, he who by dint of intrigues and menaces has reached the post of minister for foreign affairs, clamors for war. Singular contrast!

One-half of the republic protests, with arms in their hands, against the continuation of the war; our exhausted treasury, our army demoralized and decimated, show us the impossibility of continuing it; and in a situation so precarious the minister for foreign affairs, oblivious of the blood already spilt and of the mourning that afflicts our homes, regardless of anything else save the wishes of the Emperor of Brazil, rejects inconsiderately the high mediation of the American government, which afforded us the opportunity of bringing the struggle to an honorable termination.

What will Entre Rios do in view of the negative given to the United States government’s proposition for an arrangement? Will it continue to sacrifice its children in this struggle, more than sterile, unjustified? Will it continue to lend its countenance to those who speculate on the war? We venture to doubt it.

[Translation.—From La Tribuna, April 14, 1867.]

One word more.—We wish to close, at least until a new opportunity, a discussion in which, convinced though we are of being in the right, the daily paper, the Nacion, in a dictatorial tone declares us defeated. We have said that the treaty of the triple alliance contradicts itself by saying that it is made with the view of waging war to the individual Solano Lopez, while its clauses are directly and positively against the Paraguayan nation. This statement, repeated by the minister for foreign affairs, we have qualified as a diplomatic jugglery, and no other name can be given to it.

When a treaty provides that the people against whom war is waged must accept certain limits, must raze their fortresses, must give up all their arms and remain unarmed, &c.—when such conditions are demanded it never can be said that the war is made against an individual; the war is against the nation.

However, to put a final stop to this question until the occasion offers of renewing it, it is sufficient to state one fact which will convince every Argentine that our pen has been guided by a just motive. What would the world have said if, in the treaty made to upset the dictatorship of Rosas, that which the treaty of the triple alliance provides with regard to Paraguay had formed part of its provisions? Would it have been said that it was a war against Rosas or a war against Buenos Ayres? Would the despot have been conquered with the same facility? No; because a treaty of that kind would have given him a banner and partisans, which, according to our judgment, have been given to Lopez by the publication of the tripartite alliance. Enough.

[From The Standard, April 23, 1867.]

The crisis of the Empire.

(From the Journal do Brazil.)

Our social existence is threatened with grave symptoms, and if we descend to the lower classes of our community we shall soon discover the source of disorder. The people no longer hide their intentions. In the very metropolis of the empire the government decrees are openly disobeyed. The Emperor called on his subjects in the name of the war, and failed to awaken enthusiasm; the ministry ordered, and their order was slighted. Both have lost all prestige with the nation.

Our citizens, indeed, had no other means of showing their indignation at the government refusing the offers of a peace mediation. In this dilemma either the war must be at once abandoned or the ministry must go out.

There is, meantime, one thing urgent above all the rest: to give over lying and tell the nation truly how matters stand. But the truth must come to us from purer lips, from more upright men, from more trustworthy legislators than the present ministry. The nation will give a worthy response if honestly dealt with. Let Don Pedro remember that the destinies of Brazil are in his hands, and that it is not yet past all remedy.

April 6, 1867.