No. 8.
Mr. Osborn
to Mr. Fish.
Buenos Ayres, March 20, 1877. (Received May 14.)
Sir: Notwithstanding the state of siege in this and other provinces, rumors of rebellion and outbreak in this province and that of Santa Fe have been afloat for the past few days; and while Santa Fé has called [Page 8] for national troops, and the troops of this city are kept ready for any emergency, I do not think there will be any serious trouble, but that the present excitement is simply the result of the nearness of the elections, which take place for governors in this and other provinces next Sunday.
It seems that in the province of Buenos Ayres especially, the dominant, or the party now in power, is divided between two candidates, and it is feared, as a result of such a division, that the opposition or Mitresta party, while it has taken little or no part in any contest of the kind since its defeat in the last Presidential election, three years ago, will now come in and elect its candidates, which would have much influence in the next Presidential contest.
Much anxiety was felt by citizens and foreigners here over the last Presidential contest in the United States. Many could not understand how we could escape civil war. Even Ex-President Sarmiento, who had lived in the United States for many years as Argentine minister at Washington, who understood our government and knew our people better perhaps than any other leading man of this country, gave up all hopes of a peaceable settlement of the question, and addressed a letter to La Tribuna of this city lamenting the failure of the “model republic,” declaring that “the light in his light-house had gone out,” &c.; but when the telegrams came telling us that Governor Hayes had been declared duly elected by the people—had been duly inaugurated under the Constitution, and that “all was quiet on the Potomac,” he, as well as all others who felt a deep interest in a peaceable solution of the critical question, was quite ready to declare it as grand a triumph for republican governments as that of our government over the late rebellion.
I am, &c.,