Mr. Conger to Mr. Gresham.

[Extract.]
No. 419.]

Sir: With reference to the revolution now in progress in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, and concerning which the news columns of the New York papers furnish such detailed accounts, I have the honor to report that absolutely accurate information is impossible to be obtained here, since the Federal Government controls the telegraph lines and refuses to give out detailed information; but as correctly as can be obtained this is the situation: There exist in the State two rival factions, the one headed by Julio de Castilhos, the present governor, and the other by Gasper Silveira Martins. The struggle is on the part of the latter and his followers to depose the former, and a majority of the people of the State are in sympathy with the Silveira Martins party.

But the national Government supports Castilhos and has sent large bodies of troops from this and other parts of the Republic to uphold him.

The Martins forces are not well organized and are very poorly equipped, yet their devotion to their cause and their determination not to submit to a régime forced upon them by the national Government will make their suppression a difficult matter by the national force. * * * There has already been some severe fighting, with considerable loss of life, but the consensus of opinion here among those best informed seems to be that the struggle will not last long and that the national troops will be successful and the Castilhos Government be upheld. It is possible that when congress convenes, which it will in regular annual session the 15th of next month, affairs may assume a different phase, but there is nothing to indicate it at present.

I have, etc.,

E. H. Conger.