Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 1 of 2

SOUTH AMERICA.

“Fall’n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, she frees More than her fell Pizarros once enchain’d; Strange retribution! now Columbia’s ease Repairs the wrongs that Quito’s sons sustain’d.” Childe Harold.


TO S I R J A M E S H U D S O N, G.C.B., ETC. ETC. ETC. THE MOST DISTINGUISHED BRITISH DIPLOMATIST OF THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA, AS HAVING BEEN THE MEANS OF PUTTING AN END TO THE SLAVE TRADE WITH BRAZIL; AND LIKEWISE AS HAVING CONTRIBUTED IN A MARKED DEGREE TO THE UNIFICATION AND FREEDOM OF ITALY, These Volumes ARE, WITH THE HIGHEST RESPECT, INSCRIBED.


The following account of the Colonies from which sprang the States of South America owes its origin to the want of such a work felt by myself some years ago. In 1866 I received the appointment of second Secretary to Her Majesty’s Legation in the Argentine Republic and Paraguay . My previous experience having been in quite another part of the world, I had all to learn respecting the regions which I was about to visit. The only book which had been recommended to me was Sir Woodbine Parish’s work on Buenos Ayres . On reaching my destination, however, I found that this work was already out of date; I also found that there was a considerable amount of literature respecting South America. But this literature being partly in English, French, German, Dutch, Latin, or Italian, and partly in Spanish or Portuguese, was only accessible to persons possessing a reading knowledge of the above-named languages.
Of two years in South America I passed one as Secretary at Buenos Ayres , and the other in a similar capacity at Rio de Janeiro . During the first year I was sent up the Uruguay and to the Province of Santa Fè ; then to the Welsh colony on the Chupat river in Patagonia ; and, lastly, to the then seat of war in Paraguay : in the second year I went on a mission to the Province of Minas Geraes in Brazil . I had thus opportunities of seeing different parts of the continent, and of becoming more impressed with the want of a work giving anything like a complete account of them.