CHAPTER XIV.
Montevideo.
January 30th, 1851.—Our passage “down,” as the phrase is, was devoid of incident. We arrived on the night of the 20th inst., and are at anchor in the outer roadstead. In October, I described the general aspect of the mount, the city, and the surrounding country from this; and reminded you of the existence of a civil war, and the close siege of the city, for eight years past, by Oribe, a citizen of Montevideo, and formerly President of the Republic of which it is the capital. The right to this office, though once resigned and abandoned by him, he still claims; and to enforce it, invaded the State with an army of Argentines, furnished by Rosas, Governor of Buenos Ayres, and minister of foreign affairs for the Argentine States. With this he would have gained possession of the town long ago, had it not been for the armed intervention, in 1845, of England and France; and the continued guardianship of the place by the latter, with a squadron, in the roadstead, and a body of fifteen hundred or two thousand troops on shore.
The principal European powers, rejecting the pretensions of Oribe, acknowledge the constituted authorities of the inside, or city party only, as the government of the Republic. The policy of the United States being a strict neutrality, Commodore McKeever pays a like respect to both; and, under an escort furnished by Oribe, has paid an official visit to him at his camp outside of the lines, as well as one to the President within, at the government house in the city.
When here in October, an armistice had existed for some time, in connection with the negotiations then pending between the belligerent parties and Admiral Le Predour, commander-in-chief of the French force. We had not heard of its termination: but a movement of the troops on shore at daylight, the morning after our arrival, attracted the notice of those on board on watch, and led to the supposition that an engagement was about to take place. A messenger from my ever mindful friend R——, the officer of the deck at the time, summoned me to witness it; and for an hour, with other officers of the ship, I gazed through a glass upon what seemed a spirited conflict, between the outside and inside forces. We learned afterwards, however, that it was only a sham battle between different parties of the French troops, and the Montevidean soldiery, composed of a foreign legion of Basques and Italians, and a native regiment of negroes. So far as the effect upon the eye, and, under our misapprehension, upon the heart was concerned, there was, in the manœuvres of the battle field—the rapid charge, the roar of cannon, the sharp rattle of musketry, and the flying through the air and the bursting of shells—much of the reality of an actual engagement.
Poor Montevideo, for nearly a half century past, has been singularly ill-fated, even for a South American city. The greater part of that period, it has been the victim of calamitous wars, either foreign or civil. In 1807, while yet a colonial dependency of Spain, it was besieged, bombarded, and carried by storm by the English, under Sir Samuel Achmuty. After the inglorious defeat of Gen. Whithead at Buenos Ayres in 1808, and the consequent expulsion of the British from the Plata, as a colonial city faithful to the crown of Spain it was besieged from 1810 to 1814, and eventually made to capitulate to the troops of the then revolted and republican province of Buenos Ayres. Shortly afterwards, the republican forces being withdrawn, it fell into the hands of the bandit Artigas, a native chieftain, so lawless and marauding in his rule at home, and in his depredations on the adjoining frontiers of Brazil, as to give just cause for invasion by the Portuguese of that kingdom, who gained possession of the city in 1817.
This occupation of the place led to a warfare of more than ten years, between the royalists of Brazil, and the republicans of Buenos Ayres, the chief disasters of which centred in Montevideo; till, in 1829, through the intervention of England, a peace was effected, by the withdrawal, by both parties, of all claim to the territory in dispute—known then by the name of the Banda Oriental—on condition that it should constitute an independent Republic, to be called Uruguay, after the great river which forms the western boundary between it and the Argentine States.
From that period till the year 1842, the territory enjoyed peace. Under a constitutional government, with a president, ministry, judiciary, and legislature of two houses, both city and country had great prosperity. The population of the city increased rapidly from fifteen to fifty thousand, and that of the state to two hundred and fifty thousand. The exports in a few years amounted to six millions of dollars, and the imports to five millions. Fortunes were readily accumulated; fine buildings in great numbers were erected within the city; and beautiful country houses, with tasteful and luxurious surroundings, spread over the environs without. Poverty and want were unknown, and the evil days seemed entirely past. But the civil war, into which the republic was plunged by Oribe, soon produced a sad change. The invading Argentines speedily devastated the entire country, and by the wanton destruction of vast herds of horses and cattle—the chief sources of its wealth and commerce in hides, jerked beef, and tallow—and the plunder of their estancias or farms, paralyzed the enterprise of the inhabitants, and forced them to emigrate; while the close siege of the town, intercepting all supplies for support and all means of commerce, at once sapped the sources of its prosperity, and drove the citizens by tens of thousands elsewhere for maintenance and life. The result upon the wealth and population of the port may be readily imagined. I do not recollect ever before to have been so deeply impressed with the desolateness of any place as on first landing here, and on taking a stroll through its streets, and the limited suburbs within the lines of defence. The mole, once alive with busy commerce, was as deserted and silent as a churchyard; and excepting at Pompeii, I never wandered through streets which seemed to be more truly those of a city of the dead.
This impression, however, I afterwards discovered to be in some degree deceptive, owing, partly, to the hour of the day; that for the universal siesta. Scarcely an individual was to be seen anywhere. With screened windows and closed doors, the inhabitants, young and old, rich and poor, were yielding themselves to the insinuating influences of the dolce far niente, or to the more oblivious indulgences of sound sleep. It is now midsummer here; the day was hot, for this latitude, and every thing in a state of Spanish repose customary in such weather, after an early dinner. The dilapidation and decay on every side, the manifest poverty, and the seemingly utter desertion of dwelling after dwelling, through whole streets, were so saddening and oppressive, that, for the time, I felt that I would never wish to visit the shore again. As to the suburbs without the walls, excavated Pompeii itself is scarcely more a region of ruin and desolation.
An hour at the American consulate afterwards—where our party received the most frank and hospitable welcome from Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton and family; an application there within fifteen minutes, for my official services from a stranger in the marriage ceremony—showing that bad as the state of things in Montevideo is, the voice of the bride and of the bridegroom is still to be heard in her streets—with other assurances of a better state in general than I had been led to infer, changed in some degree the current of my sympathies. Still, however deceptive the first impressions on landing may have been, there is too much reality in the wretchedness to which hundreds and thousands of the inhabitants are reduced, to allow them to be at once dispelled.
The city is finely situated upon a peninsula of granite, which, in its form, has been compared, not inaptly, to the shape of a tortoise’s back: an area a half mile square descending gradually on three sides, from a central height of a hundred feet or more, to the level of the surrounding water. This, though only a river, is seemingly a sea; for, a hundred miles in width, it presents a horizon on the south as boundless as the ocean. Like most towns of Spanish origin, the streets are rectangular, with an open square or plaza in the centre, on which stand the principal church and the cabildo, or town hall and prison. It is well built. Many of the private residences are spacious, and the principal public buildings, the cathedral, and an unfinished hospital, are rather imposing in their architecture. From long disuse the streets are in many places tufted with grass, and in others, the pavements are so torn up and broken as to be impassable with wheels.
One redeeming fact, in regard to the general want of interest in the place, has very unexpectedly presented itself to me personally, in an invitation from the standing committee of the British Episcopal Church, to officiate for them in public worship on the Sabbath. This I have already done, and shall continue to do whenever the Congress shall be in the Plata. The English government, with commendable interest for the spiritual good of its subjects abroad, makes a liberal provision, under certain conditions, for the maintenance of the ministry and its ordinances where they may be. Its chief embassies in foreign lands are furnished with regular chaplains; and, wherever British subjects abroad contribute to a fund for the ministrations of the Gospel among them, the same amount, to a specified limit—four hundred pounds is the maximum, I believe—is allowed by act of parliament for the same object.
Eight or ten years ago, Samuel Lafone, Esq., a principal English merchant here, and a chief capitalist and landed proprietor in the Uruguay, secured from the authorities the privilege of erecting a chapel for Protestant worship. The site of an elevated circular bastion, overlooking the rocky shores of the river, on the south side of the town, was chosen for the purpose, and purchased by him. Upon this, at a cost of forty-five or fifty thousand dollars, he erected a fine edifice in Grecian architecture. It is of brick, stuccoed, and painted in imitation of Portland stone, and is ornamented in the front by a well proportioned pediment, supported by four lofty Doric columns, and altogether is one of the most conspicuous architectural ornaments of the city. The interior is spacious and lofty, the wood-work—the pews, chancel-railing, the reading desk, pulpit, and organ-loft—being of solid mahogany, and is capable of accommodating an audience of several hundreds. When completed, Mr. Lafone made an unconditional gift of it to the British community resident here. These joined by the few Americans engaged in commerce, raised a fund sufficient, with the governmental gratuity, for the comfortable support of a rector. The Rev. Mr. Armstrong officiated for several years in that capacity, and till ill health obliged him and his family, not long since, to seek a different climate. The Rev. Mr. Lenhart of the Methodist Church, my predecessor as chaplain of the American squadron on this station, was invited by the standing committee to occupy the pulpit thus left vacant: and now, with equal ecclesiastic liberality, on the part of the committee and church, I am invested with a like temporary rectorship.
It is customary to have but one service on the Sabbath. This takes place at one o’clock, the earliest hour practicable for me to be on shore, after the discharge of my official duties on board the Congress.
The interruptions to commerce, and the disasters attending the long siege, have reduced the Protestant residents of Montevideo comparatively to a mere handful, and the usual audience composed of English, Scotch and American worshippers, male and female, numbers only from sixty to eighty persons. Still it is a privilege to minister in holy things, even to so small an assemblage, with ‘none to hurt or make afraid’ amidst a people once wholly given to superstition and bigotry, and to witness a depth of interest and solemnity of devotion characteristic of spiritual Christianity. I have already been called to officiate at two marriages, and have twice administered the ordinance of baptism. Thus, though a Presbyterian of the ‘straightest sect,’ I feel it not only a privilege and happiness, but a duty, under the circumstances, to follow the prescribed ritual of the English prayer-book in worship, and—in surplice and bands—to pray statedly, not only “for all in authority,” but specifically, for “the most gracious Lady the Queen Victoria, His Royal Highness Prince Albert, Albert, Prince of Wales, and all the royal family.”