(PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.)
Buenos Ayres, October 20th, 1842.
My dear M. de Vidal,—I have not before acknowledged the receipt of your letter of the 20th of last month, for until now I have had nothing to communicate to you that was worth the trouble of taking your time to read.
I am greatly pained by the sad termination of Count de Lurde's and my most strenuous efforts, as far as argument and persuasion could go, to induce the Buenos Ayrean Government to listen to the dictates of sound policy as well as of humanity and accept the mediation of Great Britain and France to put an end to the war. It will grievously disappoint the great expectations of her Majesty's Government, but for which disappointment from my previous dispatches they will be, in a great measure, prepared.
I have set Messrs. Ball and Diehl to work to copy the answer, that no time may be lost in communicating it to you, and I shall send down the Cockatrice with it the moment it is done.
Believe me, my dear M. de Vidal,
Always your sincere faithful Friend,
J. H. MANDEVILLE.
To his Excellency D. Antonino de Vidal, &c. &c.
P.S.—Although I transmit this document to you officially, as I feel it my duty to do, I would rather that it be not published until we have the resolution of the Sala. In Europe, these papers are never published until some time after they have been delivered, which we consider as by far the best mode of conduct.
J. H. M.
Buenos Ayres, October 26th, 1842
My dear M. de Vidal,—Neither you nor I were, nor could be surprised at the wretchedness of our negociation, or rather of M. de Lurde's and my attempt to make this Government accept the mediation of Great Britain and France, to put an end to the war, and I am happy to think that when I was last at Monte Video, I prepared her Majesty's Government for this result.
I feel the greatest pleasure to find that my unceasing efforts to obtain the acceptance by the Buenos Ayrean Government of our joint mediation have satisfied you. I can conscientiously say that I have done every thing in my power to make it succeed.
Of course I never meant but that the note should be immediately communicated to the Government, all I requested, and in which I was sure your own discernment and good feelings would make you concur in, was, that it should not be published until it has come out here.
I observe, in all your letters, you write mediation for mediators, as applicable to my expressions.
"My words in one of my preceding letters were, that your reliance on the mediators should not be vain or unfounded." This you have seen and can rely upon. I never hoped or gave you reason to hope that the mediation would be successful, but the results, according to my opinion and belief, (I am no prophet to predict), will not be vain nor illusory. The feelings of the British Government (and as you tell me Lord Aberdeen has himself said) towards the Banda Oriental will be very different since the conclusion of a treaty between it and great Britain to what they were before.
Believe me, my dear M. de Vidal,
Always your sincere and faithful Friend,
J. H. MANDEVILLE.
To his Excellency M. de Vidal, &c. &c. &c.
Buenos Ayres, November 28th, 1842.
Sir,—I have the honour to transmit to your Excellency a copy of the note from the Buenos Ayrean Minister for Foreign Affairs, transmitting to me the resolution of the Chamber upon the correspondence between me and the French Minister on one part, and M. Arana on the other, upon the subject of the mediation which was transmitted to the Chamber for its consideration, and a decree which it has issued.
Thus, notwithstanding all my efforts, the Buenos Ayrean Government still continues to refuse her Majesty's mediation, and persist in a war not justified by any national object.
I have the honour to be with the highest consideration, Sir,
Your Excellency's most obedient humble Servant,
J. H. MANDEVILLE.
To his Excellency Don Jose Antonino Vidal, &c. &c. &c.