Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

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.