Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton
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with the view of arranging the Hopkins and Waterwitch afi*airs. That officer left at Buenos
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Aires the squadron which had conveyed him : its presence in the port caused no little alarm till General Urquiza, then Provisional Director of the Republic, repaired to Asuncion and lent his influence in satisfactorily disposing of all dif- ferences. On February 4, 1.859, another treaty, superseding that of 1853, was concluded between the United States and Paraguay, and soon afterwards it was decided that the claims of Mr. Hopkins were null and void.
Some annoyance was also caused in France by the treat- ment of her subjects settled in Paraguay. A contract, signed at Bordeaux, created a colony, hence called Nueva Burdeos, and the emigrants were located at '^ Gran Potrero del Cerro."'^ This ill-selected ground is on the right bank of the Paraguay, exposed to malarious influences, to the attacks of the Gran Chaco " Indians,^ and, worse still, to the hostility of the Paraguayan people and authorities. The attempt proved an utter failure : some of the unfortunate Frenchmen fled, others were imprisoned, and others lost their lives. Those who have received inducements to pane- gyrize the policy of President Lopez I. throw the blame upon the Armateurs,^^ who sent out unfit emigrants. The impartial will remember that the " fournisseur" and Juge de paix appointed to Nueva Burdeos, was the opponent of Mr. Gould, the accuser of Mr. Washburn, and the Grouchy of the Paraguayan Waterloo, M. Luiz Caminos, a name carrying with it no pleasant associations.
Paraguay had now taken her place amongst civilized peoples. In 1859, she ofi'ered her mediation between the Argentine Confederation and the Province of Buenos Aires, a mother and daughter that had been separated seven years. The reunion was compassed by the Convention of S. Jose de Flores. In 1860, President Lopez undertook negotiations with the Holy See, presenting two priests for episcopal ordination, one as titular of the diocese, the other as
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coadjutor. The consequence was the election of an old man, Mgr. J. Urbieta, Bishop of Corycium, in partibus.
On August 15, 1862, President Lopez I. named by a secret act (pliego de reserva) his eldest son Vice-President. He died aged sixty-nine, after a painful illness, on September 10, (Dr. Martin de Moussy says 7,) 1862 ; the body was embalmed ; a splendid service was performed over it in the cathedral of Asuncion, and in the church of La Trinidad, built by himself ; the first Paraguayan President was buried without monument.
Immediately after the death of the second '^ Supremo,^"* who had virtually ruled seventeen years, D. Francisco Solano Lopez took the usual precautions. He possessed himself of all his father^s papers, doubled the sentinels, supplied the streets with extra patrols, summoned the Ministry or Council of State, to whom he read the will appointing him Vice-President, and therefore acting Chief Magistrate, and ordered a national and electoral Congress to meet. His measures were so prudently laid that he was named, on October 16, 1862, without difficulty. President for ten years ; and he could boast that he was the chosen of the people, not an inheritor, nor one appointed by will. In 1863 the new ruler was congratulated by eleven Euro- pean Powers, and all, abroad and at home, believed that the enlightened General who had travelled in England and France would indulge Paraguay with a free Government.
There are idle tales that the elder Lopez preferred his Benjamin, Benigno, as less violent and ambitious than his eldest son : he is also reported to have predicted that if Francisco Solano ever became her ruler, Paraguay would rue the day. It is said that the preference of the old man for Benigno, whom he would gladly have seen, if he could, his successor to the Presidential chair, and heir to the bulk of his property, bred a fatal jealousy between the two brothers.
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Their aversion,, however, probably began as the result of mere incompatibility of character, and ended in absolute hatred. At the General Congress which elected his brother President, D. Benigno Lopez, it is said, openly joined those members who were opposed to the military government of the family becoming hereditary. It has also been asserted, and even official documents have been cited in proof, that the elder Lopez appointed a Triumvirate to direct the affairs of the nation, and that his first-born, aided by Padre Maiz, poisoned one of the three, and terrified the Congress into electing him their President. These are mere bolas,^^ and of a similar nature are reports that he was in 1853 an eleve exterieur of the Ecole Toly technique, that he was a fellow pupil of the Emperor of the Brazil, and that he served on the French staff before Sebastopol. He did, however, attend the naval school at Bio de Janeiro, and there are some doubts whether he did or did not aspire to the hand of the Princess Leopoldina of the Brazil.
From a very early age the actual President Lopez was entrusted by his father with high offices. As has been said, he was made General-in-Chief of the Army and Minister of War when quite a lad. In 1845"^ he began his career by commanding the Paraguayan Expeditionary Army that had been marched upon Corrientes, and in 1849 he pacified the lands between the Bivers Parana and Uruguay as far as Cuais. In 1854 he was sent to Europe in order to make personal acquaintance and treaty of amity with the several Courts. Some say that he acted like a Peter the Great, who studied all things, and who made the best use of his time, whilst others make him live the life of a man of pleasure. He came away with a feeling of aversion towards
Lieut.-Colonel Thompson says, in 1849 (" The War in Paraguay,'
Chap. I.).
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" La boutiquiere/^ whose language he understands, but can speak little, and who treated him as it did Mr. Secretary Seward, with her usual trick of neglect. On the other hand, he was delighted with France, and he learned French well. He keeps up his practice at home.
President Lopez II. rose to power a young man. His appearance is not unfavourable, though of late he has become very corpulent, after having been a slim and active youth. He is about 5 feet 7 inches in height, of bilious-nervous temperament, and darker than Spaniards, or even than the generality of his sallow- faced subjects, a brunet, without however any admixture of inferior blood. His hands and feet are small, and his legs are bandy with early riding. His features are some- what Indian, his hair is thick, and his beard, worn in the form which we once called " Newgate frilV^ is by no means so full and thick as his portraits show. These are taken, in fact, from the equestrian picture for which he sat in Paris, and which does not err by under-flattering. He still affects the white charger, and the Napoleonic grenadier boots and spurs, the rest of the toilette being a kepi, a frock coat, and a scarlet poncho with gold fringe and collar ; in fact, he has a passion for finery. Dignified in manner, he has a penetrating, impressive look, which shows the overweening pride and self-confidence that form the peculiar features of his character. He delights in curious intrigues, which may be called '^ dodges,^^ and which have been qualified by one of his employes as ^' inexplicable tan- trums.^^ This is doubtless a result of " Indian^' blood. The Marshal-President has not left pleasant reminiscences with diplomatists generally. On the other hand, English, French, and American naval officers agree in speaking highly of him. They repeatedly assert that he never asked them a question to which, as men of honour, they could
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not reply^ but that the same was not the case with all his entourage. He is a hon vivant, a gourmand, and a gourmet — fond of a song after dinner ; he rides well^ and there is no reason why he should not conduct a guerilla war. Mr.Wash- burn made him drink^ and supplied him with a diarrhoea — all fancy. He is fond of " chaflBng.^ An English second engineer sent him an impudent answer to a message^ and when summoned to his presence pointed at some object with his forefinger. The hand was at once struck down by the President^ with the remark^ ^' In England it is not manners to point V He addresses, a la Napoleon, jocular remarks in the Guarani tongue to his troops,, who receive them with the greatest delight and enthusiasm ; and, like the King of Dahome, he scolds his officers.
The courage of the unconquered Marshal/^ as he styles himself, is at best questionable. His panegyrists, like M. Felix Aucaigne,"^ call him the " Premier soldat du Para- guay .^^ His official