"Malheur au siècle, témoin passif d'une lutte héroïque, qui croirait qu'on peut sans péril, comme sans pénétration de l'avenir, laisser immoler une nation." Chateaubriand....

The destructive war which has now been waged for so many years, by the Chief of the Province of Buenos Ayres against the Republic of Uruguay, involves questions of so much importance to the commercial interests, and to the national honour of England, that nothing can account for the very slight attention which it has received from Parliament and the press, except the fact that many of the principal considerations connected with it have never yet been fully brought before the British public. In o

Buenos Ayres, May 26th, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal ,—I have received your official letter of the 20th May, with the enclosure which you have had the goodness and frankness to communicate to me,—and also the two private letters of the same date, which you have done me the honour to write to me. I beg you to believe that I share with you all the disagreeableness of the suspense which the silence of the British Government to my despatches of the 4th December last causes to us both. To me it is only

Buenos Ayres, June 8th,1842. My dear M. de Vidal ,—Although I have not received any official answer to the proposals which I transmitted by your Excellency's desire to her Majesty's Government, on the 6th of December last, as a basis for the conclusion of a Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the Republic of the Uruguay, I am led to believe and know that they will not be accepted, for the reasons which I stated to your Excellency at the time these proposals were made to me—namely, that the accepta

Buenos Ayres, June 10th, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal ,—My Government has seen with regret that the results of my visits to Monte Video, in December and January last, was not concession of a Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between Great Britain and the Republic of Uruguay upon the footing proposed by my predecessor Mr. Hamilton, and subsequently by me, and I have been represented as not having been sufficiently urgent with your Excellency to conclude this treaty with me, and I have been bl

Buenos Ayres, June 18th, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal ,—The measures which I alluded to in my private letter to your Excellency of the 10th instant—that her Majesty's Government will take for the effectual protection of the Republic of Uruguay are a joint mediation of Great Britain and France, which I am formally to tender to the Buenos Ayrean Government, upon the arrival of the French Minister here, Baron de Lurde, to adjust the difference between Monte Video and Buenos Ayres. I did not acquaint y

Buenos Ayres, June 24th, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal, —I have received your two most amiable and friendly letters of the 18th and 20th instant; it is needless for me to tell you the delight and gratification which they have procured to me. I have little more to add to my acknowledgement of the receipt of these letters, as I shall so very soon have, God willing, the satisfaction of seeing you, except to renew to my heartfelt thanks for their contents, which only serve to increase the sentiments of

Buenos Ayres, June 25th, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal, —Would you have any objections to have the treaty copied immediately? I have motives so strong not for coming back to Buenos Ayres, but for being able to return at the moment when it becomes necessary, that I should impart them to you, which I cannot well by this conveyance. I will answer for your concurrence with me in this desire to be ready, at a moment's notice, to come back here. Another motive, which is a very secondary one, and that is,

Buenos Ayres, August 18th, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal, —I had the greatest pleasure in receiving your friendly letter, without date, which was accompanied by an official note brought to me by M. le Comte de Lurde, to which you require an answer. If you will weigh the contents of this note, you will find that it is impossible that I can answer it in any other way, than has done the French Plenipotentiary by that of acknowledging the receipt of it. In the first place, no formal tender of mediation

Buenos Ayres, August 25th, 1842. My M. de Vidal, —I have to thank you for your letter of the 15th instant, and for the information you gave me in it with regard to Ellauri's proceedings in London, and to the assurances made to him by Lord Aberdeen of his determination to put an end to the war. His, M. Ellauri's project of a treaty rather surprises me, considering that he was unauthorized by you to propose it, but I suppose Republican Ministers take upon themselves a little more in their negotiat

Buenos Ayres, October 19th, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal, —I received by the last packet a letter from Mr. Hood, a part of which I will communicate to you, as I think it right that you should be literally and truly informed of what is going at the Foreign Office, in London, between Lord Aberdeen and M. Ellauri, on the subject of negociation, with respect to a treaty of commerce. Mr. Hood says "I am employed modifying the treaty and talking Ellauri into acquiescence to our views. Yesterday, (August

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 ac

Buenos Ayres, September 2nd, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal ,—I had not time, before the departure of the packet, to answer your private letter of the 24th ult., and now keep my promise made to you in my letter of the 25th ult., of replying to it. I must first begin by telling you that, some days before the packet sailed, Count de Lurde and I made the formal tender of the mediation in the manner presented to me by my instructions with which I made you acquainted when I was last at Monte Video. I told

Buenos Ayres, December 23rd, 1842. My dear M. de Vidal ,—I received this morning your private letter of the 20th,—after thanking you for it, I have little to add, except that Count de Lurde and I have received an answer to our note, demanding an armistice, stating that a demand of this nature, menacing as it does the Argentine Confederation, requires time for consideration before a reply can be given. In the meantime, I trust that the step which I and the French Minister have taken will in no ma

Buenos Ayres, 24th December, 1842. My Dear M. de Vidal ,—I took the liberty, when I sent you a copy of our note to this Government, demanding a cessation of hostilities, to beg the favour of you not to make it public. Communications of this nature are not intended at the time to be made public. If I had intended that Mr. Dale should have a copy of it, I would have sent one to him; but copies have been given—for the commander of the Fantome has written a letter to me of complaint, that I had not

Buenos Ayres, January 12th, 1843. My dear M. de Vidal ,—My thanks for your letter of the 28th ult. in answer to mine of the complaints of the captain of the Fantome. It was perfectly satisfactory. I have received a despatch from Lord Aberdeen, acquainting me that the Vidal and Ellauri treaties are under the consideration of her Majesty's Government, and that he will not fail by next packet to communicate to me the result of their deliberations. The under Secretary of State writes me that the lat

My dear M. de Vidal ,—When I received M. Gelly's official letter, upon the entry of Oribe's troops into the Banda Oriental, I was myself too unwell to thank you for your letter of the 28th ult. on the subject of your resignation, and too sad and discouraged by it at the idea of your retirement from office at the present moment. But now I see by the Nacional of the 3rd that you have nobly decided upon still retaining the Foreign and Home Departments, I am as anxious to congratulate you and your c

Ytapua, September 26th, 1842. Having arrived safely at this town on the 20th instant, I forwarded, on the same evening, a despatch to the Government of this Republic with my passports soliciting the necessary license for myself and my companions to continue our journey to Assumption. By the same opportunity I forwarded to the Consuls of the Republic the despatch with which I was charged by your Excellency. The answer from the Consuls reached me yesterday afternoon, and with it I have received, f

Assumption, September 23d, 1842. The undersigned supreme Government has received the estimable note of his Excellency the President of the Oriental Republic of the Uruguay, dated the 1st of August last, informing this Government of the visit of George J. R. Gordon, Esq., and his companion recommended by his Excellency to this Government, who therefore assure his Excellency that nothing is more gratifying to them than to accept the recommendation his Excellency has been pleased to direct, for the

The Senate and Chamber of Representatives of the Oriental Republic of the Uruguay, united in General Assembly, have resolved on the following...

Art. 1.—It is granted to Mr. John Halton Buggeln to hold the exclusive privilege of navigating with ships propelled by steam or other mechanical power, in the ports and on the rivers of the Republic, during the period of twelve years from the time of the arrival of those ships at the port of Monte Video, under the conditions and restrictions to be expressed in the following articles; reckoning the arrival of the first steam-vessel at twenty months after the sanction of this project, save in case