The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-03 00:00:00

120

pleased with his tribute to the memory of an
ornament of his own profession, in which
talent and character will find surer rewards
than genius often gains when it worships the
Muses.

Brazil, the River Plate, and the Falkland Islands;

with the Cape Horn Route to Australia, ac.
By William Hadfield. London Longmans.
MR. HADFIELD'S book is partly a narrative of
travel, partly a compilation, the latter charac-
ter preponderating. He relies rather on other
men's testimony than on his own experience ;
but, possessing much personal knowledge of
the countries described, he is qualified to
weigh evidence, and select from former writers
such passages as best illustrate the state of
South American society. As a guide-book we
know no work superior to his ; and it has the
merit of condensation to a remarkable degree.
The style is not particularly pleasing, but it is
unaffected. The only critical fault which we are
disposed to find is the unnecessary amount of
space given to details respecting Portugal and
Madeira, both too well known to require farther
description. Mr. Hadfield's sketches of Brazil,
the valley of the Amazon, La Plata, and Para-
guay are all excellent; the matter they contain
being far too varied to allow of our doing more
than giving a sample here and there. Here is
a notice of Rosas, his government and charac-
ter, quoted from the hostile testimony of
General O'Brien :
Bow is known to me for five-and•twenty years. For his
early education he was indebted to Maza, afterwards presi-
dent of the Buenos Ayres Congress. His calling in life
was that of a " capataz," or care-taker of the property of
his relatives, the Anchorenas, and this brought him into
constant intercourse with the wild Indian tribes of the
Pampas. He ingratiated himself greatly with these tribes,
for he not only conformed himself to their habits, but he
also won the favour of their Caciques by presents, judi-
ciously distributed amongst them. This was his state of life
until 182 I, when the influence of his kinsmen, the Ancho-

rams, obtained for him the lieutenant-colonelcy of the
militia of the frontiers of the Indian territory. It was then,
and not till then, that he appeared as a soldier. It was to
aid Martin Rodriguez in a successful revolution ; but, once
the victory of his friend had been secured, he again retired
to the Pampas,
.put himself in contact with the Patagonian
and Pampa Indians, and thus added to his popularity and
his influence amongst that savage race of men. Roses
maintained his friendly relations with the Indians until the
civil war, in 1829, in Buenos Ayres. In that war the Pre.
sident Borrego was shot by Lavalle, and Rosas at once be.
came the head of the party of I)orrego. With the death of
Dorrego commence the calamities of that part of the world.
The conduct, the bearing, and the demeanour of Rosas
were such as to obtain for him universal approbation. He
gained in his favour the opinions of the good whilst he was
concocting schemes for winning the bad. He left the
society of civilised men, and again repaired to the Indians.
It was under his auspices, it has since been discovered,
that the Indians were incited to attack the property of
those who were civilised; and their hostility was especially
directed by Roam against all whom he believed would be ca-
pable or disposed to resist his attempts of possessing himself
of despotic power. He established a camp which had all the
privileges of a sanetaary for every malefactor of every dis•
trict, from Buenos Ayres to Upper Peru and the Cordilleras
of the Andes. His protectorate of crime was not avowed,
bat it was actively exercised. It shielded the criminal
from the punishment of man, and it won impunity by the
perpetration of new atrocities upon all who were suspected
by Rosas. Between 1829 and 1833 Rosas laid the founda-
tion for that despotism which he has since exercised. The
means he employed were worse even than the object itself,
for they consisted in " the organisation of a band of aims.
sins."

It is alleged that the Dictator maintained in
his employ a band of bravoes, whose sole duty
was to execute his vengeance on obnoxious
persons, native or foreign. By these was per-
petrated the murder of the Kidd family (Eng-
lish) some ten years back. They numbered
nine persons, of all ages; had not interfered
in polities ; and were found dead one morning,
with marks of violence On their bodies, the
corpses ranged in order, and their property
untouched. This deed was openly boasted of
as done by the orders of Rosas, though the
intervention of the British Minister compelled
him to disavow it, and even to offer a reward
for the discovery of the offenders. This san-
guinary Government has done, according to
our author, little or nothing for the people :
The name of Roses has been so long identified with
Buenos Ayres that you no sooner find yourself within the
recent sphere of his undisputed and unquestioned domina-
tion than you naturally ask, where exist the monuments of
his activity and the proofs of his successful promotion of
the interests of this his dependent capital ? Beyond a
large town residence, Which he built for government pur-
posse, oountry residence, called Palermo, and n mole
oesetruoted in !trout of the sea, there is nothing to mark the