The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-02 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 2, 1847.

CHARGED WITH THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE

RIVER PLATE QUESTION.

Monte Video, July 20, 1847.
My Lord,—Relying on the courteous and impartial atten-
tion which, from my own experience, I know to be charac-
teristic of the class to which you belong in your own coon-
try, I resume the correspondence which I had yesterday the
honour of commencing.
" General Oribe," says your note of the 15th, " accepted
this armistice, not only with the condition imposed, but in a
manner by which the title he assumes of legal president
should not be presented in signature, so as to incapacitate
the plenipotentiaries of England and France afflaing their
names to the document." I conceive, my lord, that it will
everywhere be looked upon with astonishment that you
should have brought to mind, in a document of such a
formal nature as your aforesaid note, a circumstance so com-
paratively trifling as that relative to Don Manuel Oribe's
title. No one could consider it in the light of a concession,
the less so when the matter treated of was simply an
armistice ; which, as I had the honour of pointing out to
you yesterday, is nothing more than a military nonvention,
for the adjustment of which the title of general-in-chief of
the army was amply sufficient. But, on the other hand, it
is not probable that Don Manuel Oribe will thank you for
having declared that the plenipotentiaries of England and
France could not, in their official capacity, have affixed their
names te any document where Oribe's signature appears in
the character he assumes of legal president.
But this is by no means the serious or important part of
the paragraph which I have quoted from your note. You
state in it, that " General Oribe accepted the armistice with
the condition imposed." Allow me, my lord, to ex-
press the grief with which I find that your memory
has been, on an occasion of so much importance,
unfaithful to the wishes with which I am bound to believe
you animated, and to the impartiality which it is compulsory
to presume in your official conduct. General Oribe, coy
Lord Howden, did not accept the armistice with the condition
proposed by you. The documents he has just published in
his Defenaor, form on this head a contrast with your note
of the 15th, which I trust will be duly valued here as well
as in your own country, and wherever it becomes known. It
is a very lucky circumstance forme to be able to present these
documents by the side of your note. They show, my lord,
that General Oribe rejected a part of your proposals,—that
part precisely which would have given to the armistice some
faint shadow of equity. The 3rd article of your proposals
contained the conditionthat there should be free intercourse
between the town and the country. General Oribe peremp-
torily refused assent to this essential part ; and you know,
my lord, with what pertinacity. His official journal asserts
that he refused it for reasons which you considered well-
founded. It appears to me evident that you could not then com-
prehend what those reasons signified. What I had yesterday
the honour of stating to you with regard to the commerce of
Monte Video and the country, will clearly show you that
those reasons, which you considered well founded, had for
their only object to secure exclusively to the port of the
Hume the whole of that commerce which, in cue the free
communication between the town and the country had been
permitted, as you proposed, would have come in a great
measure to Monte Video : so placing the belligerent parties
on a somewhat more equitable and equable footing.
As it is, General Oribe refused his assent to that meet im-
portant condition ; and the facts which he himself has pub.
tithed authorise me, my lord, to Mate that you made use of
no threats to compel him to accept it, nor did you think of
taking any steps to make him repent of his refusal. Can
you, with a tranquil conscience, say that you acted in a like
manner with the government of Monte Video? The most strict
impartiality is the primary qualification for every mediator ;
nay more, it is the only one which can give him a claim
to the confidence of the two partial whom he is desirous of
reconciling. Your office, my lord, was that of a mediator.
Don Manuel Oribe's official paper—a copy of which I have
the pleasure of presenting you—has made public all the steps
you took with him, in order to obtain an armistice. Can you
show, mediating minister, that you took any analogous steps
with the government of this republic? No, my lord, you'
cannot. You proposed confidentially to the government an
armistice, not with the conditions which you had offered to
Don Manuel Oribe, bat with those which he had chosen to
accept : the government, in refusing its consent, did not re-
fuse it to equitable proposals of the mediators, but to the re-
fuse of those offered to General Oribe, after they had been
despoiled by him of that part which was most favourable to
Monte Video. In so doing the government did nothing but
exercise the same right its enemy had already exercised.
Nevertheless, my lord, you, who had taken no steps to com-
pel General Oribe to submit to your proposals, break through
the compacts of your government with that of this republic,
and raise the blockade of the ports of its enemies, simply be-
cause this government would not submit to conditions which
were not even yours, but those of Don Manuel Oribe ! . .
Is this, my lord, what the British government and parlia-
ment understand by fair and honourable ? Is this, again,
what the English people—in that language so hard and ener-
getic, which suits so admirably their character—understand
by those words fair and honourable ? The grief which I re-
mark amongst your countrymen, the sorrow with which 1
behold them costing to the ground those faces which ere-
while they used to carry so loftily, bear me out in saying no.
Although the refusal of the armistice by this government
is the only motive you give in your letter to Don Manuel
Oribe, to account for the determination you have adopted,
your note to Commodore Sir Thomas Herbert intimates two
other reasons totally distinct from the former; end which,
according to the place you have 'given them, appear as the
I principal and immediate.
"As I consider," you say, " first that the Orientals of
Monte Video are not at this moment free agents, but en-
tirely controlled by a foreign garrison ; and, secondly, that
the blockade, having entirely lost its original character of a
coercive measure against General Roms, has become exclu-
sively a mode of supplying with money, partly the govern-
ment of Monte Video, &c , &c. . . . I hereby request
you, sir, to raise the blockade," &c., dte.
First of all, my lord, permit ma to ask you—How did you
become aware that "the Orientals of Monte Video are not

gab free siesta," and the rest that you state hz
yYaes the novonuaent of this republic ? Yea
=Sober tblerffit_same Sour or Ave hours, and in so
short a tapsillllltt br you to have studied its si-
tuation ; die Via se, whim pea even kept aloof from yea
persona wM odd have expildiald it to you. It is, thereinto,
conclusive the dr data aped
-which your opinion has bus
formed must bays bean so to you away from Meats
Video ;either is Buenos le the Cerrito, or ea beard
that vessel of your sovereigkeildels you have chowsse your
residence, although you might ban found in Monte Vida •
society quite as cultivated, at hest, as that actually exist's.
in Buenos Ayres, which you so familiarly frequented. Is
those three places alone can you have acquired the data whit&
have led you to form the opinion expressed in your note of
the 15th. But your judgment,any lord, your penetration es
a man of business, ought to have shown you that, in UK=
three places, you could only obtain the information of OM
party ; that you were surrounded by partisans, or melees
friends of the Dictator of Buenos Ayres, from whom dispas-
sionate or impartial information could not be eapected.
If anything I could say, in order toconrince you that your
good faith has been deceived, could give me soy hopes of
good result, there still being time for you to retrace your
steps, believe me, my lord, nothing would be euier for me
than to show the free action of the Orientals who defend
Monte Video, and of the government presiding over them. It
would,perhaps, be sufficient to mention a fact which recently
occurred in your own presence. It would be enough to
point out to you, in the official papers of Buenos Ayres and
-Miguelete, that the nomination of General Garibaldi—with
whom, by the by, I learn with pleasure you expressed a
desire to become acquainted, and whom you received politely
—to be commander-inalaief of the army, is repeatedly
' *a be a most positive proof that the
--nt sad

armed to be a rm.. prom . government _
the Orientals; are under the control of foreigners. Well, my
lord, General Garibaldi was replaced• few days afterwards in
that path] Colonel Villagran, an Oriental officer, without
the armed foreigners in the least degree impeding
the free action you deny this government to possess, without
the least appearance of that coercion which you allege as a
rincipal motive of your conduct. Let us, my lord, be
logical : if the naming of General Garibaldi was a proof that
the free action of the government was controlled, the sub-
stitution of that officer by an Oriental must be admitted as a
proof of the contrary. I could furnish many other facts like
this: but what effect will they produce, my lord ? It is now
too late ; your die is cast.
" The blockade," you say, " has lost its primitive character
of a coercive measure against General Roses." Such is the
fact, my lord. But who could possibly expect the cough
quence that you have deduced from this fact ? The gorses-
meat of your sovereign ordered this blockade with a clearly
defined object, of which I shall presently have the
honour to remind you: if those charged with its exe-
cution altered its character, by permitting its relaxation,
the natural, the logical, conclusion would have been to re-
store its primitive character by making it more strict, so
al to obtain the end for which it was established. But to
assert, as your note substantially doe., "it is my duty to carry
on properly a blockade, but I raise it because I execute it
badly, I must confess, my lord, appears to me but very poor
logic. Permit me, however, to state that this is not the
worst. You give as reasons for raising the blockade and
discontinuing the intervention of your forces: Ist, the coer-
cion to which you suppose the Orientals are subjected; and'
2nd, the alteration in the character of the blockade. But,
supposing, my lord, that 1/on Manuel Oribe, instead of
having, as you affirm, accepted the armistice, had refused it,
as completely as the Dictator Roses refused your propositions
for peace, such a refusal would in no degree have modified
the two fact, which you allege as motives for your conduct
just as much coerced would the Orientals have been, and
the blockade just as much relaxed, with General Oribe's ac-
ceptance of the armistice as without it ; so that, according
to your own method of reasoning, you would have had ex.
actly the same motives for raising the blockade and retiring
ia the one cue as in the other.

Oa referring to the instructions which the Earl of Aber-
deen gave to Mr. Ouseley, dated 20th February, 1845, 1 find
that the government of your sovereign entertained hopes
that the conduct of the Dictator Roses would not render it
necessary to have recourse to the blockade of the port of
Buenos Ayres. " The objects," he adds, " which they have
immediately in view—the restoration of peace and a tran-
quil government to the republic of the Uruguay—the re-
moval of pressure from its capital end the re-opening of its
ports to foreign trade—may be effected without any such
measure; but her Majesty's government do not conceal
from themselves that circumstances may force them to take
the step ; and, should all other efforts to induce General
Rotas to abandon the cause of General Oribe, and to con-
clude a peace, fail, you are authorised to suggest its adeption
to your French colleague."
Mr. Ouseley's efforts failed, just as your own, my lord,
have failed. Then the measure of the blockade was resorted
to. Your government solemnly approved it; and through
the medium of the London Gazette, their official organ, noti
fled it to the world. This blockade, my lord, is the same
you have found existing : the immediate objects for which
it was established are those you rind expressed in Lord Aber.
deen'a instructions, according to which it should not have
been raised, except on obtaining the re-establishment of
peace; yet you have raised it without having obtained it,
when General Row consented to abandon the cause
of General Oribe, and you have raised it when he has
declared to you that he will not abandon it, when
the actual pressure was removed from Monte Video,
and you have raised it, my lord, not only before such
pressure was removed, but trying precisely to justify your
act upon that very pressure—the government's being with-
out money and without credit. It is really astonishing.
The difficulties of Monte Video were amongst the motives
which Induced your government to establish the blockade,
until they were removed ; and these same difficulties are
now the motives for your raising it, increasing them.
I afterwards refer to the joint note which Messrs. Def-
faudia and Ouseley addressed to the government of this re-
public, on the 4th of August, 1846, and I find that " the ob-
ject of their mission was what is indicated in the treaties of
1828 and 1840 ; that is to say, the perfect and absolute inde-
pendence of the republic of the Uruguay. But, in order
that this independence should exist, it is necessary that the
troops, the squadron, and with them all Argentine in-
fluence, disappear from the country." On these bases, and
for these ends, the two plenipotentiaries required the sincere
co-operation of the government, and they did not hesitate in
demanding the solemn assurance of its sincere adhesion.
Solemnly and sincerely was it ainn by this government, in
its official reply of the 6th of the same month ; and I cannot
my lord, do you the injustice of believing that you doubt
that, from that time, a solemn compact was concluded for
mutual co-operation, in bringing about the above-men-
tioned objects.
Now, however, you withdraw that co-operation in which
the name of your government was pledged to that of
this republic, without this government having violated its
promise' ; you withdraw, leaving in the Oriental territory
the Argentine troops and the influence of Rosas supreme ;
and instead of endeavouring to obtain the retirement of
those troops, you raise the blockade of all the ports, through
which they can obtain supplies, and, augment, if needful,
their forces.

I am sorry, my lord, that the limits to which I am com-
pelled to reduce my letter will not permit my explaining to
you as folly as I could hive wished, the guarantees you have
obtained from Don Manuel Oribe. I can only say that the
9th article of his acceptation of the bases brought by Mr.
Hood, to which his letter alludes, has special reference to
the Bth article ; and this only grants amnesty and guarantees
from the date of his acceptance. The official journal of the
Miguelete has categorically explained this phrase, asserting
that the confiscations previous to the acceptation would still
exist. I cannot any longer, my lord, trespass upon your
attention. Permit me to close this letter by expressing some
doubts which probably are entertained by all parties. Roam
has rejected your proposals for peace; in consequence, you
have broken off all negotiations with him, as you
announced to your own countrymen, and immediately
left Buenos Ayres; you, nevertheless, have ordered the
demotion of the only hostility which your country carried on
against Row, and you have withdrawn all ulterior interven-
tion. What more would you have done had the dictator
accepted your propositions, and concluded a definitive
arrangement? Is Great Britain now in the habit of sending
extraordinary envoys instructed to act is the same manner
whether they are successful or unsuccessful ? Another doubt,
my lord : in what political situation have your countrymen
'at Buenos Ayres been left ? In peace or in war ? The first
does not appear likely, as you yourself announced the nego-
tiations for peace broken off; nor the second either, since
you have ordered the ceasing of all further hostility.
Without venturing, my lord, to ask you to resolve these
doubts, I have only wished to present them to your con.
sideration; and I have the honour of renewing the assur-
ances of my being your most obedient servant, THE PRIN-
CIPAL EDITOR OP THE " COMERCIO DE LA PLATA."

H.M.S. Raleigh, off Monte Video, July 21, 1847.
Sit,—l have received, through the medium of your jour-
nal, two letters addressed to me. You will naturally excuse
a person in my position from entering into a disquisition
upon what I conceive, right or wrong, to be my duty; but,
as these letters are written in a gentlemanlike style, in per-
fect good taste, and in that fair and legitimate tone of dis-
elusion to which the acts of a public servant are justly
►menable, I can nature you that I have reed them with that
consideration to which they have an undoubted claim.—l
have the honour to remain, sir, your faithful servant,
HO NVDEN.—To the editor of the Comercio de la Plata, Monte
Video.