The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-08 00:00:00

TIIE PENNSYLVANIA PEACE SOCIETY.

The Pennsylvania Peace Society have been holding their
third annual meeting. A committee has waited upon the
Spanish Consul and the United States Marshal urging the
strict observance of the Neutrality Laws in reference
to Cuban vessels. They have also interested
themselves in the negotiations with tho Indians,
end rejoice to see a peace policy adopted. In conse-
quence of the- State action respecting the Militia Law and
the Militia Tax Bills, the society have printed and circu-
lated the following passage from the Bill of Rights for
the benefit of those who hold conscientious scruples about
war :—" No human authority can in any case what-
ever control or interfere with the rights of conscience."
The difficulties with the miners and the abolition of
capital punishment aro the principal social topics to which
the society are now directing their attention. A letter
from Father Hyacinthe, who had been invited to be pre-
sent, was read at the meeting. Regretting his absence, he
said : " America, which knows how to snake war so glo-
riously when war is necessary, has, however, for her
constant ideal, Peace in labour, in liberty, and is
Christianity. May she be faithful to this motto, and
the future grandeur of the world will be hers."

PARAGUAY.

(From the Angle-American Times.)

Before Congress adjourned a Sub-Committeeof the
Foreign Affairs Committee was appointed to investi-
gate the charges brought against American officers
occupying high official posts in Paraguay. There was
the former American Minister there, WASHBURN ;
his successor, APMAHON ; Admiral DAVIS, com-
manding in the South Atlantic ; the gentlemen
whom Mr. WASHBURN calls his inquisitors, Capt.
kIRKLAND, who commanded the Wasp, once the only
United States war vessel on the Paraguay, and
Captain RAMSAY, who held another command under
the Admiral. Then there were BLISS and MASTER-
MAN, attaches of the Embassy, under Minister
WASHBURN; and, finally, there was Gen. W EBB,
Ambassador to Brazil, whose testimony alone fills
a large-sized volume, and as those gentlemen were
all at daggers drawn the work of the Sub-Commit-
tee has been no light task. LOPEZ is the standard
around which the battle is waged. One side is led
by the ex- Minister, M'AlAnoN, to rescue and to
uphold the Dictator. Admiral DAVIS backs this
Minister, as do the naval officers. On the other side
in fierce attack is ex-Minister WAsunuaN, who is
supported by the testimony of Messrs. BLISS and
MASTERMAN, and we are bound to add by the ge-
neral evidence of the foreigners who have escaped
out of the Dictator's clutches. Viewing the position
of each party, so as to obtain an idea of the value. of
the conflicting evidence, it is clear that the 'WASH-
BURN side has had a disagreeable insight behind the
scenes. As U. S. Minister, Mr. WASHBURN re-
sided in Paraguay nearly a year for every mouth
Gen. M'MAHoN remained there. BLISS and Mas-
TERMAN were tortured, and only escaped death by
the stern demand of the United States for their
surrender. The Minister himself declares that no-
thing but the timely arrival of the Wasp saved him
from a like fate. Hence both lengthened residence
and an actual experience give a weight to the evi-
dence of. the WASHBURN party, which is wanting on
the other side. Grant, as all must, that LOPEZ was a
despot, that his will was law in Paraguay, he could
make affairs assume a theatrical aspect to those whom
he desired to hoodwink. It was above all things
necessary for him thus to hoodwink General
M'MAHON, and although a more difficult task by
far than .to hoodwink the Admiral and his officers,
who only paid an occasional visit to his lines, yet
it is possitle that he succeeded both with the diplo-
matic and the naval officers. The sympathy of the
world goes with a gallant race Eke the Paraguayans
in their struggle against a foreign invasion, and the
world, which sees nothing of the machinery by
which the ship of State is moved, perceives in LOPEZ
the indomitable leader of a devoted nation. Hence
the sympathies of the world have been with him
and his people in what appeared an aggressive strug-
gle on the part of the great slave-holding Empire.
The stories of cowardice and cruelty related of
LOPEZ were in the first instance ascribed to the
malignity of the Allies, who had almost a mono-
poly of the news, to counteract the natural sym-
pathy of mankind. As evidence, however, began
to accumulate against the Dictator, he gradually
lost the character of romance, wherein he had before
been shrouded, and to come out in his naked defor-
mity. Still people are slow to believe that so despic-
able a creature as he is represented to be could have
commanded the affections of his people to the death ;
and this has always been the stumbling-block in our
way against an overwhelming weight of testimony.
The Report about to be submitted to Congress will
perhaps explain this puzzle, and place LOPEZ in his
true character before the world. But judging from
the scraps of testimony given by each side, it is
clear the sub-committee will have to exercise acute
judicial discrimination to sift and to weigh the facts
which lead them to a conclusion. The two ex-
Ministers were permitted to cross-examine each
other, whether for the amusement or the instruc•
Lion of the committee, we cannot say ; but a dia-
logue, of what is termed a " spicy" character, was
the result, and judging from the long letter pub-
lished in the Tribune from Mr. IV.AsunuRN, we
conclude that his habit is to call a spade a spade,
and other things in the same unmistakeable man-
ner. If that gentleman would accept an opinion
from us, .we would advise when he next writes, a
plain statement of facts, free from all vituperation,
which weakens his argument, for it leavrs the im-
pression on the reader's mind of a bitter personal
dislike in the writer, from which men always deduce
an unfair treatment of the subject. Freed from
this, his letter is forcible in its condemnation of the
despot. Mr.WAsununx from beginning to end asserts
the conspiracy to have been concocted by LOPEZ to
enable him to appropriate the prope. ty of others,
principally foreigners, and to get rid of his enemies.
The Government of Paraguay has been from 1811
the most absolute and despotic in the world. LOPEZ
aspired to the dignity of Emperor, and he himself
told WAsiißmi that he was encouraged by Brazil

to assume the purple. He hoped that Don ...VEDEO,
when acknowledging him as his friend and brother,
would give his second daughter to share the throne.
He intended to enlarge his territory by making ac-
quisitions from the Argentine Republic, but greatly
to his mortification he learned through the new.-
papers, in 1864, that the daughters of the Brazilian
EMPEROR were to be married to the grandsons of
Louis PHILIPPE. It was then that his mistress, Mrs.
LiNen, the wife of a surgeon of the French Army,
whom he had picked up in Paris seventeen years
before, tozk up the Imperial design, anticipating the
succession for her son by Lorcz, and 6he is to be
held responsible for much of the Dictator's cruelty.
His Brazilian Majesty would sooner have entrusted
his daughter—Mr. WASHBURN'S words are —" to
a buck allgator in the river ;" and when made
aware of the estimation in which the Royal person-
age of South America held him, this champion of
Republicanism commenced the war without notice
in a manner so savage, so defiant of international
law, that Brazil could never treat with him without
deserving the contempt of the world. Mr. WASH-
BURN did not know what had caused the bitter hos-
tility of LOPEZ till months after he had left Para-
guay. It is thus he accounts for it :

" When after the war had lasted for more than two years,
and LOPEZ found that the Allies would never treat with
him; that at whatever sacrifice, to themselves they would
not tolerate the existence, as the head of a neighbouring
nation, a despot who respected no laws, human or divine,
he saw that, without the intervention of some foreign
Power, he must finally be overthrown. In this stress he
learned, to his great relief, that the United States had
offered its mediation. This offer was rejected by the
Allies, and, though I obeyed my instructions so implicitly
as to provoke unstinted abuse of mo by the Allies, yet
LOPEZ from that time became my bitterest enemy. He
thought that I should have had both the will and the
power to Wince my Government to espouse his cause, and
by active intervention rescue him from the desperate
situation into which his own folly and ambition had led
him. But as I had neither the will nor tho power, he
was from that time accustomed, especially in his maudlin
fits, to abuse me in the most gross and indecent terms.
He did not allow this to appear, however, in his official
relations, and I only learned of it long afterwards."

Captain KIRKLAND had testified before the Com-
mittee that Mrs. W ASHB URN, at the dinner table on
board the Wa.cp, after the escape from Ascuncion,
acknowledged that there had been a conspiracy to
set up BENIGN° LOPEZ in place of his brother. Mr.
WASHBURN, at this, frowned at the lady, and glances
were exchanged between the other gentlemen. All
this is bluntly denied, and throughout it is as-
serted that there never was a conspiracy, and that
there is no evidence whatever that any such conspi-
racy existed. Mr. WASHBURN reviews the evidence
in support of his assertion that LOPEZ was the
greatest monster that the American Continent ever
produced, and it will be found difficult to set asi:le the
testimony. Nevertheless the circumstances are
peculiar, awl no man, of any age in the world, ever
went through such a terrible trial as that endured by
LOPEZ and his people with clean hands. It appears,
however, certain that LOPEZ killed his brothers,
tortured his sisters, and tortured and murdered not
only many of his near relatives, but numerous fo-
reigners, as well as the best of his own people about
his person. A peaceful, induArious community of
800,000, with a country on which plenty smiled, he
reduced to a mutilated, stricken, starving band of
100,000, occupying the mountains ef a desolated laud.
Why did he do this ? Mr. WASHBURN replies, to
further his perioual schemes of aggrandisement, of
ambition; the supporters of LOPEZ deny this and
say, iu repelling the aggression of the domineering
slave power, which desires to overrun all South Ame-
rica. On the true answer will hinge the estimate his-
tory forms of the Dictator's character; latitude will
be given for excesses in the man who had so hard a
part to play ; and the very fact that the evidence is
so conflicting shows that there are two sides to the
despot's character, for there is as little doubt of the
honesty of Gen. M'AIAHoN iu the opinion he has
formed as of that held by Mr. WAstinußN. The
latest news from Paraguay says :—" LOPEZ is at
San Joaquin, and, it is rumoured, has murdered his
mother and brother for conspiring against his life."