The Sun.
London, England, 1867-08-15 00:00:00

FRANCE AND BRAZIL

These 19rge families called nations have a right to
govern themselves, as their customs, character, and habits
arise; and to interfere with such is to violate a primordial
right.—JULES FATRE On Mexico.

The drama so sadly concluded in Mexico pro-
voked the above sentence from one of the ablest
jurist consults France possesses--a sentence which,
though standing good all over the world, will be
nowhere so much recognised as in America. A
people even so demoralised as the Mexicans are said
to be will rise up to a man to drive forth the
usurper, or the power imposed on them against
their own free will.

The truth of this maxim, so substantially proved
in Mexico, will find more than its parallel in the
war now raging for nearly four years in the river

Pla' e.

As yet no European Power has interfered in this
mighty struggle ; still it is the same principle of
monarchy trying to overrule and destroy, if possible,
the American principle of Republican Government.
Brazil, without any cause weighty enough to pro-
voke a conflict, has under the most trivial pretence
begun a war unequalled in the annals of the
American continent, if we except the late war of
the United States. What were the everlasting wars
and revolutions of all the Spanish American colonies
since the day of their independence compared to
the war in Paraguay ? Nothing but the war of
" Kites and Crows." Europe became so ac-
customed to see revolution follow revolution, ruler
follow ruler, that little or no notice was taken by
the commercial world, and very often the European
Powers were unaware with any degree of certitude
with the name of the chief magistrate to whom
their respective Alinisters had been sent.
Very distinct in its phases is the war which Brazil
is now waging against the republic of Paraguay.
Brazil and Paraguay, the only two stable Govern-
ments in South America, are yet fighting, although
the war has lasted over three years ; and
Brazil, like France in Mexico, has not only not
avenged her imaginary wrongs, but has spent the
lives of tens of thousands of her citizens, her trea-
sure and her credit, without having achieved any-
thing for which she commenced this so disastrous
struggle. Like France, Brazil began the. strife to
avenge alleged wrongs, and to receive satisfaction
for insults said t) have been given by Paraguay ;
but, like France, her real object, as known by the
secret treaty of the Triple Alliance, is to upset the
existing Government of Paraguay, and to replace
such with a Government of her own creation. But,

to judge from the past, Brazil will be as little suc-
cessful in Paraguay as France has been in Mexico.
When it became known that France desired to
change the form of Government in Mexico, her then
allies, England and Spain, retired from the conflict.
France was left alone, and might, perhaps, have
been able to avert for some lengthened period the
doom of Maximilian if the United States had not
stepped in. _ . .

Paraguay, in this respect, is not so fortunate as
Mexico, which, at the commencement of the
struggle, had three powerful enemies to face, but
found herself with only one to oppose in the field. '
Paraguay began with one, and found herself at-
tacked by three, as Brazil had allied herself with
the Argentine Confederatio❑ and the Republic of
Uruguay, to the great shame of these two States,
fighting side by side with Imperialists against their
sister Republic; but, be it well understood, it is only
the respective Governments of these two States that
are subservient to Brazilian influence and Brazilian
gold, and not the people, whose hatred for Brazil is
well known, and who clamour for peace with Para-
guay at any price. The same class of unprincipled,
ambitious, and discontented men that persuaded the
Emperor of France that his deputy Maximilian
would be received with open arms, the same
class have tried to prove to Brazil and her
allies the joy w ith which Paraguay would see the
downfall of its Government.

The far-sighted Emperor of the French was not
more deceived than the Emperor of Brazil, as both
are fully aware by this time. Not wit4tauclin that

Brazil has strained every nerve, and, regardless of
men and means, will find her inability to conquer
small but brave Paraguay.
Paraguay is satisfied with its Government and
institutions ; and, notwithstanding all the slander-
ing and false accounts rendered of her by her Im-
perial enemy, cheerfully sacrifices everything to
sustains its Government in the person of its Presi-
dent, Marshal Lopez.
If it be true that the Emperor of Brazil ever
dreamt to impose on the Paraguayans one of his
European sons-in-law, it is to be hoped, for his
Majesty's sate, he will take a timely warning from
Mexico.