The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-31 00:00:00

THE WAR IN PARAGUAY AND THE
FOREIGN OFFICE.

The mail from the Brazils and the River Plate,
via Bordeaux, has arrived, and we have only to re-
peat to-day what her Majesty's Minister, Mr.
Mathew, wrote in December, 1866, to the Foreign-
office, viz., " It will surprise your lordship to receive
from me what appears to be the usual monthly
bulletin, No news from the scat of war.' " This,
with very little change to the advantage of the
Allies, the Buenos Ayres Legation could have
written up to date with truth, but it seems
that the representative of her Majesty's Government
was not satisfied, and wanted more explicit news
as to what was going on at the seat of war. To
effect that the Secretary of Legation at Buenos
Ayres was sent. to Paraguay, the alleged purpose
being to free some English subjects held in Para-
guay against their will. The papers just laid before
Parliament " respecting hostilities in the River
Plate " are certainly curious documents. It can
scarcely be believed how hardly our Foreign-office is
served, how the feelings of our representatives are
biased, their views and ideas obscured, when
they ought to be only just and correct, and
what erroneous statements are made for the public to
swallow. Sune specimens of this we had last year,
when Mr. Watson wrote to Mr. Mathew from
Corrientes a statement of what he had heard and
seen, when he made President Lopez an " eleve
externe" " of the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris,
and who was subsequently present with the French
army in the Crimea"—that Lopez and Paraguay
had to give in, and were all but exhausted, and
the war would soon he at an end, aed the Allies at
Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. hew these
prophesies have been realized all know. Lopez
and Paraguay are as strong as ever, and if any one
shows signs of exhaustion it is the Allies and their
treasuries. This year's papers in relation to
the hostilities in the River Plate are written in the
same strain, besides containing a mass of misrepre-
sentations. It appears that a Doctor Fox had
written to Lord Stanley to help his son, a surgeon
in the Paraguayan service, to leave Paraguay, and
Lord Stanley wrote to Buenos Ayres to Mr. Mathew
to take the necessary steps to release Dr. Fox and
other British subjects desiring to leave Paraguay.
Mr. Gould, Secietary of Legation, went to Para-
guay in her Majesty's gunboat Doterel to obtain the
release of his countrymen, but did not succeed, as
Marshal Lopez stated that nearly all the English in
Paraguay were under contract with the Govern-
ment, mostly as engineers, well treated and well paid,
and had no wish to leave. But Mr. Gould insisted
that his countrymen wished to depart, though he
had no proof of this, as the parties most interested,
the English engineers and surgeons, never had ap-
plied for leave. Nor does it appear that Mr. Gould
had an opportunity of speaking to them. Six Eng-
lishmen only were in the camp of the 100 said to be
in Paraguay. Mr. Gould said he was afraid to
compromise these men, and the English themselves
feared to mention their grievance, dreading the
resident's irritable temper. It hardly can be believed
that out of so many Englishmen not one should
have pluck enough to come forward openly to state
his wish to leave the country. But even if it were
so, if their contract time had expired, under
the circumstances it would have greatly endangered
the position of Marshal Lopez to have sent into his
enemies' camp men who were well acquainted with
all his resources, positions, and movements. Most
of the English in Paraguay have been engaged as
military engineers and surveyors, and of course
knew what they were about ; and no complaint
should have been trumped up at this time to em-
barrass Marshal Lopez and his brave people,
who now for nearly three years had fought so cour-
ageously against such tremendous odds, reinforced
from Europe as well as from their own country,
and during which Paraguay was entirely thrown on
her own resources, shut out from the rest of the world.
Mr. Gould wishes it to appear that Lopez was
acting wrongly against his English employers. We
wonder what the Buenos Ayres Legation has done,
in so many cases brought to her notice of English
sailors having been induced to desert their ships,
and under false pretences have been taken to the
army ? Mr. Mathew, under date of the 27th of
November, 1866, wrote to Lord Stanley :—" I
am assured that a very considerable number of
British subjects so kidnapped are now in the Ar-
gentine army on the frontier of Paraguay." Pre-
sident Lopez complained to Mr. Gould, and, we
believe very rightly, that England had helped his
enemies, the Allies, contrary to the laws of neutrality,
with money, arms, and ships, and that thousands of
Englishmen were engaged in their army and
if his
dnavy.
Mr. Gould had the courage to deny this, saying
Government knew this they would hinder it. But
we all have seen or read in the public papers what
was said about the trial trips on the Thames of
steamers for the Brazilian navy, armed and
equipped in this port. The last loan was for war
purposes. Though all this was notorious, Mr.
Gould, it appears, did not know it ; but he tells us
of what iu reality he does not know. lie says, in
his really wonderful despatch to Mr. Mathew,
dated from the Paraguayan head-quarters at Patu
Pucci, Sept. 10th, 1867 :—" The whole country is
ruined, and all but depopulated. The cattle on most
of the estates has entirely disappeared. The slaves,
of whom there were 40,000 to 50,000, have been
emancipated, the males sent to the army, the females
-to work for the Government. The women have
been obliged to part with all their jewels and gold
ornaments, though this extreme measure has been
called a patriotic offering on their part ! The saga-
cious secretary found out this in the few days he
was at headquarters, in a country of which " no re-
liable information has been received since the ediu-

mencement of this protracted war," to . quote hi;
own words from the same despatch. But the in-
formation he gave to his Government we are called
to rely upon. Now, whom are we to believe—the
diplomat or the sailor ? The commander of her
Majesty's gunboat Doterel, which took Mr. Gould
to Curupaity, writes to his chief, Rear-Admiral
Ramsey, September 30, 1867 : " The troops
appeared in good health and spirits, and are an
extraordinarily fine race of men. They do not suffer
half the hardships reported. Large quantities of cattle
and sheep were in the camp." The 40,000 or 50,000
slaves Mr. Gould speaks of, certainly must be a mis-
print, and some zero has to be taken off. In the bal-
tniest days of slave trading there was not such a num-
ber of slaves in the River Plate, and certainly not in.
Paraguay. In Paraguay there are no slaves ; they
were emancipated by the first President of
Paraguay, Carlos Antonio Lopez, as long ago as the
year 1842, and in fact one of the first acts of

his administration. As to the women having been
forced to part with their jewels and gold ornaments,
for what purpose? Lopez wants no money, lie can
buy nothing, he has no market to go to like the
Brazilians. The offering of the women in Paraguay
of their jewels ou the altar of their country is
entirely in keeping with their heroic character, and
that of their fathers, brothers, and husbands ; but
that offer was not accepted by the President, as it.
was not needed. Why deny to a people what they
have so strongly proved, their love and devotion to
their country and their Government. Mr. Gould
treats us also to the description of the Paraguayan
army, which, according to him, only consists "of
about 20,000 men, of which at most 12,000 are
good troops, the rest boys from 12 to 14 years of
age, old men, and cripples ;" and, furthermore, that
" the men are worn out with exposure, fatigue, and
privations," and that they are actually " droop-
ing down from inanition." Please look at this
picture of the Paraguayan army and that
painted by Commander Michell of the Doterel.
Besides defending the two strong fortresses of
llumaita and Curupaity, the Paraguayan army has
also to defend a line of 15 miles of fortification,
according to Mr. Gould, and all this with 12,000
men and 8,000 boys, and to keep in check the
Allies 50,000 strong. Certainly Mr. Gould has
paid, although unwillingly,' a great compliment to
this Paraguayan army and its renowned chief. Up
to this day's news the Paraguayans have not
moved back one inch, but kept their ground
successfully for over 18 months. Mr. Gould
also furnishes a list of persons who died during
the war, but does not say if they Mere the
victims of disease or by the epidemics brought
to Paraguay by the Allies or killed. But he wishes
us to believe that the war was the reason of their
untimely death. As to those living, we are told,
they are well treated, but will leave, and the
examples are Dr. Fox, Dr. Stewart, and Mr.
Valpy. Dr. Stewart is married to a very wealthy
Paraguayan lady, with considerable possessions in
lauds, has a large family, is well paid, enjoys the
confidence of President Lopez, and thus certainly
has no reason to wish to leave. Dr. Fox,
long before the war, threw up his engage-
ment, wanted to leave, but being of a
very eccentric character, notwithstanding the en-
treaties of his countrymen in Paraguay and friends
at home, for reasons of his own, did not leave Para-
guay, but took a new engagement or volunteered. Mr.
Valpy, assistant civil railway engineer, made him-
felf so busy with to Powers that he was deco-
rated we believe, " Pour le merit." But Marshal
Lopez allowed Mr. Gould to take away from Para-
guay three English widows and their children. They
are now in England, and could give good evidence
to the Government as to how their countrymen fare
in Paraguay ; and if it should be found that they
had been treated not according to the accepted
usages and laws of nations, we are certain no one
would be more willing to make good and re-
pair all damages than President Lopez. But Go-
vernment knows little of Paraguay and its great
resources, and the actual causes of this war, or the
springs that have moved this great bloody South
American drama for the last five years ; although
it is perfectly well known that Lopez is only fight-
ing for the free navigation of the River Plate
and its great affluents, the Paraguay and Pa-
rana, for which the independence of Uruguay
is a sine (pa non against the encroaching and
absorbing policy of Brazil. Still our Foreign-
office has done nothing to help the good intentions
of Paraguay to open to commerce one of the
most fertile quarters of the globe, nor as yet offered
its good offices to join the United States of America
in a friendly mediation, which Paraguay was willing
to accept. But all the Foreign-office has done is
to inform Mr. Gould, Nov. 20, 1867, that his report
has been read with great interest by her Majesty's
Government.

Madame Celeste, after her successful tour in the
Australian colonies, will take her farewell of the London
stage ere long, and which will be under the special patron-
age of his Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh.

The gross receipt of the Paris bals masques this
year show an increase of £2O a night on 1867 ; the money
taken was £6,800.
A Washington paper says that Ole Bull breathed
"transcendent inspiration from his divine instrument."
Nice name for a man's nose—" divine instrument."

Madame Musard, the beautiful wife of the well-
known bandmaster and concert agent, gave last week at
Paris the sum of twenty-four thousand pounds for a mag-
nificent suit of diamonds recently sold by a crowned bead
—The Musical Standard.

San Francisco writers complain of the barbarous
fashion of leaving a theatre just before the fall of the cur-
tain, which bad habit prevails there to the same extent a$
in New York.

[A D VERT'S ENT.]—Dyspepsia (Indigestion), Constipation, vo,"
bility, Consumption, and all nervous, bilious, stomach, and
complaints in. every stage, are only aggravated and acceleraeu
by thugs of every description, but perfectly curable by P 4
Barry's health-restoring Revalenta Arabica Food, as proved Iby.
thousands of cases which had been considered hopeless, sues
as—cough, asthma, also diarrhoea, haemorrhoids, liver coat-
plaints, flatulency, nervousness, biliousness, fevers, sore threl
diphtheria, catarrhs, colds, influenza, noises in the head an
ears, rheumatism, gout, impurities, eruptions, hysteria, neural
irritability, sleeplessness, acidity, palpitation, heartburn, he("1-
ache, debility, dropsy, cramps, spasms, nausea and sickness'
even in pregnancy or at sea, sinking tits, bronchitis, scroftut
tightness of the chest, pains at the pit of the stomach au
between between the shoulders, &c. We quote a few:—The Pope's health
restored by Du Barry's Food. Cure No. 68,413.—" Rome, Jul/
12, 1866.—The health of the Holy Father is excellent, especially,
since, abandoning all other remedies, he has confined hirnsn
entirely to Du Barry's Revalenta Arabica Food, of which u`
consumes a plateful at every meal. It has produced a bar-,
prisingly beneficial effect on his health, and his Holiness ettnu.,
praise this excellent food too highly."—From the " Gazette u"
Midi, July 25 Cure No. 46,270 Mr James Roberts, tinlbez
merchant, of Frimley, Surrey, of thirty years' diseased 111148:.
spitting of blood, liver derangement, and partial deafuesjf
Cure No. 1,771. Lord Stuart de Decies, Lord Lieut.
~t,„
Waterford, of many years' dyspepsia.,—No. 49,832.
years' indescribable agony from dyspepsia, nervousnen
asthma, cough, constipation, flatulency. spasms, sickness
an
vomiting.—MariaJoly.' Important Caution.—Beware of the 11103,::
unsavoury and more than sloppy imitations to which, With°_.,
authority, Baron Liebig's name is most audaciously attache(' ,
In tins at Is. ltd.; 1 lb., 2s 9d.; 2 lbs., 4s. 6d,; 5 lbs. 11;i:
12 lbs., 225.; 24 lbs., 40s.—BARRY Dir BARRY and Co., Na,.
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