of the dominant party in Buenos Ayres, and which has since been the pretext for so much strife and contention.

Nevertheless for the first ten years after the substitution of an American Junta for a Spanish Viceroy in 1810, the supreme government of the provinces in question continued to be exercised by the ruling authorities successively set up at Buenos Ayres.

A Constituent Assembly, convoked in 1813, after an experiment at a Triumvirate, vested the Executive Power in à Supreme Director; an arrangement provisionally confirmed by the General Congress which succeeded it, and which proclaimed the absolute independence of the Republic

in 1816.

But the governments so set up, in their embryo independence, uncertain as to the issue, weak and unstable, one day democratic, another despotic, distracted by conflicting parties, and with but small knowledge or experience for the task committed to them, soon found themselves too feeble to make themselves respected, or to enforce their authority whenever it happened to be opposed to the views of the petty chiefs who in the first years of the Revolution obtained an ephemeral importance in some of the distant provinces and towns in the interior.

Artigas first, in the Banda Oriental, and then the chiefs of the adjoining provinces of Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Santa Fé, who fell under his baneful influence, took the lead in raising a cry for a federation, in opposition to the central power established at Buenos Ayres. They called out for a government like that of the United States of North America, although apparently in total ignorance that the end and aim of the North American Federation was "Union and Strength "_" E pluribus unum.

The cry, however, was responded to, and led to serious dissensions, fomented, there is no doubt, by influential parties secretly opposed to the independence of the country, who thought to further the views of Spain by involving it in inextricable confusion. There seems indeed but too much reason to believe that, whilst the people were heartily embarked in the cause, and making extraordinary sacrifices for the establishment of their independence, some even

CHAP. VII.

VICTORIES OF SAN MARTIN.

85

of their own leaders were actuated by very different views.

Still, the General Congress had been charged to draw up a Constitution; and so long as that which was to fix their future political condition was under discussion, the Supreme Director, supported by the majority of the deputies, was able to maintain his position. In spite of intrigues and all other opposition the grand struggle for the liberation of the country from the dominion of Spain was accomplished; and, by the extraordinary exertions of General San Martin, Chile was freed from the yoke of the mother country, and Lima, the capital of Peru, was taken possession of by his victorious troops.

It was whilst the forces of Buenos Ayres were em

NOTE.-"I have proclaimed the independence of Chile and of Peru; I have taken the standard with which Pizarro came to enslave the empire of the Incas; and I have

ceased to be a public man. . . I have fulfilled my promises to the countries for which I have fought: I have given them independence."- Vide Proclamation of General San Martin on quitting Peru in 1822.

ployed at a distance in preparing these triumphs, and the Government was left without any adequate force to carry it out, that the Congress unfortunately thought fit to produce the result of their labours-a Constitution which the provincial Governors were in no humour to accept or quietly to submit to;-based, as it was, not upon the plan of a Federation, which many of them insisted upon, but upon a system of Centralization, perpetuating in a Chief Magistrate resident at Buenos Ayres very extensive civil and military powers over the whole republic, and amongst others that of appointing the Governors of the provinces, they naturally looked upon it as an arrangement to curtail, if not to deprive, them of their own authority; and, with arms in their hands, it is not surprising, considering what the men were, that they should have determined this should not be without a struggle.

The dissident chiefs, not satisfied with repudiating in toto the new Constitution, rose in angry and open hostility against the existing authorities, and the whole country became involved in civil war and confusion.

The resignation of Puyerredon, who for nearly four years had held the office of Supreme Director, only gave fresh confidence to the insurgents, and, before measures could be taken to avert it, the city of Buenos Ayres was suddenly invaded and taken possession of by their half savage followers, the Congress was dissolved, and the Government of the Directory broken up.

*

In palliation of their violence, the Federal Chiefs, as they styled themselves, accused the Congress and the Government of a treasonable design to convert the republic into a monarchy for the young Duke of Lucca, under the protection of France; and the publication of the secret correspondence of Don Valentin Gomez, their agent at Paris, containing the particulars of a scheme to that effect which had been proposed to them by the French ministry, had all the effect they intended, of destroying the confidence of the public in the parties who had hitherto ruled the country, and so completed their own triumph.

This was in 1820, memorable as the most calamitous

* See Historical Documents in Appendix.

CHAP. VII.

ISOLATION OF THE PROVINCES.

87

year in the annals of the new republic. As might have been expected, the party which had thus succeeded in putting down the powers established at Buenos Ayres, proved utterly incapable of constructing anything like a Federal Government in their place: and it soon became manifest, so far as the Provincial Chiefs were concerned, that their main object was to maintain their own petty authority free from the interference or control of any superior authority whatever. Amidst the anarchy and confusion that followed the overthrow of the supreme Government, not only the provinces recognised as such, but almost every township which could boast of a cabildo or municipal corporation, asserted its independence of the capital; and whilst it was more than ever doubtful whether there existed elements for the formation of even one respectable government, no less than thirteen were set up at once, multiplying their difficulties enormously.

It was under these circumstances that the people of Buenos Ayres and of the province so called, restricted solely to their own concerns, established in 1821 for the first time their separate Sala or representative chamber and executive power in the form in which it still subsists. And although, at their invitation in 1824, another General Congress of Deputies from all the provinces was assembled to settle, if possible, something more definite as to the form at least of their national government, and another constitution for the republic was promulgated, being again based on a system of centralization, to which the Provinces were opposed, it proved, after a short-lived experiment, as abortive as the former in its results; and only led to fresh dissensions from the attempts of the President Rivadavia to force upon them what they were unprepared at the time to submit to.

Since that time (1827) the national organization of this republic has been limited to the slender and precarious ties of voluntary confederation which at present constitute the so-called Union of the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata.

Although the dissolution of the Supreme Government in 1820 as abovementioned seemed at the time to detract

not a little from the importance of Buenos Ayres, it has not perhaps in some respects proved disadvantageous to her interests: the curtailment of their jurisdiction enabled her governors more exclusively and effectually to direct their attention to concerns within their immediate reach, and to the consolidation of the provincial institutions which they had set up.

An interval of peace which followed the intestine dissensions above related, was turned to good account, and for a time men of all parties laying aside their differences seemed only desirous to promote the same object, the establishment of the credit and character of their country. Never perhaps did the affairs of the people of Buenos Ayres present so promising an appearance as in the first years of the existence of their provincial administration; and although this was followed by the hard-fought struggle with Brazil for the liberation of the Banda Oriental, it became manifest from the very results of that struggle that their resources were greatly beyond what had been supposed, and that even single-handed-for they were little assisted by the provinces -the Buenos Ayreans were enabled to resist successfully all the power which the Emperor of Brazil could bring against them.

Notwithstanding other lamentable differences with still more powerful nations, and a long and most destructive civil war, they have increased their territorial possessions, their population, and resources of all kinds, the results of a thriving trade with foreign countries which has made their city one of the first commercial emporiums in South America.

On the other hand, the people of the interior have gained anything but real importance from their state of isolation: most of the provinces have suffered all the calamitous consequences of party struggles for power, and have fallen under the arbitrary rule of military chiefs, who have in turn, either by fair means or foul, obtained the ascendancy over their competitors; and if in some the semblance of a representative Junta or Sala has been set up in imitation of that of Buenos Ayres, it will be found, I believe, that such assemblies have in most instances proved little more than