ment. In December, 1842, at the most critical
period of the war, that gentleman formally announced, both to the
Governments of Monte Video and Buenos Ayres, that England and France had
determined to put an end to the war, and demanded that they should both
cease from hostilities.[C] Not content with this, he addressed an
official letter to Senor Vidal, the Secretary of State to the Republic
of Uruguay, urging him and his Government not to relax, but rather to
redouble their efforts to resist the Buenos Ayreans, until the arrival
of the assistance which, he stated, might be expected daily from
Europe.[D] The letters of Mr. Mandeville will be found in the appendix
to this pamphlet, and it will be for the public to decide whether
promises so distinct and emphatic, accompanied by exhortations so
strong, do not justify the Government of Monte Video, and the merchants
trading with that country, in calling on the British Government to
fulfil the engagements of its representative. Indeed it is impossible
that the Government of England can allow Monte Video to be taken and
plundered, the leading men of the Republic to be murdered or driven into
exile, and the Republic itself to be annihilated, without destroying the
high reputation which England has so long possessed in all those
countries for honour and uprightness.

That these consequences will be justly chargeable either on the
Representative or the Government of this country, if Monte Video
should be taken, is evident from a consideration of the circumstances
under which Mr. Mandeville gave his promises and his urgent
recommendation quoted above. The letters containing them were written
in the period which intervened between the total defeat of the Monte
Videan army at Arroyo Grande, and the advance of General Oribe and the
Buenos Ayrean forces on that city. When they were given, the Monte
Videan Government was in a state of the utmost uncertainty as to
whether further resistance would not be a useless waste of human life,
and whether it could have any other effect than to render its own
position more desperate. The infantry of Rivera, the only force up to
that time available for the defence of the city was destroyed, and the
cavalry was broken, and discouraged, besides being totally useless for
the purpose of resisting a siege. Within the city were a considerable
number of Oribe's supporters, and many neutrals, including nine-tenths
of the foreign population. At this critic