al moment the letters of Mr.
Mandeville, given above, were written, and it is the opinion of those
who were at Monte Video at the time, that it was those letters which
induced the Government to forego all attempts at negotiation, and to
call upon the whole population to rise and resist to the last. With
this view, besides calling on those classes of the people which had
previously taken part in the struggle, to rally round the Government,
it declared all the negro slaves in the Republic free, and formed them
into regiments of infantry for the defence of the capital, and it also
gave every encouragement to the foreign population which had emigrated
for the purpose of following the pursuits of peaceful industry, to
take up arms. By these means, an army of some thousand men was formed
within the city, chiefly from classes not before compromised, whilst
in the open country, the landed proprietors and peasantry, were
encouraged to take arms again under the command of their favourite
chief Rivera. Thus the war was renewed, and the whole population of
the Republic was again engaged in a struggle which, from the great
disproportion of the forces, nothing but the promised intervention of
England and France can bring to a close which will not be fatal to
them.

My object in referring to these facts is not to excite odium against
Mr. Mandeville, who could have had no object in making the promises
contained in his letters of the 28th December and 12th of January,
except that of preserving the independence of Monte Video, until the
forces which he expected from Europe had arrived. In a previous
letter, quoted in the Appendix, he positively refused to give any such
promises without the permission of his own Government; and in his
letter of the 12th of January he bases his promises of aid to the
Monte Videan Government on this assertion:--"THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE
BRITISH AMBASSADOR (at Paris) AND GUIZOT TOOK PLACE ON THE 9TH
SEPTEMBER, WHEN HE AGREED TO ALL THAT LORD COWLEY PROPOSED OF UNITING
THEIR FORCES TO PUT AN END TO THE WAR." I will not suppose, even for
the sake of argument, that an English Minister made such a statement
as the above without believing it to be true, still less that he made
it for the sake of exciting fallacious and unfounded hopes in the
minds of men struggling for existence. He must have believed his own
assertions, and he must have had some strong, if not conclusive
reasons for believing them.

It is ju