"The Government of his Majesty the Emperor of Brazil has just ordered me to communicate to the Government of the Oriental Republic of the Uruguay the serious resolution which I come to make known to your Excellency.

"Before doing so, permit me to recapitulate in brief terms the course of the negotiation which I entered upon, and which, to my regret, was not regarded by the Oriental Government with the good will counselled by the important interests it involved.

"When the Government of his Majesty resolved to send me on a special mission to this Republic, it considered itself bound to make evident in the most solemn manner the motives of its proceeding, and the end which it purposed to attain; the violences and the extortions, the robberies and the assassinations perpetrated in the territory of the Republic since 1852 upon Brazilian citizens, and in which there figured as accomplices ordering them, and even as executors, the very agents of the executive power; the impunity resulting from the negligence in the pursuit of the criminals, or from the scandalous sentences of the judges; the indifference of the executive Government, which did not listen with interest to the complaints of the representative of that of his Majesty, nor proceed with decision respecting the delinquents or the authorities who protected them; the gravity of such a situation, more especially in the departments of the frontier, inhabited in the greater part by Brazilians; the circumstance of these evils having become aggravated by the civil war which for nearly fifteen months has kept the interior of the country in permanent convulsion; the impotence of the Government of the Republic to put down this intestine struggle, and much less to protect foreigners, these, on the contrary, being victims of the very chiefs of the legal army. The conviction spread among my countrymen, whose number in the Oriental State probably exceeds a fourth of the total of its inhabitants, that the persecution of their persons and the devastation of their property is systematical.

"All this, M. le Ministre, required that the Imperial Government, convinced of the inefficacy of its previous measures, should address the last amicable appeal to the Government of this Republic, from whose prudence it still hoped for the reparation due for acts of such notorious importance. To insist on reparation on account of those crimes, to obtain that energetic and preventive measures should obviate their repetition, such, M. le Ministre, was a perfect right of the Empire, as well as a moderate pretension. My Government without any reserve expressed in an explicit manner, in public documents, the motives of its proceeding and the end sought for, in the same manner that I afterwards did to your Excellency in my note of the 18th of May.

"In the meanwhile, imputing to the mission with which I was charged the character of a threat, I was surprised to see that the official press did not cease endeavouring to irritate the popular prejudices against the policy of the Empire, and I had even the pain of being unable to remove the unfounded suspicions with which your Excellency appeared to me to be penetrated.

"Under such circumstances, it became my duty to protest, pointing out, as I did, the elevated views of the Imperial Government, always superior to the passions and interests of the parties which divide the inhabitants of the Republic; the solicitude with which it seeks to guarantee the rights of Brazilians domiciled here, as the only effectual means of separating them from whatever might attach them to the internal questions of the country they reside in; the nobleness with which, whatever may be its just resentment, it has always abstained from aggravating, by means of demands which, nevertheless, it was entitled to make, the precarious fate of the Oriental Government.

"Always preferring to employ means worthy of a neighbouring and friendly people, I did not precipitate events, and in various conferences with your Excellency, and with his Excellency the President, I endeavoured to make evident the legitimacy of my claims. It required, however, great moderation on my part to overcome the difficulties created by the official press, fertile in seeking for fantastic terrors, unwearied in misleading public opinion

and in attributing to my Government hidden intentions in language impossible to characterize without offence to the Oriental Government, which does not permit publications opposed to its policy. Repressing my profound regret, and in the belief that the Government would at length resist the extravagant suggestions of the party of the situation, I had the honour to place in your Excellency's hands the note referred to of the 18th of May, accompanied with the statement of the facts constituting the pending claims. I made use of moderate language; abstaining from considerations which might have disturbed the calm in which it appeared to me necessary to maintain the discussion, I confined myself to exposing and justifying the measures repressive of the crimes. and abuses of authority, many of which are notorious to citizens and foreigners. These measures are reduced to the following:—

"1. That the Government of the Republic shall make effective the punishment, if not of all, at the least of those recognized criminals who go about with impunity, some of them holding posts in the Oriental army or occupying offices in the civil service of the state.

"2. That the agents of police who have abused the authority with which they are invested be immediately dismissed and made responsible.

"3. That competent indemnity be made for property of which, under any pretext, Brazilians have been despoiled by the civil or military authorities.

"4. That all the Brazilians forced into the military service be set fully at liberty.

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5. That the Government of the Republic issue, with all publicity, orders and instructions to its several delegates, condemning the scandals and outrages alluded to, recommending the utmost solicitude and watchfulness in the execution of the laws of the Republic, holding out the penalties which by those same laws are attached to their transgression, in such manner as to make effective the guarantees which they promise to the inhabitants of its territory.

"6. That it issue, in like manner, orders and instructions for the perfect fulfilment of the agreement concluded, and subsisting by the reciprocal notes of the 28th November and 3rd December, 1857, to the effect of reciprocally

respecting the certificates of nationality passed by the competent agents of the two Governments to their respective citizens.

7. Finally, that it employ the necessary means to the effect that the Brazilian Consular Agents may be treated with the consideration and deference due to the position they occupy, respecting the attributions and privileges that pertain to them, either by the customs established among civilized nations, or by conventional right between the Empire and the Republic.

"When I addressed myself to the good sense and to the honour of the Oriental Government, framing a demand of a character so moderate as that of these measures, which it is the duty of every civilized Government to adopt spontaneously without being urged by foreign powers, for the well-being and tranquillity of those who in seeking its territory confide in the justice of the tribunals and in the agents of the public power, I was far from believing, M. le Ministre, that your Excellency in reply would have recourse, as is in the case in your note of the 24th May, to inopportune recriminations against the Government of his Majesty, with the intent to confuse and elude the discussion.

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Adhering to the fatal determination not to regard international questions otherwise than through the prism of the party passions which disturb and ruin the country, the Oriental Government preferred to oppose to the claims of that of his Majesty the vulgar accusations of the misguided press, imputing to Brazil and to the Argentine Republic the responsibility of the present civil war. As if the neighbouring countries could participate in the deplorable errors of the internal policy of the Oriental State, whose Government does not yet comprehend the duty of tolerance and moderation in the strife of parties, and whose history reduces itself to the banishment and execution of some citizens for the benefit exclusively of others.

"Far from displaying intention to guarantee the subjects of his Majesty in any manner, the Government of the Republic confines itself to accusing them of assisting the rebellion, conceiving itself perhaps thereby exempted from the obligation to protect their lives and property, and thus accepting a complicity with the military chiefs who, under the orders of General Diego Lamas, the present minister of war,

devastated and even set fire to the farming establishments of Brazilians, under the futile pretext that they sympathized with the rebellion.

"The fact was not forgotten that several of my countrymen had enlisted under the banner of Don Venancio Flores, many of them, it should be observed, victims of unpunished outrages, permitted or practised by the authorities, whilst the legal army reckons hundreds of foreigners forced into the military service. Appealing to that fact, however, the Government of the Republic could not suppose itself to be thereby allowed to exempt itself from the duty of not allowing that in its territory the foreigners, as has happened with some of his Majesty's subjects, should be with impunity staked to the ground, assassinated, and even flogged by order and in the presence of the superior authorities, as was practised by Don Leandro Gomez, military chief of the department of Paysandu. At the same time that your Excellency sought, in the note alluded to, to excite the national spirit against Brazil, the Government of the Republic neglected to promote the re-establishment of tranquility and the harmony of all the Oriental citizens, by calling them to a centre of action against the dangers your Excellency denounced. This clearly proves that the Government of your Excellency dreaded nothing from those fantastical dangers, and that solely with premeditated intention it repeated the same vulgar errors of those who do not comprehend how much there was of nobleness and utility in the conventions which gave existence to and insured the integrity and sovereignty of this Republic, worthy assuredly on every account of a better fate.

"In the freedom with which your Excellency expressed yourself, you revealed that you could see nothing otherwise than through the prism of the internal questions, and that you confounded the serious and grave attitude of the empire of Brazil with the interests in agitation among the dominant party in the Republic, and which threaten the existence of the present Government. I need not insist on what I have already set forth in my note of the 4th June. I then demonstrated to your Excellency, by using the very significant words of your own correspondence with the Imperial Lega

tion, that until a very recent date (31st December) the Government of the Republic had always shown itself very grateful for the efforts with which that of his Majesty sought to prevent and to repress the interference of Brazilians in the struggle going on in this country; that your Excellency several times called for the assistance of the delegates of his Majesty, and that it was never found to fail for that purpose; that assuredly no Brazilian would join the revolutionary forces if he found justice in the tribunals and protection from the authorities.

"The intolerant policy of the Oriental Government obliged some of my countrymen to resort to arms to defend themselves and their families; and it is to be noted, M. le Ministre, that starting from this fact, without assigning the cause, your Excellency pretends to accuse my Government of concurring to the triumph of the rebellion. This gave me the measure of the passions that prevail over the Government of the Republic, a victim to the most inexplicable hallucination. The note, the sense of which I have just recapitulated, dispelled every hope I might have had of obtaining the guarantees and the reparations solicited by my Government.

"If on that occasion, overcome by the manner in which your Excellency judged he might reply to my first note, as moderate as that of your Excellency was unbecoming, I might have answered with a laconic and decisive ultimatum to the formal refusal opposed by the Government of the Republic to the solicitations of that of his Majesty, I should assuredly have exercised a right which your Excellency stimulated me to avail myself of without delay. I did not do so, however, but on the contrary, faithful to the policy of forbearance which has distinguished the proceedings of the Government of the Emperor in its special relations with this country, I ventured, at the same time that I vindicated the offended honour of my country, and the rights of my countrymen, to offer friendly counsel to the Oriental Government in order that it might comprehend the fatality of its prejudices and the dangers of its course of proceeding.

"My Government will always approve the moderation of its representative in this Republic of this I was assured; and I felt

myself bound not to break off the negotiations before exhausting the last hope of conciliation. I considered that it behoved me to point out to the Oriental Government the practical means of qualifying itself to resolve speedily the international questions, which was by the pacification of its country.

"In order that no shadow of doubt may remain as to the sincere interest once more displayed by the Government of his Majesty in the fate of the Oriental state, far from rejoicing at the struggles by which it is becoming exhausted, I will copy literally the words I made use of in my note referred to of the 4th of June, and which recapitulate the same idea of my conferences with your Excellency and with his Excellency the president :

"Respect of the principle of authority,' I said, is certainly of the highest interest to the Republic, and its most palpable necessity. In the prevalence of this principle the Imperial Government has always founded its most earnest hopes on behalf of the rights and interests of its citizens. The war, however, prolonged to an unforseen term, weakens more and more that principle, developing habits of brigandism. Repression is the really legitimate means of putting an end to civil wars. In order to its being advantageous, however, it requires that the Government employing it possess sufficient force to make it effectual, and sufficient superiority of spirit to extinguish, by clemency and generosity, the passions which originated the war, and the hatreds created by it.

Without this the continuation of civil war is worse than its disappearance by means of compromises that remove the present state of anarchy, leaving to future Governments the care of extinguishing by degrees the germs that may produce these crises fatal to the infancy of nations. To render peace impossible by that means, when civil war cannot be put down, appears to me, M. le Ministre, a fatal policy. Speaking of peace, I cannot omit to make known the earnest desire for it felt by the Imperial Government, and the hopes it entertains of seeing it resolve our international difficulties. Peace alone can render acceptable the wish your Excellency reveals to enter upon arrangements which, suppressing the respective accusations, may leave the two Governments to the investigation of

the means of removing the evils of the present and preventing their reproduction.'

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Awaiting the orders of the Imperial Government, whom I immediately informed of the negative reply opposed to the claims, I entertained anxious hopes that the Government of the Republic would reflect on the gravity of the situation and on the responsibility it assumed.

"A supreme effort of patriotism and disinterestedness might restore peace to the Oriental state by means of reasonable compromise. Freed from the preoccupations of internal policy, which cause it to be so suspicious and intractable towards the empire, the Government of the Republic would come to understand the necessity of cementing the friendly relations that should be cultivated by all Brazilians and Orientals, as is required by the reciprocal interest of both countries. It was not I alone who in the internal peace of the Oriental state founded the hope of the complete solution of international questions, of the difficulties that surround its Government and isolate it from its neighbours. The labouring population of the Republic and its most notable men held the same sentiments. The enlightened Government of the Argentine Republic, nobly overcoming the distance that separated it from the Oriental Government, with which it had interrupted its diplomatic relations, sent to this capital a person of high position and superior merit, the minister for foreign affairs, in order to conduce to the realization of peace so ardently desired by all. And in order to mark the generous character of the steps taken in this sense, it is sufficient to say that the noble gentleman who represents with so much dignity the Government of her Britannic Majesty at Buenos Ayres did not hesitate to lend his valuable co-operation.

"The honourable ministers to whom I have alluded, MM. Elizalde and Thornton, acquainted with the intentions and the object of the special mission of Brazil, acted in perfect accord with me; and all of us during many days, exposing our patience to the severest trials, considered that we had made on behalf of the pacification of the Oriental state all the efforts possible, amidst the prejudices of party and of the interests threatened, and in spite of the injustice of the official press itself.

These efforts, although arising out of sentiments, ill appreciated it is true, but of which assuredly we are proud, failed of success from causes that are publicly known. Peace depended upon a fundamental condition inserted in the letter of General Venancio Flores, which your Excellency is acquainted with. That condition having been refused by his Excellency the president, with whom it depended, the negotiation was frustrated.

"But the fact of its having been undertaken particularly by the representatives of the two border countries whose Governments your Excellency accused of complicity with the revolt, and of contriving the ruin of the Oriental state, proves, in every light, M. le Ministre, two truths which it is necessary for me to point out.

"The first, that if the intention of the Governments of the two neighbouring countries were not very noble and avowable, their agents would not have sought with so much earnestness to bring about a peace, but would rather have been indifferent to the prolongation of the war and to the fate which its results may bring upon the Oriental Government. The second, that if the civil war disturbs the tranquillity of the Republic, it does not less injure the interests of the bordering countries, whose pending questions can only be well resolved under the normal regimen created by the re-establishment of order. The hope of effecting the internal peace being dispelled, I found myself at the point where the first note of your Excellency had left me. I then solicited the last orders of my Government, giving to the Republic, in the meanwhile, time to reflect upon the difficulties of its position, and to bring about of itself the peace of the Oriental state, which it alleged had not been realized in consequence of the foreign pressure.

"I have, therefore, M. le Ministre, exhausted every possible exertion to preserve to my mission the amicable character given to it by the Government of his Majesty as the real interests of the empire and of the Republic demand. Now, however, no other course is left to me than to fulfil the orders of my Government. In virtue thereof I come to notify to your Excellency the last friendly appeal which the Government of his Majesty the Emperor of Brazil addresses to the Government of the

Oriental Republic of Uruguay, soliciting the satisfactions asked for in my note of the 18th of May, in the form therein contained and above transcribed. And if within the peremptory term of six days, reckoned from this date, the Oriental Government shall not have attended to the claim of the Imperial Government, not being able for any longer time to tolerate the molestations and persecutions undergone by its countrymen, being under the inevitable necessity of protecting them by every means, I am empowered to declare to your Excellency as follows:-That the forces of the Brazilian army stationed on the frontier will receive orders to proceed to reprisals whenever violence is used against his Majesty's subjects, or their lives or safety endangered, it being incumbent on the commander to proceed in the manner most suitable and effectual to furnish the protection of which they are deprived. That likewise the admiral, Baron de Tamandaré, will receive instructions to protect in the same manner, with the forces of the squadron under his orders, the consular agents and Brazilian citizens receiving offence from any of the authorities, or from persons incited to misconduct by the violence of the press, or at the instigation of the said authorities. The reprisals and the measures to guarantee my countrymen above indicated, are not, as your Excellency is aware, acts of war; and I hope the Government of this Republic will avoid increasing the seriousness of those measures, preventing lamentable occurrences, of which the responsibility will lie exclusively upon that Government.

"It is incumbent on the Oriental Government to consider the embarrassments and to measure the consequences of the position which it assumes. It is bound to reflect that whatever may be the supervening consequences, it must complain solely of itself and of the pertinacity with which it has chosen to ignore the gravity of the situation of the country. Fulfilling thus the orders of my Government, I renew, &c.

In answer to this despatch, Senor de Herrera wrote to Senhor Saraiva, as follows, under date Monte Video, August 9, 1864:

"Before making known to your Excellency the resolution of his Excellency the president of the Republic, on making himself acquainted