Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/101



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 71

fourteen, had four, whilst Madame Lynch received three wounds. Of this, I believe, not a word is true.

On the other hand, foreigners in his service are almost if not quite unanimous in declaring him to be a gallince filius alba ; they say that he never once exposed himself in battle ; that he is a craint-plomb that shudders at the whistle of a ball, and that he has repeatedly run away, deserting even his family in the hour of danger. Some of those who escaped are so furious that they threaten him with personal violence should they happen to meet him in a propitious place. He has certainly never headed a charge, and he has rarely been reported to have fallen a captive. But there is no need for the President to act soldier ; Uetat &est lui. If he falls the cause of Paraguay — and she has a cause — is sheer lost; whilst he lives she has hope. He has always been able to escape ; his enemies are ever ready to build for him a bridge of gold, and the best conditions are at his service ; he has manfully rejected them all. He is charged with having plundered his country, and yet he is known not to have money; he is blamed for his want of patriotism, and for not ending the war by self-exile, yet it is not proved that his country will gain by his loss, and his countrymen fight for him like fiends — a sign that they still adhere to his cause. He is said to rule them by fear. On the other hand, the Paraguayan prisoners are rarely if ever known to utter a word against him.

And there is no doubt of the Marshal-President's ability. He is a remarkably good speaker. His letters,' his decrees, and his State papers answer for themselves. Without being a practical soldier he is an excellent topographer, and he has fought the defensive part of the campaign, if not with ability, at any rate with fewer blunders than his assailants. Driven backwards by the combination of army and iron- clads, he shifted his base line to the north till he found some readily defensible position. He thus compelled the