Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/359



A VISIT TO THE GRAN CIIACO. 329

sovereigns, will play — was costing the Empire about $200,000 per diem— a trifle of 14,400,000/. per annum.

The imagination of the anti-Lopists made notable dis- coveries. The Marshal-President of Paraguay had refused to treat direct with a junior naval officer when the British Minister Plenipotentiary at Buenos Aires was also ac- credited to him. Presently appeared in the papers a long order, purporting to have been issued by the Chief Magistrate of Paraguay, and directing the Linnetj in case of her making warlike demonstrations, to be sunk.

In September, 1867, Mr. Gould took the affair in hand. It was a hopeless errand. His mission in H.M.^s ship Doterelj Lieutenant Mitchell, was looked upon as a direct slight, especially after the personal visit of the French Minister M. de Vernouille — I need hardly say that in Paraguay everything of the kind coming from Buenos Aires is deeply resented. He came to take away with him certain English employes whose contracts had expired. But many had voluntarily renewed their engagements, and all were in an exceptional position. It was hardly reasonable to expect that the Marshal-President should dismiss a score of men v of whom sundry were in his confidence and knew every detail which it was most important to conceal from the enemy. Ensued another complication. Deceived by a noted intriguer, whose sole object was evidently to ascertain the animus of the political visitor, Mr. Gould drew up certain conditions of peace between the Allies and Paraguay. Amongst less important items was the voluntary exile of Marshal-President Lopez — he might as well have been asked to take up Paraguay and walk. The Chief Magis- trate was thus, according to the Paraguayan view of the matter, requested to withdraw from his home, his native land, the country that had elected him as ruler ; to abdicate