Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/441



RETDRN TO BUENOS AIRES. 411

been found at Luque. The funds were never in the hands of a competent bookkeeper; consequently, the wealthy part of the community was accused of theft, and was ironed, tortured, and put to death, with the sole view of confiscation.

On September 29, 1865, Mr. Washburn published, in a supplement to the Buenos Ayres Standard, Diplomatic Notes concerning foreigners in Paraguay, beginning with a letter addressed to H.B.M.^s Minister Plenipotentiary. It after- wards appeared in Paris, much to the wonderment of civilized man ; and I regret to say Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson has largely quoted from a document which breathes in every line a spirit of fierce hatred against a quondam friend. Mr. Washburn complains of being watched by forty policemen; of living in a ^' deep and funereal-like gloom^' in a " Dionysius Gallery.^' Such an existence, he says, " is enough to render even the sleep of a brave man fitful and uneasy, and, of a man like me, without such pretensions, utterly inadequate to ' knit up the ravelled sleeve of care.^ " This commendable candour is surely rare in the annals of diplomacy. He quotes Vattel, Martens, and Mr. Wheaton, " his own coun- tryman, generally regarded as the highest authority of modern times on matters of international law." What do his fellow-citizens call speaking to Buncombe ?

I read with surprise these ^'^ windy notes.^^* They are a curious specimen of the " dense cloud of oflScial verbosity^^ which envelopes every official correspondence in Paraguay. The whole savours curiously of want of truth, and it is evidently the Guarani habit, like the Chinese, to " make a summary,^^ and during the course of the report to insert as many sneers and insinuations as possible. All

and were judged too lengthy for publication.
 * Mr. Washburn's would have made up 240 pages of a volume like this,