Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/475



LETTER XXV.

AT AND ABOUT ASUNCION.

Asuncion, April 13, 1869.

My dear Z ,

I found at headquarters a complete change of masters. Marshal the Duke de Caxias had given up the command to General Guilherme Xavier de Souza, and had departed with his staff, including Brigadier Fonseca. Osorio and Argolo had left Paraguay badly wounded; and of the old hands only General Menna Barreto, who had fought through the war, remained. In the fleet, Admiral Carvalho, the Barao da Passagem, who succeeded the Visconde de Inhaiima (at Rio de Janeiro, March 8,1869), had been re- emplaced by Admiral Elisiario, one of the best officers now sent up when no longer of use ; and the able and energetic Captain of the Fleet, Commodore Alvim, was no longer to the fore. The Councillor Jose Maria da Silva Paranhos, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet of Sao Christovao, had returned, after inspecting Asuncion, to the labours of his especial mission at Buenos Aires. This able diplo- matist, committed to a war policy, they say, since 1858, had been sent from the Brazil with orders to establish at the capital of Paraguay a provisional government, with an acting President.

For the chief magistracy there were many candidates. Those foremost in the field were Dr. Serapio Machain, an invalid hardly expected to live ; sundry members of the in- fluential and deeply-iujuredDecoud family; Colonel Iturburii, who long commanded the Paraguan Legion in the AlJied