Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/89



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 50

Again, early in 18i5, wlien President Lopez had de- clared the country open to foreigners both for commerce and residence, Dictator Rosas refused transit to Paraguay, as long as the latter should keep aloof from the Argentine Provinces ; and he presently decreed the prohibition of all her exports, even in neutral bottoms, thus hoping to cut her off from her principal customer, the Brazil. The stout-hearted President feeling insulted by this proceeding replied on December 4, with a formal declaration of war beginning,

^^ Long live the Republic of Paraguay ! Independence or death,^^* and threatened an invasion. He reinforced his vanguard, the Province of Corrientes, which had lately captured Argentine shipping, and at once sent against Oribe, the lieutenant of Rosas, his first corps d^armee under his eldest son Brigadier Francisco Solano Lopez, then a youth of eighteen. This force was attacked by the Buenos Airean army of operations in January, 1846, and was compelled to retreat "^ re infecta,^" behind the Parana River, chiefly, it is said, by the treachery of the Correntino Governor, Madariaga. In September, 1846, President Lopez ended the affair with a declaration that Paraguay would definitively remain neutral, leaving the Argentine Republic to settle its own disputes.

Presently the mediation of the LTnited States caused transit and commerce to be re-established between Para- guay and Buenos Aires. The arrangement, however, had no positive guarantee. At the battle ofVences, in 1847, General Urquiza conquered Corrientes, and new troubles arose about Border questions. Thereupon President Lopez

Pedro I. of Brazil, who was well versed in South American history, had heard of it before he raised the " grito de Yporanga."
 * This is part of the old Paraguayan motto, and very possibly Dom

60 I