Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/91



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 61

moreover,, no Paraguayan woman could leave ^^ La Rcpub- lica/^ except by express order — again China. The naturalized foreigner of course having no protection from his consid, and being sworn like one of the natives to the Constitution and to the Government, was not permitted to quit Paraguay except by particular order. Under these circumstances. President Lopez, who might truly have said, " auribus lupum teneo,^^ was formally re-elected for a term of five years.

Presently, General Urquiza, Governor of Entre Rios, attacking Dictator Rosas with the view of restoring their rights to the Provinces and of re-organizing the Argentine Republic, crushed him at the battle of Monte Caseros on February 2, 1852. The fall of the " wretch Rosas,'^ who had even forbidden the navigation of the Parana, opened the rivers and ports, and brought about the recognition of Paraguayan independence by General Urquiza, who became the President Director of the Argentine Confederation; hence resulted the treaties of 1851 and 1852, which, however, were not ratified by the Federal Congress tiU 1856. The latter instrument attempted to determine the long debated question of limits, and to regulate the relations of commerce and navigation. But the Argentine Confederation sus- pended the Border convention, and in 1856 the frontier survey was adjourned sine die. The first British Envoy, Sir Charles Hotham, charged with a special mission, accom- panied by Mr. Secretary Thornton, reached Asuncion in H.M.^s ship Locust at the end of 1852, and the late M. de Saint-Georges presently appeared in the Flambard, which had run aground. In March, 1853, when General Urquiza had formally recognised the independence of the Republic, the Plenipotentiaries of England and the United States, France and Sardinia, meeting at the capital, signed with Paraguay treaties of friendship, commerce, and navigation.