Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/93



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 63

President Lopez for a term of ten years ; to this the nominee objected, refusing to rule or serve for more than three ; he consented, however, to the whole term in 1857. Ensued some trouble with Mr. E. Hopkins, United States Consul, and representative of an Industrial Company of Navigation. This officer was supposed to be hostile to Paraguay ; his exequatur was withdrawn, and the claims for compensation which he forwarded were ignored. Six months after this event (February 1, 1855), Captain Page, commanding U.S.S.S. Waterwitch, ignoring the fact that in October, 1854, foreign ships of war had been forbidden to navigate the inner rivers of the Republic, .insisted upon quitting the main channel of the Parana, and upon surveying the by- waters of the " Fuerte Itapiru."^ The cruiser was fired into by the Guardia Carracha battery, and the man at the helm was killed. No reprisals were found possible by Commodore W. D. Salter, and ensued a coolness between the great and the little Republic.

Relations with Brazil also became unsatisfactory, and the Empire sent as Envoy Plenipotentiary, charged to settle the right of way and territorial limits, Admiral Pedro Ferreira de Oliveira, with ten men of war and transports. President Lopez hastily threw up batteries at the old Guardia Humaita, on the site of a Penitentiary founded 1777, against the Indians of the Gran Chaco by D. Pedro de Zeballos, and destined to be talked about throughout the world in 1867. He could now dictate his own con- ditions to the intrusive power ; in February, 1855, he halted all the squadron at "Tres Bocas,"^ and the Envoy, after professing peaceful intentions, was, only when completely outgeneralled by Lopez, permitted with his staflP to visit Asuncion in a single steamer. Salvos were duly exchanged, and on August 27 was ratified a treaty of commerce and navigation, together with a convention stipulating that the