scription of it is given under the title Chuquisaca, a name by which it is more properly known, and to which we have referred; the later history, however, of the above-mentioned jurisdiction, will be found at the end of the article LA PLATA River.]

PLATA, with the dedicatory title of S. Sebastian, another city of the province and government of Popayán in the Nuevo Reyno de Granada; founded by Sebastian Quintero, in 1551, and not in 1538, by Sebastian de Benalcazar, as the Ex-Jesuit Coleti asserts, in a beautiful and extensive llano called De Cambis, in the territory and country of the Jalcones Indians, on the shore of the river Guali, which laves it on the s. and 12 miles from the river Magdalena. It is the head of the district of a temperature so hot, that even in the winter the heat is felt here. It is fertile and abundant in fruits and silver-mines, which afford its principal commerce, although it is nevertheless poor and reduced; and yet there are in its population some families of distinction: 46 miles e. from Popayán, 165 s. s. w. of Santa Fé, and 35 w. n. w. of Timaná, in lat. 2° 24' n. and long. 75° 46' w.

PLATA, a large, abundant, and navigable river of S. America; one of the largest known after the Marañon or Amazonas, and giving its name to some very extensive provinces: discovered by the pilot Juan Diaz de Solis in 1515; who navigated it as far as a small island in lat. 34° 23′ 30′′ s. and who, having seen on the shores some Indian cabins, had the boldness to disembark with ten men; when they were all put to death at the hands of those infidels. Five years afterwards there arrived here Sebastian Goboto, who passed from the service of the English to that of the Spaniards, by the former of whom he was sent to the discovery of the Strait of Magellan. But he, finding himself impeded in his views by an insurrection of the people, was under the necessity of entering the river La Plata: by this he navigated as far as the island discovered by Solis, and to which he gave the name of San Gabriel. Seven leagues above this island he discovered a river called San Salvador, and another at 30 leagues distance, which the natives called Sarcana; where he built a fort, which he named the Tower of Gaboto. He then pursued his voyage as far as the conflux of the rivers Paraná and Paraguay, and leaving the former to the w. entered by the second, and had a battle with the Indians, in which he lost 25 men; but succeeded in routing the infidels, taking from them many valuables of silver, which these had brought

from Peru; and he thus, supposing that there was an abundance of this metal in the territories washed by this river, called it Rio la Plata (River of Silver); whereby it lost the name of Solis, first given it by the discoverer.

This river receives in its extensive course the water of various other very large rivers, so that it is accustomed to have such excessive high floods as to inundate the country for many leagues, fertilizing it, however, in the same manner as the Nile. When this rise occurs, the Indians take their families and effects, and retire to their canoes, where they live till the waters subside, and that they can return to their habitations. The current of this river, when it runs into the sea, is so rapid and violent, that its waters, which are clear and salutary, maintain themselves sweet, without mixing with the waters of the ocean, for many leagues from its entrance. It abounds with an incredible multitude of fish, and on its shores are many most beautiful birds. The distance from the conflux of the Paraguay and Paraná to its mouth, is about 200 leagues by the course of the river, the whole space being filled with the most delightful islands, and being navigable for the largest vessels.

The country on either side of the river is most extensive and level, but so scantily supplied with fountains, lakes, or streams, as to render travelling very precarious. It produces every species of American and European fruit, as also grain and seeds, cotton, sugar, honey, &c. but what is its chief recommendation is its excessively large breeds of cattle, inasmuch as it abounds in excellent pastures, from the llanuras extending for upwards of 200 leagues. The first heads of cattle brought from Europe have increased to such a degree, that it is impossible for any one to define those which belong to himself; from whence it arises that all are in common, and every one takes such as he may want, the number being so extraordinary, that, for lading all the vessels which come to Spain, many thousand animals are killed merely for the sake of their hides, the flesh being left to be devoured by the wild beasts and the birds of prey. Those who want milk, go out and profit by as many cows as they require, driving home with them the calves: nor is there a want of an equal abundance of horses; the which are common to all, with no other expense or trouble than that of catching them: the birds and animals of the chase are also equally numerous, and the partridges, which are as large as the hens of Europe, are not unfrequently knocked down with sticks. In short,

there is nothing wanting in this country but salt and fuel; the first, however, is brought in vessels, and, for the second, large plantations of peachtrees are made, which, from the richness of the soil, produce extremely well.

This river is at its mouth about 60 leagues wide; the said mouth being formed by the Cape San Antonio on the s. part, and that of Santa Maria on the n. From thence as far as Buenos Ayres it preserves its name, being afterwards called the Paraná. Although, as we have before observed, it is, the whole of it, navigable, it has many shoals and rocks, on which many vessels have been wrecked, especially during the prevalence of some very impetuous winds, which they here call pamperos; and which blow from w. to s.w. acquiring from the shore so much the greater force in proportion to the smallness of the obstacles they find to impede their course; for they sweep over llanuras of 200 leagues without being interrupted either by mountains or trees. On some occasions, though not very frequently, a regular hurricane takes place here; the which, if it takes its course along the river, no vessel can resist, but its masts are immediately snapped in twain, as has happened to some ships even when their top-masts and yard-arms were struck. In this river the storms are more frequent than at sea. It laves the cities of Buenos Ayres, the colony of Sacramento, which belonged to the Portugueze, and Monte Video. It has some very good ports, and its mouth is in lat. 35° 30' s.

[In continuation of the description of the river La Plata, we shall first give some extracts respecting the jurisdiction of this name from the work of Mr. Mawe, and, afterwards, a concise account of the late revolutions with which that jurisdiction has been affected-Mr. Mawe thus describes the approach to this mighty river:

"Wearied and exhausted by frequent calms under a vertical sun, we were at length relieved by a breeze; and crossing the line at long. 23° w. had a favourable passage to the mouth of the great river Plata, our entrance into which we were enabled to judge from the muddy colour of the water and from numerous flights of sea birds, long before we saw land.

"Our passage," he continues, "he continues," was impeded by a strong s. w. gale, in these parts called a pampero, which blew for several days, and obliged us to lay the vessel-to during the whole time; we shipped so much water, that our boats were hourly in danger of being washed away, and, owing to the stupid carelessness of a Ge

noese sailor, our cabin was at one time half-filled. The gale at length ceased; a breeze sprung up to the e. to the e. and we made all possible sail: after running a s. w. course for two days, we found soundings at 35 fathoms water, and on the second day following, at noon, saw the high land of Maldonado at a distance of about nine leagues, and the Isle of Lobos four or five leagues ahead. Passing through the channel which divides them, we encountered a strong breeze, and soon afterwards found ourselves in a very critical situation; a dark night, a heavy and increasing gale of wind, the violent uncertain currents of the river, the English bank to the s. and the Isle of Flores to the w. n. w. The captain knew nothing of the navigation, and I was obliged to command instead of advising. I caused the vessel to be laid-to, under the smallest and most manageable sail possible; kept the lead continually going, and wore the vessel every two hours. The night was one of the most dreadful I ever witnessed; the moon was overcast by heavy black clouds pouring torrents of rain, accompanied with terrible lightning and loud thunder; the waves, owing to the shallowness of the water (seven and eight fathoms), appeared like breakers. At daylight our prospect was not much bettered; a dense fog hindered us from seeing at all beyond the vessel, and the conflict of the wind with the current rendered the waves still more boisterous. In the course of the morning the thunder moderated, but the stormy rain continued; no object was distinctly visible; hidden rocks and sand-banks lay on each side of us; and we were approaching a channel not a mile wide, rendered more formidable by a strong and ever-shifting current. In consequence of incessant exertion I was in a most exhausted state, but the captain and crew were incapable of affording me a moment's respite; danger seemed to have deprived them of their reason, and they looked on all that passed with a fearful and senseless apathy. I had often had occasion to observe the intrepid constancy and activity of British seamen in similar emergencies, and I could not but be struck with the contrast. We shipped several heavy seas which had the appearance of broken-water, and hence it again became necessary to keep the lead continually going. At eleven A. M. on finding that we shoaled our water extremely fast, being already in four fathom and over very hard ground, I was convinced that we were at the head of the English bank, and therefore immediately wore on the other tack toward the island of Flores. The]

[fog prevented us from taking a meridianal observation, but at three P. M. it cleared, and to our great joy we saw Monte Video before us at four leagues distance. Our seamen now took heart, and began to be more expert; we made all sail; but the wind gradually declining, and a strong current setting directly from the harbour, we were obliged in the evening to let go our anchor about two leagues outside the port."

Mr. Mawe, owing to his short stay at Buenos Ayres, had no time to make any geological researches; indeed the country behind it, being a vast plain, without any traces of rock, did not offer much scope for such an undertaking. With the exception of a part of the bank near the mole, which is of granite, he scarcely found an indurated substance during the whole route. Judging from the shells and other marine productions which are occasionally found in the pampas he should conclude that those extensive level districts have formed, at some period, the bottom of the river, and that they have been left dry by the progressive precipitation of matter and the deepening of the Rio de la Plata in its present channel through a long course of ages. A circumstance which seems to support this conjecture is, that the land continually gains upon the river, and that at those times when the wind blows from the Pampas, a considerable extent of the bank on the side of Buenos Ayres is left dry. The population of Buenos Ayres and its immediate suburbs, exclusive of the country in its vicinity, has been ascertained to amount to upwards of 60,000 souls. The proportion of females to males is said to be as four to one; but if we take into consideration that many men are almost daily arriving from Europe, as well as from the S. American provinces, and that under the old government neither the militia nor the marine was recruited from the mass of the population, we shall find reason to conclude that the proportion of the sexes is not so unequal. In the interior the excess of males is very great, for as the lands are granted in large tracts only, and but poorly cultivated, there is no encouragement for the labouring classes to marry and settle upon them. The poor are compelled to remain single from the very bare resources on which they depend for subsistence, and are accustomed to consider the married state as fraught with heavy burdens and inevitable misfortunes. It is not uncommon to find estates larger than an English county with hardly more than 100 labourers upon them, who subsist upon the sale of a little corn, which each

is permitted to grow for himself, but only to such an extent as a single man can plough. The various races which compose the population are as follow:

1. Legitimate Spaniards or Europeans. In Buenos Ayres there are about 3000; in the interior the number is very trifling, except in Potosi, which, being a mining country, contains

many.

2. Creoles; legitimate descendants from Spaniards or Europeans.

3. Mestizos; the offspring of European and Indian parents.

4. Indians; almost all of whom have some mixture of Spanish blood.

5. Brown mixtures of Africans and Europeans. 6. Mulattoes of various degrees.

All these races intermix without restraint, so that it is difficult to define the minor gradations, or to assign limits to the ever-multiplying varieties. Few families are entirely exempt from characteristics of Indian origin, physical as well as moral. It is well known that in the Spanish colonies little regard is now paid to purity of blood; the various regulations for preserving the races distinct have gradually become obsolete. This may be regarded as a momentary evil; but may it not be conducive in the long-run to the good of society, by concentrating the interests of the various classes, which in remaining separate might one day endanger the stability of the government, as has been the case in the French colony of St. Domingo?

In describing the orders of society in Buenos Ayres, it is necessary to premise that we class them, not by degrees of birth, rank, or profession, but by the relative estimation in which they stand, in point of property, of public usefulness.

According to this scale, the first which comes under consideration is the commercial class, Every person belonging to it, from the huckster at the corner of the street, to the opulent trader in his warehouse, is dignified by the appellation of merchant, yet few individuals among them can lay just claim to that title, as they are wanting in that practical knowledge so essential in commercial dealings. They are averse to all speculation and enterprise; the common routine of their business is to send orders to Spain for the articles they need, and to sell by retail at an exorbitant profit; beyond this they have hardly a single idea, and it has been said that their great reason for opposing a free trade with foreign nations is a consciousness of their own mercantile inexperience. The more con-]

ever,

[siderable houses are almost all branches of some European establishment; few of the Creoles have any regular trade. Those among them howwho engage in it are much more liberal in their transactions than the old Spaniards, and are observed to make less rapid fortunes, for their manly and independent character makes them spurn a miserable economy, and disdain to assume that church-going practice which must be observed twice or thrice a day by those who would enrich themselves through the patronage of the opulent families. Among the inferior tradesmen, those who gain most are the pulperos, the warehousemen, and the shop-keepers. The pulperos retail wine, brandy, candles, sausages, salt, bread, spices, wood, grease, brimstone, &c. Their shops are generally lounging places for the idle and dissipated of the community. In Buenos Ayres there are about 700 of them, each more or less in the interest of some richer individual. The warehousemen sell earthen and glass ware, drugs, various articles of consumption, and some goods of home manufacture, wholesale and retail. The shop-keepers amount to nearly 600 in number; they sell woollen cloths, silk, cotton goods of all sorts, hats, and various other articles of wearing apparel. Many of them make considerable fortunes, those especially who trade to Lima, Peru, Chile, or Paraguay, by means of young men whom they send as agents or factors. There is another description of merchants, if such they may be called, who keep in the back ground and enrich themselves by monopolizing victuals, and by forestalling the grain brought to market from the interior, much to the injury of the agricultural interest.

The second class of inhabitants consist of the proprietors of estates and houses. They are, in general, Creoles, for few Europeans employ their funds in building, or in the purchase of land, until they have realised a fortune to live upon, which commonly takes place when they are far advanced in life, so that their establishments pass immediately into the hands of their successors. The simple landholders derive so little revenue from their possessions, that they are generally in debt to their tradesmen; their gains are but too commonly engrossed by the monopolists, and having no magistrate to represent them, they find themselves destitute of effectual resources against wrong and extortion. So defective and ill-regulated are the concerns of agriculture in this country, that the proprietor of an estate really worth 20,000 dollars can scarcely subsist upon it.

VOL. IV.

Under the class of landed proprietors we may reckon the cultivators, here called quinteros or chacareros, who grow wheat, maize, and other grain. grain. These men are so depressed and impoverished that, notwithstanding the importance of their calling, and the public usefulness of their labours, they are ranked among the people of least consequence in society.

The third class is composed of handicraftsmen, such as masons, carpenters, tailors, and shoemakers, who, although they work hard, and receive great wages, seldom realise property. The journeymen are usually people of colour; the masters for the most part Genoese, and universally foreigners, for the Spaniards despise these trades, and cannot stoop to work along with Negroes or Mulattoes. Many of the lower orders derive subsistence from these and other employments of a similar nature; here are limeburners, wood-cutters, tanners, curriers, &c. The free porters constitute a numerous body of men ; they ply about the streets to load and unload carts, and carry burdens, but they are so idle and dissolute, that no man can depend on their services for a week together; when they have a little money, they drink and gamble, and when pennyless betake themselves to pilfering. These habits have long rendered them a public nuisance, but no corrective measures have hitherto been taken, nor does there appear, on the part of the higher orders, any disposition to reform them.

Persons employed in public offices may be comprehended under the fourth class. The best situations under government are held by native Spaniards; those of less emolument by Creoles; the former are regarded as mere sinecures, and the persons enjoying them are considered as in no way serviceable to the community, except by spending their large salaries within it.

The fifth class is the militia or soldiery. Previous to the invasion of the English, the officers were not much noted for military science, or for that ardour which leads to the acquisition of it; their chief ambition was to obtain commands in towns and villages, especially those on the Portuguese frontier, where they might enrich themselves by smuggling. The privates were ill-disciplined, badly dressed, and badly paid. The effective force which the crown of Spain maintained in these possessions was one regiment of the line, which was to consist of 1200 men, but was reduced to less than half; one regiment of dragoons amounted to 600, two of cavalry called blandengues, 600 each, and one or two companies of artillery. With the exception of the]

Y

[Blandengues, all the troops were originally sent from the Peninsula, but not having for the last 20 years been recruited from thence, their ranks were gradually filled by natives. By eminence they were called veterans, but they have been of late disbanded, and their officers have passed to the command of the new corps which were formed on the English invasion. The force of these corps may be estimated at 9000 men.

The sixth class is the clergy, in number about 1000. The seculars are distinguished by their learning, honour, and probity; but the friars are, in general, grosly ignorant, and render but little real service to the public in any way. (Mawe.) With respect to the revolution of the Spanish colonies, no part of America has made bolder advances towards the objects of its wishes, freedom and independence, than that tract of country comprehended under the title of the jurisdiction of La Plata.

It is true that the commotions of the S. American continent have proved beyond all question, from the simultaneous effect of their operation that they have all germinated from the same seed, though the growth of the tree has been stunted or forwarded by the peculiarities of circumstance or place. It is our object here to explain the origin and to trace the progress of the revolution of La Plata. The subject has already been re'cently treated by various writers with much intelligence, and availing ourselves as we shall most freely of those sources of information, we fear not but that we shall be enabled to put the question, if not in a more concise, at least much clearer point of light than any in which it has hitherto been represented.

In tracing from their origin the causes of this revolution, our attention is involuntarily, in a certain degree, drawn back to the circumstances which attended the English expedition to the shores of the river La Plata, in 1806; an expedition which, it has been justly observed, seemed planned with a view only to establish a military post, that might be thrown into the scale of considerations when peace was treated of in Europe; since such a handful of men, acting in direct contradiction to the only means afforded by the state of the country of insuring the lasting good-will of its natives, could never have had in contemplation to conquer and garrison an extensive empire; or to establish with it an enlarged commercial intercourse.

It was attended, however, with one good, of which the British cabinet was not then aware, or its agent prepared to convert into national ad

vantage. It gave an opportunity to those, who in the seclusion of their closets had pondered on the past wrongs of their country, who had ventured to study those rights which constitute the inheritance of all free men, to be known to each other. No longer dreading the censure and shackles of their old government, they assembled, and discussed topics leading to a change of government; their numbers increased, and the protection of the British arms was deemed to afford a most favourable opportunity for extending the benefits of civil independence. Thus did a spark, which in its beginning was almost imperceptible, acquire magnitude; and had it then been fostered, had civil talents, combined with a protecting and conciliating policy, been then but used, the blood subsequently shed would have been spared, disgrace would not have fallen on the British arms, and instead of that enmity which naturally followed, instead of mourning, devastation, and reproach, all would have been converted into the lasting and sincere blessings of the emancipated inhabitants, in favour of a nation that came to aid them in a cause connected with their vital interests.

That the British chiefs were early convinced that there existed a leading party in favour of independence and a change of government, evidently results from the many official reports produced in General Whitelocke's trial, but that they were also not provided with any instructions to improve that spirit, seems equally conclusive. We feel no hesitation in saying, that on the appearrance of the British army in the waters of La Plata, it was hailed as an happy omen by those who sought the melioration of their country, and the passive part of the community had sufficient reliance on the national honour to hope, that whatever was attempted would be honestly directed to their relief and benefit. We know that men high in civil authority, repeatedly pressed the English to declare whether they came as emancipators or as conquerors; and even the religious communities publicly testified their joy and their congratulations in a remarkable discourse held on the 28th June, 1806. But we also know full well on the other hand, that the English chiefs were necessarily silent, and that silence in such a case is almost worse than an unpropitious avowal. Too well we know how soon the interesting and favourable sentiments first excited vanished into air; how rapidly the goaded pride and disappointed hopes of the people exploded in open clamour; how rancorously the deluded sagacity of the clergy converted the]