Last Days in Argentina 299 



the story of Uruguay is the history of constant struggles 

 between the two Powers to gain the mastery of the 

 territory. It was not until the signing of the Treaty of 

 San Ildefonso in 1777 that these conflicts came nomi- 

 nally to an end. By this treaty the power of Spa n, 

 which had occupied the land with a great army, rein- 

 forced by a powerful fleet, was recognized as extending 

 over the whole of what is now the modern State of 

 Uruguay, the settlement of Colonia was transferred to 

 the Spanish Crown, and Portugal was given the terri- 

 tory on the Atlantic seaboard comprised within the 

 States of Santa Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul, 

 almost as they appear upon the maps of the present 

 time. 



From the date of the settlement effected by the 

 Treaty of San Ildefonso, Uruguay began to assume 

 importance as a Spanish province. A considerable 

 influx of Spanish immigrants arrived at Montevideo. 

 Many of these belonged to old and influential Castilian 

 families, and the town put on aristocratic airs, while 

 what our American forefathers designated as the "back- 

 woods, ' were tenanted by the Creole element, partly 

 of mixed blood, a marauding, beef-eating, bellicose 

 swarm of rough-riders and swashbucklers, who carried 

 on a perpetual guerrilla with the Indians and with the 

 Portuguese inhabitants of Rio Grande do Sul, who in 

 turn retaliated in quite as savage a fashion. 



In 1 806 the English took Buenos Aires and many of the 

 Spanish people fled to Montevideo, where an expedition 

 against the British was organized which resulted in their 

 expulsion from Buenos Aires. In January, 1807, the 

 English sent an expedition by way of the Cape of Good 

 Hope which bombarded Montevideo and took the place 

 by assault with frightful loss of life on both sides. The 



