610 



PARAGUAY. 



the President of Paraguay, the following 

 memorandum : 



Basis of Negotiations proposed to Marshal Lopez, 

 President of Paraguay ', by Mr. Gould, British Sec- 

 retary of Legation in Buenos Ayres, on mission to 

 the belligerents' camp. 



1. A secret previous conference will assure the 

 allied powers of the acceptance, on the part of the 

 Paraguayan Government, of the proposals they might 

 be disposed to make to it. 



2. The independence and the integrity of the Ee- 

 public of Paraguay will be formally recognized by 

 the allied powers. 



3. All the questions relative to the territories, or 

 boundaries, in dispute before the present war, will 

 either be reserved for an ulterior conference or sub- 

 mitted to the arbitration of neutral powers. 



4. The allied troops will retire from the Paraguayan 

 territory, and the troops of Paraguay will evacuate 

 the positions occupied by them in the territory of 

 the Empire of Brazil, so soon as the conclusion of 

 peace is assured. 



5. No indemnification will be required for the ex- 

 penses of the war. 



6. The prisoners of war on both parts will be put 

 immediately at liberty. 



7. The Paraguayan troops will be dismissed, ex- 

 cepting the number of men strictly necessary to 

 maintain the interior tranquillity of the Eepublic. 



8. His excellency the Marshal-President of the Re- 

 public will, after the conclusion of peace, or after the 

 preliminaries of the same, withdraw to Europe, 

 delegating the government to the vice-president, 

 who, by the constitution of the Republic, is in like 

 cases the person designated to take charge of it. 



(Signed) G. T. GOULD. 



Headquarters, Tuyucu, September 12, 1867. 



The reply of Mr. Caminos to this paper is 

 dated headquarters in Paso-Puco, the same 

 day, September 12, 1867. The most important 

 portion of it is as follows : 



In the various clauses of this memorandum, I find 

 a notable difference from those you had shaped to 

 serve as the object of the conference to which you 

 invited me, declaring that the Brazilian Minister in 

 Buenos Ayres, and President Mitre, and the 'Marquis 

 de Caxias in the allied camp, had previously spoken 

 upon it to you ; however, the most salient is the 

 condition, not only of the separation of his Excel- 

 lency the Marshal-President of the Eepublic from the 

 government of the State, but likewise, which is more, 

 to exile him to Europe, according to the terms of 

 clause 8 of the memorandum presented to the allied 

 chiefs. 



For your personal satisfaction I must add that, as 

 the vice-president is named by the President of the 

 Eepublic, according to our institutions, he is not 

 competent to assume the supreme command of the 

 State in the absence of the President, and his mis- 

 sion is limited, in such a case, to convoke an Electoral 

 Congress. As to the rest, I can assure you that the 

 Eepublic of Paraguay will never sully its honors and 

 its glories by consenting that its president and de- 

 fender, who has rendered it so glorious, and who 

 fights for its existence, should be deposed from his 

 charge, and, still less, that he should be expatriated 

 from the land which is the witness of his heroism 

 and sacrifices, tokens which are a sufficient guarantee 

 of the union that joins the lot of Marshal JJopez to 

 that which God may have reserved for the Para- 

 guayan nation. 



The other articles of the memorandum shown to 

 the allied chiefs may serve as a point of departure 

 for a discussion, as I have already had the honor of 

 declaring to you, although I am not ignorant that in 

 the discussion some difficulties cannot avoid arising, 

 which, however, the interests of peace may reduce to 

 more convenient terms. 



At the beginning of the year 1868, the main 

 force of the allies was still engaged in carrying 

 on the siege of the Paraguayan fortress Hu- 

 maita. The forces of the allies and the Para- 

 guayans were respectively estimated at 40,000 

 and 23,000, the relative advantages of position 

 making the real strength, of the Paraguayans 

 about equal to that of the Brazilians. 



On the 17th of February three monitors 

 passed Curupaity, and on the 19th six iron- 

 clads succeeded in forcing the passage of Hu- 

 maita, which was defended by 180 pieces of 

 artillery. The ships were much battered, but 

 none lost. Ten men were wounded. On the 

 same day the Marquis de Oaxias stormed a 

 work north, of Humaita, taking fifteen cannon 

 and a quantity of stores. The loss on each 

 side was about six hundred men. 



On the 21st of February, three iron-clads 

 steamed on to Asuncion, the capital of 

 Paraguay. On arriving in front of the city 

 they were received by shots from sixty-eight 

 pounders in the port of Tocubi, to which he 

 vessels responded, shelling the arsenal, the 

 custom-house, and the president's palace, for 

 several hours. The division met with, no 

 obstacles, and the commodore reported that 

 the city could easily be taken by effecting a 

 landing at Santo Antonio, a few miles lower 

 down. The defences of the place he reported 

 to be unimportant, and the garrison to be 

 small. 



On the 2d of March the Paraguayans made 

 an attempt to capture the eight Brazilian iron- 

 clads stationed between Curupaity and Hu- 

 maita. Before daylight, 48 boats with 1,200 

 picked men, armed with carbines, revolvers, 

 hatchets, and hand-grenades, pulled quietly 

 from the river bank, after covering themselves 

 with boughs so as to resemble a floating islet. 

 A guard-boat detected the artifice, but before 

 the crew of the nearest vessel could ensconce 

 themselves inside the towers, 14 boats were 

 alongside, and the Paraguayans boarding; a 

 short hand-to-hand fight ensued, in which the 

 captain and first officer were severely wounded. 

 TheCabral was also boarded from 12 boats, but 

 her crew had time to enter the casemate. On 

 both, vessels the desperate struggle was con- 

 tinued through the port with fire-arms, every 

 shot of the defenders telling in the dense mass 

 of the assailants, and the former suffering se- 

 verely from grenades thrown in. The plan of 

 simultaneous attack had, however, been frus- 

 trated in the excitement, and by the current, 

 and the iron-clads Silvado and Herval opened 

 grape with deadly effect upon the boats, wbile 

 the Brazil swept the decks of tbe boarded ves- 

 sels. The Paraguayans leaped into the boats or 

 tbe river, and sought to escape. Tbe boats of 

 the squadron were sent off to save the swim- 

 mers, but they refused to surrender, and only 

 13 prisoners were taken. The Paraguayan loss 

 was estimated at 400 men, 140 bodies being 

 found on tbe decks of the two vessels. On the 

 part of tbe Brazilians, 32 were reported killed 



