EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 187 



While it was the object, because it was to the interest, of Mr. Jarvis 

 and his business associates to magnify the difficulties lying in the way 

 of procuring these sheep and to claim for themselves special facilities 

 and possessions, it was equally the purpose of other parties to deny 

 some of these claims and oppose their pretentious. An instance is 

 given in the following letter, dated Lisbon, September 26, 1810, and sent 

 to a gentleman of Boston : 



The vessel which brings this letter will bring 200 Merino sheep. Believing that it 

 may be interesting, I take this opportunity to rectify some mistakes that have been 

 made, and explain away some of the almost irreconcilable difficulties that have been 

 said by interested individuals to be placed in the way of their transportation. Such 

 is the state of Spain and the horrid disorders of the country, that the hitherto 

 unchangeable laws, prohibiting their exportation from Spain, have been wholly 

 repealed. The sheep that are coming in the Sumner are part of the Paular flock, 

 sold by one of the provincial Juntas as the property of the sans-culotte Godoy, or the 

 personage better known by the name of Prince of Peace. They will be accom- 

 panied by certificates from the Marquis Romaua and British officers. * * * But 

 it will, therefore, be thus satisfactory to you, that so far from the Spanish Junta hav- 

 ing continued the restriction relative to the sheep, there is no difficulty in obtaining 

 them; and further, there are many of the best breed that can be purchased by any- 

 one so choosing. Wool and sheep are now coming down from the frontiers. The fall 

 of Ciudad Rodrigo will occasion more to be brought. About 1,000 in all will be 

 taken to the United States. Many go to Great Britain; a shipment of 1,700 has been 

 made to Bristol alone. 



After Jarvis wrote his letter of August 1, and after the data were fur- 

 nished for the article quoted from the New York Gazette of September 19, 

 Mr. Jarvis purchased about 1,850 sheep of the different cabanas, of which 

 100 were Negrettis, about 200 Montarcos, and the remainder Aguirres, 

 which were sold for America, making his total shipments to the United 

 States, according to his own statements, nearly, or quite, 4,000, includ- 

 ing the 200 Escurials shipped early in 1810 to President Madison, 

 Thomas Jefferson, Coolidge & Co., and others in Virginia, New York, 

 and New England. Albert Chapman finds evidence that he shipped 

 more than 4,000, and in his " Register of the Vermont Merino Sheep 

 Breeders' Association" traces the shipments. We give in this place 

 some extracts from the published correspondence of Mr. Jarvis relat- 

 ing to the importations in which he was largely interested: 



When the second irruption of the French armies into Spain, in the winter of 

 1809, drove the Spanish Junta from Madrid to Badajos, the Junta was without 

 money and without resources, and they durst not levy any taxes on the Estremaduras 

 lest they should disgust that province, and the people should declare in favor of the 

 French. No alternative was, therefore, left them other than to sell the four flocks 

 of Merinos which had been confiscated with the other property of four grandees 

 who had joined France, with license to transport them out of Spain. These flocks 

 were the Paular, which had belonged to the celebrated Prince of Peace; theNegretti, 

 which had belonged to the Coude Cainpo de Alange, the Aguirres (the wool of which 

 was known in England as the Muros, this flock having been the property of the 

 Moors before their expulsion from Spain), which had belonged to the Conde de 

 Aguirres, and the Montarco, which had belonged to the Conde of that name. Those 

 flocks were then in the vicinity of Badajos, and when confiscated, the two former 



