SOUTH AMERICA. ggQ 



jection for any length of time, is utterly impossible; 

 the only mode in which the Spaniards could effect it, 

 was, by disarming them, and depriving them of all 

 , participation in the government; the reverse of which 

 has been done by Buenos Ayres. Was not the ex- 

 pulsion of the Spanish authorities a deliverance? 

 They are, then, surely better off than they were be- 

 fore. But they might have accomplished it them- 

 selves— general Carrera might have done it; here is 

 the drowning man complaining of ^Hhe guilty famil- 

 iarity of plucking him up by the locks.'' Is the chance 

 of freedom better than the certainty? It is much more 

 j probable that the idea originated in the ambition of 

 I Carrera, whose conduct proves that he considers the 

 1 government of Buenos Ayres, not so much inimical to 

 his country as to his own peculiar views. I shall proba- 

 I bly have occasion to say more on this subject hereafter. 



His companion White, from his own account, was 

 an expatriated American, and had been settled in the 

 country eighteen or twenty years; had rendered impor- 

 tant services to the government of Buenos Ayres, for 

 which he had been treated with great ingratitude; 

 he had been banished from that place, and had sued 

 in vain from the present director for permission to 

 return. According to others, he was a desperate 

 land unprincipled adventurer, possessed of consider^ 

 able talents, but had got himself into many scrapes, 

 and had been frequently in prisons. It was said that 

 he was a native of Boston, and had been bred to the 

 bar, but that he followed in this country the profession 

 |of a merchant. I was told that he was odious to the 

 people of Buenos Ayres for having rendered as- 

 distance to the expedition of Benesford, and that he 



