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with matters of the greatest importance to the interests of the nation, and orders 

 that every facility may be afforded him for a speedy return to Europe. 



The Governor of Monte- Video, at this period, was Don Xavier Elio, the same 

 man who was there, until lately, under the title of Viceroy, conferred on him by the 

 Junta of Cadiz. He had very powerful motives for disapproving the conduct of 

 the chief, who was now beginning to get into notice. Not a word had been said 

 on the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand VII., and the steps which the Government 

 took were so indirect, that very little penetration was necessary to discover reasons 

 for doubting the sincerity of their intentions. Don Xavier Elio rebelled from the 

 submission due to the authority of the Viceroy, and forming a Junta at Monte- 

 Video, in imitation of feveral provincial Juntas which were already known to have 

 been constituted in Spain, declared that he would obey no ordinances emanating 

 from the capital of the province, which he considered to be oppressed under the 

 command of a traitorous chief. Thus a pernicious lesson was inconsiderately given, 

 by which the people did not fail to profit ; and whatever attempts may be made to 

 exculpate the refractory proceedings of a subaltern governor, who would in no 

 degree have endangered the cause of his nation by acting prudently, and might 

 at all events have adopted measures of moderate precaution, it cannot be denied 

 that this scandalous example of insubordination must have cost dear to its insti* 

 gators. An expedition of troops was sent by the Viceroy against Monte- Video, 

 and thus, for the first time since the days of Pizarro, a civil war broke out in 

 the Spanish Americas. 



Meanwhile, Liniers was extending the scope of his ambitious views, and in 

 proportion as the accusations against him multiplied, he saw the necessity of 

 proceeding more openly in the execution of his plans. His firft object was to 

 gain a formidable party in the country who might second his measures, and he 

 began, by raising to the rank of officers, the most abandoned members of society^i 

 and others whose want of honour assured him that they would act whatever 

 part he assigned them. The invasions of the English had required an augmen- 

 tation of the troops, beyond the means of the colonial treasury to maintain j 

 but far from reducing the supplementary force, as might have been expected 

 when the urgency of the occasion which called it forth had subsided, he daily 

 augmented it, by creating new regiments, one of which he distinguished by the 

 name of the Grenadiers of Liniers, and reserved it as his body-guard. The 

 administration of justice, which by an absurd provision in the constitution of the 

 colonies is vested in the Viceroys, was subjected entirely to his favourite project j 



