S14 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[March, 
resigned, not long after the rupture of the negotiations, and took 
the command of the army of the interior, as it is called. The 
office of governor was conferred on Don Juan Ramon Balcarse. 
A revolution was enacted. Balcarse was overthrown and exiled, 
and escaped to the Banda Oriental. Viamonte, who is the locum 
tenens in all changes, was appointed governor. The people were 
not satisfied, and three times was the government tendered to the 
real Cassar, Don Juan Manuel de Rosas, " which he did thrice 
refuse." Twice has it been offered to Don Tomas Manuel de 
Ancherona and refused. It was finally accepted by De Maza, 
the former minister of grace and justice. The civil government 
has the mere shadow of authority : the treasury is empty — feuds and 
factions distract this unhappy country. Good men — enlightened 
and patriotic men, there are in this country, but they have no 
affinity with the moral elements which surround them. The 
seminal principle of free institutions is there, but it is like the 
roots of the trees in the Pampas, as soon as it shoots above the 
earth, the pamparo of a revolution stops its growth, — the hopes 
of the better people are constantly blasted ; time alone can bring 
a remedy ! 
The government of Buenos Ayres have repeatedly assured 
the government of the United States that they would send a min- 
ister to this country, but none has appeared. It is not probable 
that any new outrages will be committed on our commerce or 
citizens. Should any be attempted, the cannon of our ships will 
negotiate a settlement more effectually than the most accomplished 
diploina:tist. 
If Great Britain should advance any pretensions to the ex- 
clusive use of the fisheries at the Falklands, it is to be hoped 
that such pretensions will be as strenuously resisted as were 
those of the Argentine Republic — indeed, more strenuously — 
for we could afford to laugh at the empty bluster and sounding 
bravadoes of the Argentines, and smile at the pompous preten- 
sions of a province with a population of less than two hundred 
thousand — but should the empress of islands come into the field 
of controversy with the same pretensions, she must be met as 
an equal in the family of nations ; and while we carefully abstain 
from all encroachments on her rights, our own should be defended 
with unflinching vigour and firmness. 
