ARTIGAS
The human product of a turbulent era--Historical verdicts
disagree--Opinions of Uruguayan and foreign
historians--High-flown tribute--The cleansing of Artigas's
fame--Prejudices of some local accounts--Uruguay at the time of
Artigas's birth--Surroundings of his youth--Smuggling as a
profession--Growth of his influence--His name becomes a household
word--Artigas enters the Spanish service--The corps of
Blandengues--Efficiency and promotion--Quarrel with the Spanish
General--Artigas throws in his lot with the patriot forces--His
success as a leader of men--Rank accorded him--Jealousy between
Artigas and the Buenos Aires generals--Conflicting ambitions--The
Portuguese invasion--Artigas leads the Oriental nation to the
Argentine shore--The encampment at Ayui--Scarcity of arms and
provisions--Battles with the Portuguese--The subalterns of
Artigas--Otorgues and Andresito--Crude governmental
procedure--Arbitrary decrees--The sentiments of Artigas--His love
of honesty--Progress of the war--Complications of the
campaign--Artigas as Protector--The encampment of
Hervidero--Revolting tales--The exaggeration of history--Artigas
refuses honour--His proclamations--Simple life of the
commander--Some contemporary accounts--The national
treasury--Final desperate struggles against the
Portuguese--Rebellion of Ramirez--Fierce battles--Extraordinary
recuperative power of the Protector--Final defeat of
Artigas--Flight to Paraguay--The Protector in retirement.
The name of Artigas stands for that of the national hero of Uruguay.
Within the frontiers of the River Plate countries and of Southern
Brazil no such introduction would be necessary, since in those places
have raged controversies as fierce as any of the battles in which the
old warrior took part. To the average English reader, however, his
name is necessarily unfamiliar, although it crops up now and again in
the records of travellers who visited South America during the first
quarter of the eighteenth century.
Artigas was essentially the product of a turbulent era. Born in 1764,
he had remained comparatively obscure until forty-six years later,
when the outbreak of the South American War of Independence sent him
aloft with dramatic rapidity to a pinnacle of prominence from which he
ruled nations and armies--with a result that is yet the subject of
considerable dispute.
Perhaps never did the memory of a man meet with more honour in his own
country, and with less favour without it. Argentine historians and
European travellers of all nationalities have included him within the
dark fold of the world's great criminals. From the mill of their
analysis Artigas emerges as a bandit, murderer, traitor, a criminal
who seized with audacity each of his thousand opportunities to outrage
the laws of morality and decency. Apart from the testimony of the
noted historians, two Swiss naturalists, Rengger and Longchamps, who
penetrated to his country and whose report should be unbiassed, speak
of him as one "whose life has been only a tissue of horrors, the great
instrument of all the calamities which for ten years fell on the
provinces of the confederation of Rio de la Plata." These convictions
are echoed by a score of other authorities.
For the other side of the picture it is necessary to turn to the
Uruguayan writers. Their views are at least as definite and unanimous
as the others. According to one, Eduardo Muñoz Ximinez, "the austerity
of Cato, the purity of Aristides, the temperament of the Gracchi, the
nobility of Camillus, the generosity of Fabricius--these virtues,
allied to heroism and determination, have been found united within
the breast of none but Artigas." This represents but a solitary note,
typical of the great chorus of praise that goes up from Uruguay.
Artigas, living, had little concern with compromise; dead, his spirit
seems to have infected his historians with the same dislike of
half-measures. In other respects this particular strand of history is
as flexible as all the rest. For generations the feathers of Artigas's
fame remained of undisputed black; now the active protests of the
Uruguayans have initiated a cleansing process that promises to change
the plumes to too blinding a white. Such impartial judgment as is
possible induces the persuasion that the Argentine and foreign
chroniclers, though writing in all good faith, have erred a little in
relying too much upon the testimony of men who bore bitter personal
enmity towards the Uruguayan leader. Artigas, in fact, reveals himself
from out of the cloud of conflicting authorities as an essentially
human being, swayed by the passions of the age and knowing many of its
faults, wild as the age itself, but less sordid and more picturesque,
and the author of some deeds, moreover, that, worked in the light of a
more central and populous field, might well have sent his name to
posterity with more assured honour.
Artigas was born at a time that, by courtesy, was termed one of peace.
A treaty of the previous year had for a short while changed the open
warfare between the Spaniards and Portuguese into an unofficial series
of aggressions and frontier skirmishes. Scarcely, however, had the
future Protector of Uruguay attained to his twelfth year when the war
broke out again, thus adding fresh fuel to the ceaseless minor hatreds
and private feuds. Brought up, as one of his own apologists admits, in
an atmosphere of rapine, revenge, and violence, the early
surroundings of Artigas were sufficient to prepare him for the grim
part he was destined to play. He could, moreover, lay claim to an
especial sentimental stake in the country, since forty years before
the date of his birth his grandfather had formed one of the heads of
seven families who were sent from Buenos Aires in order to found the
town of Montevideo.
Artigas, attained to manhood, became noted for physical prowess. As
was inevitable in such a land, his unequalled tricks of horsemanship
and feats of strength soon gave him an ascendency over the companions
of his own age. Since Artigas himself vouchsafed little information on
the subject, the details of this early career are at best vague. His
enemies assert that he turned brigand, and captained a band of
desperadoes. It is now practically certain that this was not the case,
but that he devoted himself to smuggling there is no doubt. It must be
remembered that in those days contraband was not necessarily a
commerce of reproach. Although its active agents were essentially of a
reckless type, there were others of considerable standing who were
more or less directly interested in a traffic that they held a
legitimate and profitable protest against the repressive fiscal
measures of Spain.
It was in the sparsely populated hill country of the north that
Artigas first learned to control men and to command expeditions. Once
fairly settled to the work, unusually numerous convoys of laden horses
and mules passed stealthily southwards from Brazil through the
valleys, forests, and streams of the frontier districts, for the
daring ventures of the Uruguayan leader met with phenomenal success.
As a result his influence steadily increased among both the men of his
own race and the semi-civilised Indians of the neighbourhood. The
personality of the man with the hawk nose, blue eyes, and fair skin
possessed the rare faculty of inspiring his followers with personal
affection as well as with admiration. As the years went on his name
began to ring in every mud cabin and reed hut, and the numbers of his
adherents attained to formidable proportions.
In the meanwhile the general disorder of the country had increased to
a pitch that demanded active measures for its repression. In 1797 the
Spanish authorities raised a special corps of Blandengues, whose
duties were fairly comprehensive. Picked men, they served as cavalry,
police, as guards against Indian raids, and as a force to repress the
smugglers. Imbued with a wholesome respect for his power, the
Montevidean Government approached Artigas by way of the line of least
resistance. The Uruguayan accepted an invitation to join the corps,
and soon proved himself its most capable and efficient officer.
Thus we see Artigas in the blue-and-red uniform of the Blandengues,
armed with a lance that sported a steel crescent below its point,
chasing smugglers instead of being chased, arresting criminals,
fighting with intruding Brazilians, and slaying rebellious Indians
with the precautionary enthusiasm of the period. His vindication of
justice was now as thorough as had formerly been his evasion of the
fiscal laws. In 1802 a rapid series of promotion created him _Guarda
General de la Campaña_, or guardian officer general of the rural
districts. We next hear of him as taking part with his regiment
against the British invaders of the country in 1807. Then, in 1810,
began the South American War of Independence, and with its outbreak
dawned the true career of the Uruguayan popular hero.
It was not, however, until nine months or so after the commencement of
the campaign that Artigas threw in his lot with the patriot forces.
The immediate cause was a quarrel with his superior officer, the
Spanish General Muesa. Artigas, whose spirit was not tempered to
verbal chastisement, gave back word for word, until the incensed
general threatened to send him in chains to the neighbouring island of
San Gabriel. That night the offended officer of Blandengues crossed
the broad River Plate in a small boat, was received with acclamation
by the Argentine leaders, and with their aid prepared an expedition
that should free his country from the Spaniard. The motives that
brought about this sudden adherence to the party of independence have
been much in dispute. Hostile critics assert that the change of front
was merely vindictive, and that it was the revengeful fruit of wounded
pride that sent him to the patriot ranks. His supporters declare
positively that the dispute was of importance only in so far as it
gave him reason for the long desired severance of the link that bound
him to the Spanish service.
Be this how it may, the figure of Artigas now looms with vastly
increased bulk from the field of River Plate history. He is in command
of armies now--which is the lot of many--winning battles with them,
moreover, which is the luck of few. His official rank is that of
Colonel, but the title of General is accorded him by all alike,
whether his superiors or inferiors in grade. As for his own folk of
Uruguay, they have grown to regard him as a being of almost superhuman
power, and follow him with a devoted affection that speaks well for
the temperament of the leader.
Indeed, it was at this period that the famous Uruguayan was first
enabled to show his true mettle. His armies knew little of the pomp of
war. The ragged companies looked up to a chief whose garb was little
more warlike and pretentious than their own. The goodwill, however,
that prevailed in the midst of the Uruguayan armies was not shared by
the leaders of the united forces. Jealousy between Artigas and the
Buenos Aires generals had already caused a breach that political
dissensions rapidly widened. Nations were in the making, and the
process was attended by an almost inevitable bitterness. Buenos Aires
urged a united republic, with its own town as the centre of
government. Artigas strongly opposed this plan, proposing in its place
a bond of self-governing provinces. Recriminations and threats were
bandied to and fro between the rival patriots while the Spaniards,
though closely besieged, yet retained Montevideo, and even while the
Portuguese were moving from Brazil to the assistance of the
monarchists.
At length the Portuguese peril loomed sufficiently large to outweigh
every other consideration. With a view to stemming the foreign tide of
invasion, the Buenos Airens patched up a treaty with the Spanish
troops in Montevideo. The despairing measure was doubtless one of
necessity, but it aroused deep passion in the mind of the Uruguayan
leader, who protested that his country was forsaken, and given over
once again to the mercies of the Spaniards. Collecting every available
man, woman, and child, he led them to the north-west, and passed the
great exodus over the River Uruguay to a haven of safety at Ayui, upon
the Entre Rios shore. Meanwhile, Uruguay was overrun by the invading
Portuguese and by the released Spaniards, who eddied out in all
directions from Montevideo.
Artigas was now encamped for the first time with a translated nation
and an independent army of his own. The condition of both was grimly
tragic, pathetically humorous. For fourteen months almost the only
shelter, that served for all alike, was afforded by the branches of
the trees and the boards of the carts that had brought them. As for
the army, it was composed of strangely heterogeneous elements. Honest
countryfolk rubbed shoulders with professional criminals and
cut-throats; Indians from the destroyed Jesuit missions went side by
side with fierce-faced Gauchos; while townsmen, negroes, and a few
adventurous foreigners made up the mixed gathering.
The men were in deadly earnest, since the example of Artigas seems to
have inspired even the most depraved with a spark from his own fire.
Had it been otherwise they would undoubtedly have succumbed to the
disadvantages with which they had to contend. Arms were scarce. A
certain favoured few were possessed of muskets and swords; but the
weapon in chief use was the lance, the national arm of River Plate
folk, the point of which, here at Ayui, was usually fashioned from the
blade of shears or a knife, or from the iron of some other
agricultural instrument. Many, however, had perforce to be content
with a long knife, with the lasso and the sling--the _boleadores_--as
subsidiary weapons. Yet even these proved by no means despicable in
the hands of the men whose sole garment was the ragged remnant of a
poncho tied about the waist, and who exercised with poles in
preparation for the time when a musket should be in their hands.
It was with the aid of an army such as this that Artigas would cross
the river to make his incursions among the hills of his native
country, and would engage Portuguese and Spaniards alike in battles
from which the desperate and motley companies of men would frequently
emerge victorious. Artigas was now assisted by numerous minor chiefs,
many of whom were of a character quite unfitted to stand the light of
day. Otorques and Andresito were the most noted of these. The methods
of the former were utterly brutal. Although the fact is contradicted,
he is credited by many with the order to a subaltern officer to "cut
the throats of two Spaniards a week in order to preserve the morale.
Failing Spaniards, take two Buenos Airens for the purpose"!
Andresito was an Indian from the deserted Jesuit missions who
commanded a considerable force of his own race. He appears to have
interspersed his dark deeds with some evidence of better qualities and
even of a grim humour. A coarse instance of this latter is supplied
when he entered the town of Corrientes in the heyday of Artigas's
power. On this occasion the Indian troops behaved with no little
restraint towards the terrified inhabitants, and contented themselves
with levying contributions towards the clothing of the almost naked
army. This accomplished, Andresito determined to exhibit the social
side of his temperament. He organised several religious dramas, and
followed these by a ball in honour of the principal residents of the
town. These, however, failed to attend, their reluctance to dancing
with Indians overcoming their prudence. On learning the reason from
some crassly honest person, the enraged Andresito caused these too
particular folk to be mustered in the main plaza of the town. There he
obliged the men to scour the roadway, while the ladies were made to
dance with the Indian troops.
Although no merit or subtlety can be claimed for such methods,
they at all events stand apart from the rest in their lack of
bloodthirstiness. Compared with the sentiments revealed in a
proclamation of Otorgues in taking possession of Montevideo, the
procedure at Corrientes seems innocuous and tame. One of the clauses
of this document decrees the execution within two hours of any
citizen who should speak or write in favour of any other government,
while the same fate was promised to one "who should directly or
indirectly attack the liberty of the Province"! The humour in the
employment of the word "liberty" is, of course, totally unconscious.
Such proclamations, naturally, served purely and simply as a licence
for convenient murder. Employing lieutenants of the kind, it is
little wonder that much of the guilt of their accumulated deeds
should be undeservedly heaped upon Artigas's head. Not that the
Commander-in-Chief himself was inclined to put a sentimental value
upon human life; indeed, a delicacy on this point would be impossible
in one who had passed through the scenes of his particular calling. In
any case his hatred of robbery was deep-rooted and sincere. After the
execution of three criminals of this type, he proclaims to his people
at Ayui: "My natural aversion to all crime, especially to the horrible
one of robbery, and my desire that the army should be composed of
honourable citizens ... has moved me to satisfy justice by means of a
punishment as sad as it is effectual." A little later he makes a
similar appeal, adding, "if there be remaining amongst you one who
does not harbour sentiments of honour, patriotism, and humanity, let
him flee far from the army he dishonours"! Here we get the flowers of
the south, earnestly thrown, but alighting in too earthy a bed! The
poor army, with its impoverished, ragged loin-cloths, and with its
lassos and slings, undoubtedly valued the occasional luxury of a full
stomach at least as highly as the abstract virtues. Yet they probably
heard the words with sincere admiration, feeling an added pride in
their beloved leader who could employ such phrases. In any
case--whether as a result of punishments or proclamations--the crime
of robbery soon became rare almost to extinction within the sphere of
Artigas's influence.
The war itself was each month growing more savage in character. Such
virtues as the Uruguayan army possessed were recognised least of all
by the Spaniards. Elio, the Viceroy, had erected a special gallows in
Montevideo for the benefit of any prisoners that might be captured,
while Vigodet, his successor, endeavoured to strike terror by measures
of pure barbarity. By his order a body of cavalry scoured the
countryside, slaying all those suspected of Artiguenian leanings, and
exposing the quartered portions of their bodies at prominent places by
the roadside. Each patriot, moreover, carried a price upon his head.
It is not to be wondered at that the Uruguayan forces made reprisals,
and that corpses replaced prisoners of war.
A renewed campaign waged by the Buenos Aires forces against the
Spaniards was the signal for the abandonment of the settlement at
Ayui. Once again the Royalists were shut up within the walls of
Montevideo, and at the beginning of 1813 Artigas, with his men,
marched down from the north to take part in the siege. The Uruguayan
came now as an assured ruler of his own people; the Buenos Aires
commanders regarded him as a unit in a greater system. The result was
the inevitable quarrel, and a year from the inception of the
operations Artigas took the most decisive step in his career. He gave
no warning of his move. The evening before had witnessed his
particular portion of the field covered with horses and men. The next
morning saw the ground bare and deserted: Artigas and his army were
already many leagues away.
[Illustration: MONTEVIDEO AND THE CERRO HILL.]
[Illustration: "AFTER CATTLE."
To face p. 88.]
From that moment Artigas became virtual king of a torn and struggling
realm. The Buenos Aires authorities, incensed at his defection, placed
a price of six thousand dollars on his head, continuing meanwhile
the siege of Montevideo. Artigas retaliated by a formal declaration of
war upon the central Government. The hostile ramifications were now
sufficiently involved to satisfy the most warlike spirit. Artigas was
fighting the Buenos Airens and Portuguese, and was only prevented from
coming to close grips with the Spaniards by the fact that the
intervening Buenos Aires armies had already taken that task upon
themselves. As it was, the influence of the national hero spread out
to the west with an amazing rapidity, passing beyond the Uruguay
River, and holding good upon the remote side of the great Paraná
stream itself. In a very short while his dominions in Argentine
territory assumed an extent four times greater than that of his native
country. The provinces of Entre Rios, Corrientes, Santa Fé, and
Córdoba welcomed his new tricolour standard with enthusiasm.
Thus Artigas was now ruler of 350,000 square miles, with the exception
of the various odd points of vantage held by the remaining three
contending powers.
The fall of Montevideo and the final ejection of the Spaniards from
the soil was followed by the retirement of the Buenos Aires armies to
their own country. Thus to Artigas's realm was added the necessary
complement of a capital and some seagoing ships that served as the
nucleus of a national navy. The ex-smuggler was now at the zenith of
his power. It is at this point that he affords by far the most
interesting picture, since the amazing medley of sentiments for which
his character was responsible were now given full play. Caring nothing
for pomp and ceremony, he sent Otorgues to rule Montevideo, while his
other chiefs assumed control of the various districts throughout the
provinces. He himself, true to his Gaucho upbringing, avoided all
towns, and finally settled himself in the north-west of Uruguay. On a
tableland by the banks of the great river, some score of miles to the
south of Salto, he established a camp from which he directed the
policy of the five provinces that owned to his rule.
In the neighbourhood of this encampment of Hervidero was another, in
which were confined those prisoners whose offences were not considered
worthy of immediate death. Serving as it did to cleanse doubtful minds
of rebellion, it was christened by the euphuistic name of
Purificacion. There is no doubt that the methods employed for this
exalted purpose often ended fatally for the unfortunates experimented
upon. The popular tales of the deeds done at both encampments are
extraordinarily revolting. Two phrases of jocular slang then much in
use throw a lurid light upon the callousness of the period. "To play
the violin" referred to the cutting of a human throat; "to play the
viola" signified the severance of a live man's body--both gruesomely
accurate similes. Men are said to have been flung wholesale into the
river, attached to stones, and a peculiarly agonising form of death
was engineered in the sewing up of a living victim in the hide of a
freshly killed bullock, which was then exposed to the sun. The result
was shrinkage, and suffocation for the miserable wretch within the
reeking covering, an ending that was dubbed "the waistcoat" by a touch
of similar humour. Numerous evidences of individuality, moreover, were
evident in the various forms of punishment. Thus a certain Colonel
Perugorria, who lay under a charge of treason, was, until his
execution, chained to a post, as though he were a dog, by means of an
iron collar round his neck, to which the steel links were attached.
Many of Artigas's supporters roundly deny the perpetration of these
horrors; yet there is little doubt that many such acts were committed
throughout the various provinces. To what extent they received the
sanction of Artigas is far more uncertain. The probability is that he
strongly discouraged wanton torture, although it lay beyond even such
powers as his to hold back the Gaucho passions when they were fiercest
and to prevent the merciless acts of revenge. Many eye-witnesses have
related that he exhibited emotion and pity at the sight of a humanely
conducted execution.
Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that Artigas, for all his errors
and limitations, was not a true believer in the very lofty sentiments
he used to express. One of the many examples of these is to be met
with in his letter to the local authorities of Montevideo, when in
1815 they endowed him with the title of Captain-General, with the
addition of that of "Protector and Patron of the Liberty of the
Nation." Artigas, refusing the honour, which, nevertheless, remained
attached to him, says: "Titles are the phantoms of States, and the
glory of upholding liberty suffices for your illustrious corporation.
Let us teach our countrymen to be virtuous. For this reason I have
retained until now the rank of a simple citizen ... the day will come
when men will act from a sense of duty, and when they will devote
their best interests to the honour of their fellow-men."
The simplicity of Artigas was innate and genuine. One of his own
nationality, on a visit to Hervidera, describes the costume of the
dreaded leader. On that occasion Artigas was content with the plain
costume of a countryman--plain blue jacket and pantaloons, white
stockings, and a skin cloak, all rather shabby. The paraphernalia of a
meal was of similar quality, and in addition lamentably scanty.
Broth, a stew of meat, and roast beef were served on a couple of
pewter dishes with broken edges; a single cup took the place of
non-existent wine-glasses; no more than three earthenware plates could
be mustered, and, since the seating accommodation was restricted to
three chairs and a hide box, the majority of the guests had perforce
to stand. Such were the clothes and household goods of the lord of
five provinces, whose armies were battling with Portuguese Peninsular
War veterans and with Argentine battalions, whose vessels had borne
his flag to Europe to harass hostile vessels off the coasts of
Portugal itself, who made treaties with England and other powers, and
whose name was all but worshipped by a hundred thousand people!
J. P. Robertson, an English chronicler of the period, gives an
interesting account of a meeting with Artigas. Assaulted and robbed by
a band of the noted chief's adherents, he boldly set out for
Purificacion to claim redress. His words deserve quotation at some
length. "I came to the Protector's headquarters," he says, "of the
so-called town of Purificacion. And there (I pray you do not turn
sceptic on my hands) what do you think I saw? Why, the most excellent
Protector of half the New World, seated on a bullock's skull, at a
fire kindled on the mud floor of his hut, eating beef off a spit, and
drinking gin out of a cow horn! He was surrounded by a dozen officers
in weather beaten attire, in similar positions, and similarly occupied
with their chief. All were smoking, all gabbling. The Protector was
dictating to two secretaries, who occupied, at one deal table, the
only two dilapidated rush bottom chairs in the hovel. To complete the
singular incongruity of the scene, the floor of the one apartment of
the mud hut (to be sure it was a pretty large one) in which the
general, his staff, and secretaries, were assembled, was strewn with
pompous envelopes from all the Provinces (some of them distant some
1,500 miles from that centre of operations) addressed to 'His
Excellency the Protector.' At the door stood the reeking horses of
couriers arriving every half hour, and the fresh ones of those
departing as often.... His Excellency the Protector, seated on his
bullock's skull, smoking, eating, drinking, dictating, talking,
dispatched in succession the various matters brought under his notice
with that calm, or deliberate, but uninterrupted nonchalance, which
brought most practically home to me the truth of the axiom, 'Stop a
little that we may get on the faster.'... He received me, not only
with cordiality, but with what surprised me more, comparatively
gentlemanlike manners, and really good breeding.... The Protector's
business was prolonged from morning till evening, and so were his
meals; for, as one courier arrived another was dispatched, and as one
officer rose up from the fire at which the meat was spitted another
took his place."
The General politely took his visitor the round of his hide huts and
mud hovels, where the horses stood saddled and bridled day and night,
and where the tattered soldiery waited in readiness for the
emergencies that arose so frequently. When Robertson submitted his
financial claim, Artigas remained as amiable as before. "'You see,'
said the General with great candour and nonchalance, 'how we live
here; and it is as much as we can do, in these hard times, to compass
beef, aguardiente, and cigars. To pay you 6,000 dollars just now is as
much beyond my power, as it would be to pay you 60,000 or 600,000.
Look here,' said he, and so saying, he lifted up the lid of an old
military chest, and pointed to a canvas bag at the bottom of it.
'There,' he continued, 'is my whole stock of cash; it amounts to 300
dollars; and where the next supply is to come from I am as little
aware as you are.'" Notwithstanding this, Robertson then and there
obtained some trading concessions that, he says, repaid him the amount
of his claim many times over.
Surely this picture reveals Artigas more truly than all the
long-winded polemics that have raged about the famous Uruguayan. It is
given by one whose sympathies were against the aims of the Gaucho
chief, and who has proved himself no lenient critic. Yet the
description fits no mere cut-throat and plunderer. On the contrary, it
reveals a virile personality, a thinker and worker of a disposition
that goes far to explain the adoration accorded him by his troops.
Artigas, at the hands of the visitor who had sufficient cause for his
ridicule, comes to light as a _man_--contemptuous of poverty, misery,
and sordid surroundings so long as his goal remained as clear and
distinct as it ever was to his sight.
The picture is not without its pathetic side. It shows Artigas in the
heyday of his power, yet even then hard put to it to supply his men
with clothes and the common necessities of life. Imagine the calm
force and philosophy of a being capable of governing more than a third
of a million square miles of territory with the assistance of a
treasury of three hundred dollars! Nevertheless, these _opéra bouffe_
conditions represented the highest point of material prosperity to
which Artigas ever attained. For five years he ruled thus, grappling
desperately with the invading Brazilian armies, and resisting the
efforts of the Buenos Aires forces to regain control of the four
Argentine provinces that had espoused his cause.
With a prosperity thus frugally marked, it is easy to conceive the
circumstances of the adversity that was to come. To their credit be
it said that the Uruguayans faltered not in the least in the face of
the ultimate doom that must have appeared inevitable. As their ranks
became steadily thinned, the invading hordes of Portuguese soldiers
swelled in numbers, while the Buenos Aires attacks on the river
provinces became yet more determined. Yet, wanting in everything, its
more capable and intelligent officers prisoners of war, the Uruguayans
fought on to the very end--gaunt, haggard men who gave back blow for
blow, though their courage was often sustained by no other means than
the chewing of strips of hide. One of the officers of a regiment of
lancers, once the pride of the army, describes the condition of the
men in the last days of the struggle. At reveille, on a chilly
winter's morning, each trooper would supplement the loin-cloth that
alone remained to him by a whole cowhide. Thus when their backs were
turned as they retired to their quarters, the number of men could only
be judged by the quantity of moving cowhides!
Even then the final hour might have been indefinitely postponed but
for the revolt of Ramirez, one of Artigas's own chieftains. After a
homeric struggle, Ramirez obtained the victory over his old leader,
and pursued him relentlessly through the provinces of Corrientes and
Misiones. It was by this incessant chase alone that the victor
retained his superiority. For such was the popularity of Artigas that
a few days' halt sufficed for a number of fresh Gauchos and Indians to
join him. When he had escaped from his penultimate defeat, accompanied
by only twelve men, his pursuer lost touch with him for a week. At the
end of that time the veteran had collected over nine hundred men, and
was besieging Cambay, one of Ramirez's strongholds. A division was
sent off post-haste to the spot, and it was here that the old warrior
fought his last fight. Artigas, leaving most of his men dead upon the
field, fled northwards and passed into Paraguay.
The later years of Artigas present the strangest contrast to his early
life. Received and sheltered after some hesitation by Francia, the
dreaded tyrant of Paraguay, he was first allotted a dwelling in the
north of the country, and was afterwards permitted to dwell in the
neighbourhood of Asuncion, the capital. Here he lived in complete
retirement and peace until his death occurred, at the advanced age of
eighty-three. Both his time and the small pension allowed him by the
Paraguayan Government were spent in relieving the wants of his
neighbours, by whom he was regarded with affection and veneration. The
keynote to the true Artigas undoubtedly lies in these last years, when
in humble tranquillity he had leisure at length to practise the
benevolence and charity that he had so often preached from a
corpse-surrounded pulpit. Difficult as it is to withdraw the
personality of Artigas from the sea of blood that flooded his age, he
was surely a product of an anarchical period rather than of anarchy
itself.