Читать книгу Uruguay - W. H. Koebel - Страница 11

RUINED COLONIA.

ARTIGAS' MONUMENT.

To face p. 52.

With such forces as these at his disposal the task of Ceballos was an easy one. The Island of Santa Catalina was captured without a blow, and that bone of contention, Colonia, surrendered perforce after a few days of siege. Above its walls for the fifth time the flag of Spain was hoisted afresh. On this occasion the ill-omened place was destined to pay for the memories of the past, and its walls suffered in place of the garrison. In order to remove temptation from the minds of the northern enemy, Ceballos razed the elaborate fortifications to the ground and destroyed the more pretentious houses, amongst these being some of the best architectural specimens of the River Plate.

Having effected this, Ceballos was passing northwards with the intention of bringing back the Rio Grande Province once more within the fold of Buenos Aires, when his march was stopped by the news of another of those treaties between the mother-countries that seemed to materialise with unfailing regularity at moments so ill-timed for the interests of the Spanish colonies. By the terms of this Spain was left with the mines of Colonia, while the Island of Santa Catalina and the greater part of Rio Grande were ceded definitely to Portugal.

After this ensued an exceptionally lengthy era of peace, which was marked by the immigration of many families from Galicia and from the Canary Islands, and by the foundation of numerous towns, amongst these latter Canelones, Piedras, Rosario, Mercedes, Pando, Santa Lucia, San José, and Minas. As to the capital itself, by the year 1788 Montevideo had become a fairly important place, and could count a population of 6,695 Spaniards, 1,386 negro slaves, 562 liberated negroes, and 715 half-castes and Indians. A few years later the population was much augmented by the introduction of important numbers of negro slaves, a traffic that continued intermittently until 1825, when its continuance was prohibited by law.

At the end of the century an industry was initiated that might have led to important commercial results but for the action of the Spanish home authorities. The waters off the coast of Maldonado had long been famed as a whaling-ground, and at this period permission was given to the Englishmen engaged in the traffic to found establishments both at this place and at Punta de la Ballena. The result was a rapid but fleeting prosperity at both these points, since after a while the attitude of the Court of Spain changed. Fearful of the influence of the English upon the Uruguayans, the authorities offered to the new colonists the option of becoming Roman Catholics and of swearing allegiance to the King of Spain, or of abandoning the settlement. The latter alternative was chosen by the whalers, and Maldonado and Punta de la Ballena, in consequence, sank back into the lethargy of industrial torpor. The instance is only one of the many in which the mother-country satisfied its conscience at the expense of its colony.

A corps of Blandengues, or Lancers, was formed in 1797, whose duties, beyond their military performances, were varied to a degree. Thus, in addition to the occasional brushes with the Indians that fell to their lot, they were employed as excise officials against the smugglers, as escorts of high officials, as ordinary police, and as official messengers. The corps was composed of picked men, and in its ranks served José Gervasio Artigas and José Rondeau, both bearers of names that were destined to become famous in Uruguayan history.

This body of cavalry was destined to be employed on active service very soon after its formation. In 1801 the Portuguese became active once more, and the first year of the new century was marked by their occupation of land in the north-west of the Banda Oriental. After various actions, Rondeau, with a force of Blandengues and dragoons, defeated the invaders and won back the greater part of the lost territory.

In 1806 occurred the first of the British invasions which, although materially fruitless in the end so far as our own country was concerned, were destined to influence the minds of the colonials and the future of the River Plate Provinces to a greater extent than is generally realised. The circumstances of the invasion that won to the British Crown for a very short while not only Montevideo, Maldonado, Colonia, and numerous lesser Uruguayan towns, but Buenos Aires in addition, afford bitter reading. Thanks to the colossal incapacity—to give his conduct no harder name—of the British Commander-in-Chief, General Whitlocke, the last troops of the British army of occupation had sailed away northwards from Montevideo by the beginning of September, 1807.

Although the matter ended for the British with the departure of the troops from the River Plate, the aftermath of the event took very definite shape in the Spanish colonies themselves. Not only had the inhabitants of the provinces learned their own power, but—more especially in the case of Montevideo—the seeds of commercial liberty had been sown amongst the local merchants and traders by the English men of business who had descended upon the place beneath the protection of the army. That the final leave-taking between the English and the Uruguayans should have been accompanied by actual cordiality and regrets is surely an astonishing circumstance that affords great credit to both sides. There can be no doubt, however, that this mutual esteem was in the first place fostered by an appreciation on the part of the residents of British laws and methods of trading.

Whether the germs thus left behind would have fructified so rapidly but for the chaotic condition of the mother-country is doubtful. As it was, scarcely had the smoke of these actions cleared away when it became necessary for the patriots of the River Plate Province to look once again to their primings in view of still more vital occurrences.

I do not propose to tell here the full story of the rebellion of the River Plate Provinces and of the revolution that ended in the complete overthrow of Spanish power in South America, since I have already roughly sketched these events elsewhere. So far as the main events are concerned, the transition from the colonial stage to the condition of independence was slower in the Banda Oriental than was the process upon the eastern bank of the great river. In Julio of 1810, when the Junta of Buenos Aires had already established itself to cast off the yoke of Spain, Montevideo still remained faithful to the mother-country, and rejected the advances of the Argentines.

Thus at the beginning of 1811 Montevideo found itself, if only for a short while, the seat of the viceroyalty of the La Plata Provinces, and from that point of vantage Elio, the Viceroy, declared war upon Buenos Aires. Almost immediately, however, the spirit of independence became manifest in Uruguay itself, and it is at this juncture that occurs the name that has perhaps stamped itself most deeply of all upon the history of the Banda Oriental.