The Life of General Garibaldi. Garibaldi Giuseppe
Risso. Having a family, but my means being exhausted, I felt it necessary to provide for the subsistence of the three individuals of whom it consisted. Other people's bread always seemed to me bitter, whenever in my diversified life I have found it necessary to partake of it; and I have been so happy as never to be dependant on any friend. Two occupations, of small profit, it is true, but which would afford me a subsistence, I assumed for a time. They were those of a broker and a teacher of mathematics, given in the house and to the pupils of the estimable instructor, Signor Paolo Semidei. This manner of life I pursued until I entered the Oriental squadron.
The Rio Grande question was approaching a settlement, and there was nothing more to be thought on that subject. The Oriental Republic soon offered me employment, and I accepted it.
I was appointed to proceed on an expedition, the results of which, through either ignorance or malignity, proved ruinous.
With the sloop Constitucion, of eighteen guns, the brig Terceira, of two eighteen pounders, and a transport, the schooner Procida, I was ordered to proceed to Corrientes, an allied province, to assist in their military operations against the forces of Rosas.
The Oriental Republic of the Uruguay, like the greater part of the Republics of South America, was a prey to intestine disputes; and the occasion then was the pretension of two Generals to the Presidency, viz: Rivera and Ouribes. Rivera, being more successful, succeeded after several victories, in driving away Ouribes, and gained possession of the power which he had held. The latter, being expelled, took refuge in Buenos Ayres, where the Dictator, Rosas, received him, together with many Oriental emigrants, and employed them against his enemy, who were then under the command of General Lavalle. Lavalle being conquered, the ferocious Ex-president of Montevideo undertook to regain his lost power in his own country. In that Rosas found the object most agreeable to his wishes; that is, the destruction of the Unitarians, or Centralists, his mortal enemies, who were supported by the Oriental State; and the ruin of a neighboring Republic, his rival, which disputed with him the supremacy of the immense river, by throwing into her bosom the most terrible elements of civil war.
At the time when I embarked on the river, the Oriental army was at San Jose de Uruguay, and that of Ouribes at La Bajada, the capital of the province of Entre Rios, both making preparations for a great conflict. The army of Corrientes then made arrangements for uniting with the Oriental. I was to go up the Parana to Corrientes, pass over a distance of more than six hundred miles, between two banks occupied by the enemy, where I would be unable to anchor, unless at islands and desert places.
CHAPTER XVI
As has been said, the war in Montevideo was caused by the personal ambition of the two generals, Ouribes and Rivera, who were aspirants for the Presidency of the republic. The former was defeated by the latter, about the year 1840, and obliged to emigrate to Buenos Ayres.
At that time Rosas, the tyrant of Buenos Ayres, was engaged in war with the Centralists, or Unitarians, who were the national and liberal party, and were led by Generals Lavalle and Paz. Rosas received Ouribes and many of his partizans, and gave them immediate employment in his own army, while he conferred the supreme command of it upon the emigrant General. Ouribes, being able to bring many reinforcements to the tyrant's army, which was already strong, defeated Lavalle, who died in the upper provinces of the Argentine Republic (I think Mendoza,) in a surprise. General Paz, by intrigues and dissensions, was obliged to abandon the struggle, after the brilliant victory of Caguazú, and to return to Montevideo, where the greater part of the Centralists who had fought against Rosas had retreated.
The Argentine Republic being pressed by enemies, Ouribes descended towards Montevideo, and established his camp at Bajada, the capital of the province of Entre-Rios, having under his command an imposing army, and meditating with Rosas, the invasion of the State of Montevideo. Rivera was then on the left bank of the Uruguay, preparing and receiving all the forces which he could dispose of, and doubtless expecting to be attacked.
Wise would have been the resolution to await the enemy in his own positions; but, having much confidence in himself, and strengthened by the junction with the army of Corrientes, he made arrangements to cross the river, and seek the enemy. The Oriental and Corrientes armies amounted to ten thousand men. Ouribes had fourteen thousand, and was much superior in infantry and artillery.
The battle was short; and the combined armies were entirely defeated on the Arroyo Grande. Ouribes passed the Uruguay, invaded the territory of Montevideo, and then laid siege to the capital.
The catastrophe of Arroyo Grande, and the certainty that the implacable ex-president would come, meditating terrible revenge, stimulated the population of the State of Montevideo to take up arms en masse and repel the invasion by force. It should here be observed, that the war had changed its character, and it was no longer a personal consideration in favor of Rivera which induced the people to take up arms; but the fear of becoming subject to the depredations and excesses of a foreign and barbarous enemy, led them to fight for the independence of the country.
The beginning of patriotism, which then animated the people, was the same which led them to so many heroic deeds, and to sustain the most desperate of struggles, at the cost of unheard of sacrifices. Then began the glorious contest carried on by the Montevideans, which still continues, and which will astonish the world, when its events are exactly known.
General Paz, reduced to Montevideo, after the unfortunate occurrences in the Argentine State, was received with acclamation by the government and people, as general of the nascent army; and to him are certainly due the beginnings of bravery and discipline by which it was distinguished, as well as the system of defence which was adopted.
Rivera kept the field, made skilful movements, and was defeated by Ouribes at India Muerta. The errors of Rivera and his conflicts completed his discredit, and entirely removed him from the scene of events. He is now an emigrant in Rio Janeiro, and I do not think his influence can produce any disturbance on the Rio de la Plata.
The question of Montevideo, therefore, reduces itself to the following, at the present epoch (1850):
Rosas, the tyrant of Buenos Ayres, and chiefly interested in the humiliation of Montevideo, maintains an army in besieging that city, in order to destroy it. That army is commanded by a Montevidean, who wishes, at any cost, to command in his country; and the people of Montevideo are fighting against that army, because they are not willing to submit to the hated and abominated domination of Rosas and Ouribes.
Indignant at the sight of such a scene of arrogant and inhuman oppression as that presented in Buenos Ayres and the Argentine Republic, I was impelled to present myself in opposition to the Dictator, and to adopt the cause of the injured as my own. Having mingled with the people in my own country, and all my experience, short as it was, having taught me to sympathize with them, against the old and hereditary aristocracy of Europe, I could not regard with indifference the upstart oppressor, Rosas, so treacherous to the principles of equality and republicanism, which he pretended to love, while violating them, in the grossest manner, for his own insatiable ambition. Notwithstanding the depressed condition of the true patriot party in Montevideo, on my arrival in that city, circumstances ere long proved favorable; and on their beginning to renew their movements, I appeared among them with my native activity and zeal.
I conceived the idea of performing an important service for my own country, while devoting myself to that in which I was residing. I soon perceived that the spirit and character of the Italians needed great efforts, to raise them from the depressed state in which they existed in fact, as well as in the opinion of the world; and I was determined to elevate them, by such a practical training as alone could secure the end.
By means of Napoleon's treachery to the cause of liberty, which he had pretended to espouse on entering Italy, that unhappy country had been led to a ruin more deep and complete than any of the other of his victims; for she had been, more than any other, reduced to spiritual slavery, as well as temporal. The allies (with Protestant Prussia and England among them,) had restored the papacy along with monarchy and aristocracy; and yet the Italians were vilified as a degenerate race, and falsely accused of having brought their misfortunes upon themselves,