son's fate, he betook himself to his private room in the Parliament House, where he proceeded to write out a resignation of his post, immediately afterwards tearing up the paper in nervous indecision. But neither his high office nor the parliamentary precincts protected him ; half-a-dozen ruffians, wrapped in ponchos, entered the room and stabbed him to death before the eyes of his secretary. No inquiry was held as to the murder of the President of the Legislature.

The peasants of the south, Rosas' own country, flew to arms on hearing of the fate of their leader in the capital; they were crushed without difficulty, but discontent was not crushed. Lavalle formed another army in the north and advanced within seven leagues of Buenos Aires; he was induced to retire by a stratagem of Rosas. In 1841 Indarte Rivera, a well-known antiRosista who had fled to Montevideo, published there an article with the title : It is a meritorious action to kill Rosas. In the same year an infernal machine was sent to the tyrant from Montevideo, purporting to be a presentation collection of historical medals; after lying in the dictator's study for two days, it was finally opened by his young daughter Manuela (who is still living in London) and a girl friend : fortunately the machinery did not act.

All these things, in addition to the revolt of several northern provinces, provoked the spirit of savage and violent cruelty in Rosas. A fit instrument of destruction lay ready to his hand in the notorious political club commonly known as the Mazorca-a name which contains an ugly pun, for Mazorca means a head of maize, the badge of the society, whereas mas horca means more gallows. This association had been formed to support the government of the restorer of the laws under the title of 'la Sociedad popular Restauradora.' Originally its members were drawn from every class and included many estimable citizens; but in a short time the less respectable elements of the society degenerated into a gang of authorised assassins. The Mazorca was now let loose upon Buenos Aires ; assaults upon houses, nocturnal throatcuttings, military executions became daily events; people whispered to one another in the morning, 'Last night ten throats were cut, or fifteen, or twelve,' as the case might be; and none dared to give burial to these 'savage Unitarios'; their bodies were picked up by the dustcart and carried away to the common ditch. man was suspected of being a Unitario, a dozen of the ruffianly

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Mazorqueros would visit his house at night and first destroy every blue object which they saw, blue being the Unitarian colour. If the master of the house did not appear, they flogged his wife until she was unable to stand, often striking and injuring the children too; if the master was at home, either the knife was passed across his throat at once, or else he was carried off to the prison or barracks to be detained at the pleasure of Rosas, or sometimes to be shot without trial; often the victim was caught and stabbed in the street, the watchmen encouraging or assisting the assassins ; among those murdered there were women and children. Unitarios, or those who thought themselves suspected by the Government, constantly attempted to escape to Montevideo; but the coast was watched by patrols every night, and intending emigrants, if caught, were generally decapitated on the spot. One man escaped by embarking openly at midday, the hour of siesta. A certain Salvadores attempted to embark no less than three times; each time his companions were caught and killed out of hand, while he managed to escape back into Buenos Aires. The Mazorca, on visiting his house, failed to find him, and had to content themselves with beating his wife and smashing the furniture. Salvadores was all the while in the cellar, where he lived for twelve years, his presence known only to his wife, who brought him food at night, and kept the secret even from her children. On the day of Rosas' fall a cadaverous white-bearded figure crept from bis unwholesome hiding-place like a ghost returning from the dead. There are naturally many survivors from those times who still recount their recollections of the visits of the Mazorca to their parents.

In 1840 and again in 1841 Rosas resigned office; on both occasions he was re-elected amidst all kinds of adulation, guards of honour, civic processions, petitions from towns and parishes that he would deign to undertake the government again. In 1841 he was stronger than ever, so much so that it was actually proposed to establish a hereditary monarchy in the person of his daughter Manuela. To the outside world he represented the nation : Lord Palmerston had spoken of him with recognition and respect; so also the various South American governments, and the press of Europe and America. His officers in the north are stamping out the last embers of revolt : Oribe defeats Lavalle, killing all his prisoners ; Rosas writes to him : 'God is infinitely just; with lively pleasure I congratulate your Excellency, and in your illustrious person the heroic army which you so worthily

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command.' Maza, a subordinate of Oribe, also writes: We must give no quarter: I now shoot all the savage Unitarians whom I catch . . . I am now marching on Catamarca to strike on the head, or the very neck, the savage Unitarian chief Cuba. There will be · Violin and Violon! . If the savage Unitarios do not surrender immediately, all shall fall to the knife.' Presently the same Maza announces the accomplishment of this prediction thus: “The force of this savage Unitario was more than 600 men: all are done for, since so I promised to kill them all.'

Finally Lavalle, while fleeing towards the Bolivian frontier, was killed by a chance shot through a keyhole. Rosas was supreme.

But already the movement was beginning which ended in his fall ten years later. His forces invaded Uruguay in 1842; they won several victories and besieged Montevideo. The siege lasted nine years, and the war brought the odium of the outside world upon Rosas. Many strangers, French and English, aided in the defence, as well as an Italian legion commanded by Garibaldi. The English and French fleets, after a vain attempt at mediation, finally in 1843 actively supported the Montevideans; in 1845 their combined squadrons penetrated into the inland rivers of Argentina at the cost of considerable fighting; they captured the Argentine fleet which was blockading Montevideo, some of the captive ships being put under the command of Garibaldi; they even blockaded the Argentine coast, burning the ships in port. Thus thrown on his own resources Rosas appealed, not without success, to the sentiment of Americanism and hate of the stranger. The French admiral threatens to bombard Buenos Aires : Rosas replies, “For every ball that falls in the town I will hang a French resident. The bombardment did not take place.

Meantime the dictator conducted with extraordinary ene the little government which defied the squadrons of the two most powerful States in the world. The blockade of course paralysed commerce and the sources of revenue; but Rosas issued paper money and practised the most rigid economy. Ministers and public officials received very moderate salaries, and were expected to devote themselves body and soul to their work, and submit slavishly to all the humours and caprices of the tyrant, and also of the idiotic or boorish jesters by whom he was surrounded. The dictator himself was indefatigable, superintended every part of the administration, worked day and night indiscriminately without fixed hours for sleep or food, eating only once a day, and then of the plainest Gaucho fare without wine, giving audience as he walked in his garden, rarely appearing in public or indulging in other relaxations than the savage horse-play with which he tormented his guests or the fiendish practical jokes in which he indulged his cruelty. On one occasion two Spanish naval officers paid an official visit to the Governor, presenting themselves of course in full dress uniform: the tyrant by way of affront received them in his shirt-sleeves, alleging the heat. Again, Rosas made a bet that he would make the dignified and reserved British Minister pound the maize for his porridge: when next the said diplomatist was seen approaching the house, the Governor ordered his daughter Manuelita to stand in the entrance-hall and pound maize in a mortar. Mr. Mandeville, on entering, politely took the pestle from her hand and relieved her of her labour; at this moment a door opened and Rosas appeared surrounded by his creatures. The story how the American Dictator made the British Minister pound mazamorra for his dinner is one of the historic never-stale jokes of the River Plate. But diabolical freaks of cruelty also betrayed the Gaucho in him, as when he sent as a gift to a young girl—if tradition be true—the salted head of her lover. Certain it is that his officers commanding in the interior vied with one another in sending him a prisoner to be butchered or the salted head of an enemy, as the choicest possible gifts; and the tyrant sanctioned by silence or congratulation the unspeakable atrocities committed by his underlings. Anyone who mentioned the Unitários in his presence without the official prefix Savage met with a stern reproof.

In 1848 Rosas appeared to be at the summit of his power and fame. The single province of Buenos Aires with its 140,000 inhabitants had supported the burden of long military operations ; all the provinces recognised his supremacy; England had withdrawn her squadron, recognised all the interior rivers as Argentine waters, and saluted the Argentine flag by way of apology for her interference; the French intervention had proved

ineffective and was presently to be withdrawn.

There only remained the war of Montevideo, and the defenders of that place, the adversaries of Rosas, had been reduced to the greatest straits for supplies of money and arms, even selling the ground of the public squares.

In 1849 the dictator again resigned; the principal English residents in Buenos Aires presented a petition to him through the British Minister, begging him to retain the government. It is indeed a very remarkable fact that Rosas, the Gaucho dictator, the insolent despiser of French and Spaniards, almost invariably treated the English with consideration. On the other hand, to our countrymen the rule of Rosas meant internal order, freedom from revolution and confiscation, liberty to pursue their business unmolested.

On the conclusion of the agreement with England in 1849 and again in the following year, when a settlement was made with France, Rosas received letters of congratulation from General San Martin, the veteran hero of the War of Independence. A few months later, when San Martin died in exile and retirement in France, he bequeathed his sword,' the sword which had crossed the Andes to co-operate with Cochrane and Bolivar, to the man who had successfully vindicated American Independence against the designs of the two chief European Powers. Rosas, at all events outside Buenos Aires and Montevideo, stood before the world as the Great American.

But this state of things was not to last; Montevideo had been besieged for nearly nine years, when Brazil interposed to restore peace, sending troops in support of the Montevideans. On May 1, 1851, took place the pronunciamento of Urquiza, governor and despot of the province of Entre Rios, who now by proclamation re-assumed the powers delegated to Rosas. Urquiza was one of the strongest, ablest, and most savage lieutenants of the dictator; he ruled his province with the dagger and the bullet, himself shut up in a strong castle in the midst of the pampa. This chieftain now published a decree describing Rosas as 'a despot who has trodden under his feet the brow of a youthful republic, and has striven to make his contemporaries forget that they are sons of a past full of intoxicating memories.'

The catastrophe may be briefly told. The Rosista troops besieging Montevideo deserted their commander and joined

This sword on Rosas' death passed into the possession of his daughter; last year she presented it to the Argentine Government.

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