natural aversion they all have for cruelty and tyranny, that this short sketch has been attempted of undoubtedly the first and the ablest, as he is undoubtedly the most traduced man of all South America. Rosas has never entered on his defence against either such grotesque inventions as have been named, or the more plausible accusations of particular acts of cruelty. It is contrary to the nature of the man to do so. It is not possible for those living at this distance from the scene of events, to examine the testimony pro and con relating to these accusations, were it produced; nor is it necessary. We may and must form our opinions from what he himself seems to rely on-the general tenor of his life, and the broad and undisputed facts which have signalized his career. These will well enough show, that unless human nature in South America presents monstrous anomalies, Rosas cannot be the "sanguinary tyrant" his accusers would represent him to us.

Probably it is not far from the truth to assume, that while conducting a long and exasperating civil conflict with men whose mode of warfare was of the most savage sort;—with hordes who murdered, not their prisoners merely, but unresisting women and little children, he has not deemed his dangerous position and critical times entirely propitious for innovating on the usages of partisan warfare, to the full extent of treating all his enemies according to the customs of the modern Christian civilized nations of Europe, when fighting with modern civilized Christian European nations. Have the generals of those nations uniformly been known to preserve such an one-sided good temper and humanity in carrying on wars against barbarous enemies? If he has offended against any maxims and usages of warfare, it is against the maxims and usages of other countries, otherwise circumstanced. It is also probably not far from the substantial truth to say,

that in the summary executions of 1840, he averted the impending ruin by exercising for a short time, and in a special emergency, the dictatorial power he stood clothed with, to the extent of superseding the regular tribunals of law. It is possible, too, that the monstrous ingratitude that has repaid his many acts of indubitable magnanimity, may have influenced him to severity in certain cases. It would not be surprising if this were so. That his magnanimity has been ill-repaid, witness the conduct of General Paz, whose justly forfeited life he saved, and whose fortune and position in the army he restored ;-of La Madrid, who, when in exile and under condemnation for treason, he supported from his own private purse, and whom he afterwards pardoned, reinstated in command, and sent on an honorable mission, again to betray his trust;-of General Riviera, whose life he also saved and whose purse he replenished-all of them his bitterest enemies. Witness, also, the conduct of General O'Brien, a spy, whom Rosas detected and pardoned, and who is devoting the remainder of his life to machinations in Europe against him from whom he received it. Witness, Indarte, editor of the Nacional, at Montevideo, who

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gets up" the tales of blood for the frightening of the populace of that city, and who is promulgating in his paper that it were a holy deed to assassinate Rosas, as eight years ago he wrote that it was as holy a deed to kill the two representatives who would not vote to delegate supreme power to the same person. This Indarte, the same who is authority for many idle calumnies put forth here, owes his liberation from a prison, where his forgeries, thefts and sacrilege had brought him, to the clemency of the man whom it is now his vocation to traduce. Besides these individual acts of magnanimity, numberless others might be named less prominent, because their objects were less distinguished. Rosas has furthermore

repeatedly proclaimed general amnesties, and always rigorously kept the pledges so given.

This man, Rosas, seems to have no ambition, or if he has, it is as if he had none, for in all his life it has never been known to conflict with the good of his country, or the dictates of duty. He has never seized the reins of government, as, since the earliest day when he gained the affections of the Guachos, and received the command of the country districts, he has been at all times able to do. He has not made himself Dictator, or said, like Riviera, the cher amie of England and France, "By my will I am everything, and the rest, including the representatives of the people, are nothing." After restoring the laws in 1829, he disbanded the powerful force drawn from all the provinces, at whose head he found himself, and retired to his original post of commander of the country districts of Buenos Ayres; and there he quietly remained, while a temporary governor unsuccessfully essayed to administer affairs, and until he was regularly elected for a three years term. At the end of those three years, he faithfully surrendered the extraordinary powers they had delegated to him, retired from the government, and insisted on declining a re-election. After an absence on his Indian campaign of more than a year, he returns in command of an exercised and enthusiastic soldiery, whom he dismisses to their homes, while he returns to his own, and remains there a mere spectator of the factions that tore the nation at large, and the utter confusion into which the government of his own province had fallen. Fortwo long years of national agony thus did he remain in obstinate retirement, without civil or military office or command of any kind, and with no friends in power to intrigue for his interests; in that time repeatedly declining to be elected to the often vacated office of governor, and five times, and finally, rejecting the tendered dignity of President of the whole Confederation. Knowing very well that, for the good of all, the federative system should remain as it is, he has always refused any higher station than that of a provincial governor. Strange conduct this for a tyrant!

It is not his ambition alone that Rosas has sacrificed to his country's good;

his attention to public business is close, laborious and absorbing. He applies himself for fourteen hours a day, not in contriving ways to sustain his authority, but in the most minute examination of every branch of the public administration, and to become thoroughly acquainted with everything that happens in the most remote parts of the province. While he wears away his health in thus employing his time and his great energies, he has neglected the interests of his fortune, which he might otherwise have reduplicated, and has hazarded the whole of that fortune for the benefit of the state, by pledging it to the public creditors. And for all his services and sacrifices in the field and cabinet he has always refused to receive compensation or salary in any shape, and draws only on his private purse for the large extraordinary expenditure appropriate to his station.

Nothing is more readily admitted by the sturdiest Democrats of our country, than that all people, in all countries, conditions, times and seasons, are not of course immediately prepared for the most liberal forms of government. Not admitting this, where is our reply to the tardy or ill success of so many attempted republics? But we do strenuously affirm that, whatever the condition of the mass of a people, they know their own wants, and, whether fitted for a strong government or a light one, will call for such as their needs require. The Buenos Ayreans have republican impulses that can never be destroyed. This they have sufficiently proved. But they consider the present state of their affairs as critical and revolutionary. They never wouldand they have not granted to any other man than this one the dictatorial power. He holds it by the single tenure of their will. Since his first election, the vote of the whole population (not required to make a governor with the ordinary authority) has been deemed requisite to sanction the delegation of the extraordinary powers he now wields; and that vote has sanctioned it. Those powers have only been renewed, because they have never been abused.

The federative maxims of Rosas and his party are of the true North American republican stamp. From an intimate knowledge of the state of the country; from long observation of the

evils that prevailed, and consideration on the means of remedy, he has adopted the principle of federation as opposed to centralization. And in doing this, has he not hit upon a principle that lies at the foundation of the success of this North American Union? Allow a man much misunderstood here to speak a few words for himself;-words which we must believe to be honest, because they are opposed to the interests of his own ambition, were it selfish, and whose sincerity is ratified by the consistent conduct of a whole life. The following is from a letter written in December, 1834, to General Quiroga, answering one from him urging the immediate formation of a national constitution.

* "No one, consequently, with greater reason than you and I, can be persuaded of the necessity of the organization of a General Government, and that it is the only means of giving existence and respectability to our Republic. But who doubts that this must be the happy result of all the measures adopted for its attainment? Who can hope to obtain an end by marching in direct opposition to it? Who, wishing to obtain a well-arranged and compact total, does not seek first a permanent and regular reformation of all the parts which are to compose it? Who will venture to organize an army of groups of men without chiefs, without officers, without discipline, without subordination, who do nothing but combat among themselves and draw the whole into con

fusion. Who can form a living and robust being, by joining together dead or misplaced members, or corrupted by gangrene? for can the life and the vigor of the new being be other than that derived from the members of which it is composed? Let it be observed, that a bitter and dear experience has practically demonstrated that the federal system is amongst us of absolute necessity; for among many other solid reasons we are totally in want of the elements of a government of unity. Let it be observed, that the faction that once dominated in the country, by closing their ears to the cry of this imperious need, has destroyed the means and the resources we possessed for providing for it. This it has done by irritating the people's minds, misleading opinion, opposing to each other particular interests, propagating immorality and intrigue, and so dividing society into bands, that scarcely a vestige is left of any former ties; carrying their fury so far as to break the most sacred of all, and the only one which could serve to re-establish the re

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mainder-that of religion. In this sad state of things, every thing must be created anew, working at first on a small scale, and in detail, to found at last a genesystem which shall embrace all. Let it the most chimerical and disastrous thing be observed, that a federated Republic is that can be imagined, unless composed of states well-organized in themselves; because each one preserving its independent sovereignty, the force of the general pow er in that which regards the interior affairs is scarcely anything, and its principal and almost total investiture is merely of being rated states in their relations with foreign the representative organ of the confede nations. Consequently, if every state does not possess in itself the elements for maintaining its own internal order, the creation of a General Representative Government is of no use but to agitate the whole Republic in every partial disorder that happens, and cause a conflagration in one state to spread over all the rest. Thus it is that the Republic of North America has not admitted into its Union towns and territories which have been formed after its independence, until they are in a state to govern themselves, without allowing them the right of representation as states, or considering them as anything else than as parts attached to the Republic."

The most ultra state-rights man, adVocating the supremacy of the people, could hardly speak stronger than Rosas spoke and acted, when he received, in 1832, a proposal to add to the littoral pact a clause which should entitle the government of each province, as matter of right, to call upon the others for assistance in suppressing all insurrections against its authority. In his reply to the proposition he says—

"While there is immense difficulty in deciding when the intervention of a foreign authority and force becomes necessary for re-establishing order, and for sustaining the legally constituted authori ties and their attributes,' it is obvious that, without striking injustice, this right cannot be accorded to the governments without granting it to the people, collectively represented in their legislatures; for if the least attempt against the order and the legal authorities of each province is prejudicial to the interests of the Republic, the abuse of that authority is not less scandalous or less fatal, however legal the authority may be, if, by such means, il establishes the oppression of a people, and defrauds them of their constitutional rights. And it could not be otherwise than we should run the risk of becoming

accomplices of a governor in his exorbitant pretensions, and helping him against the just reclamations of his countrymen, which he might consider, whether through error or malice, to be anarchial."

The predecessors of Rosas used to make their residence in the fort at Buenos Ayres. This custom he has deviated from, and lives at his own private house in the city, or, when he can do so, at his quinta, or country mansion. There is no ostentation or parade in his manner of living. He has no body-guard surrounding him, to support his pomp or protect him from the hundred thousand "victims of his tyranny," as his enemies would call them-among whom he reposes trusting and secure. He rides forth through the city unattended even by a cortegé; and the only infernal machine that has been contrived against his life was sent all the way from Montevideo.

The business of educating the Argentine people into the quiet temper and mild manners suited to a republican society, is not an easy or a grateful one. A nation of flying herdsmen are hardly in precisely the state required for producing the happiest effects of the Democratic principle. Deprived of the means for knowing how far these people are prepared for a large liberty, we cannot do wiser than allow them to judge for themselves. Rosas has long been in every way urging a transition from their semi-pastoral state to the tranquil, stable, and republican habits of agricultural life. Another of his avowed measures has been to keep their young men out of the army, so as to preserve the morals of the rising generation, and have them grow up free from the spirit of restlessness and the love of blood which comes of war. Too much ferocity is the chief obstacle the nature of those people present to efforts to republicanize them. That he has the right aims for their advantage, and is honest in his intentions, there can be no manner of doubt. That he is wrong in the means employed, the judgment and ability he has thus far shown, the success he has already achieved, and our remote knowledge of the difficulties that impede him, preclude us from the right to affirm. If Rosas is a tyrant, he is a tyrant of the most republican

tendencies and habits. If he is a tyrant, his tyranny has yielded to himself none of the ordinary benefits of tyrannyneither wealth, nor luxury, nor ease, nor pomp, nor extended dominion, nor gratified ambition; while to the people it has produced the fruits which ordinarily come from freedom. His wars have given them peace; his severity has purchased their security; his "blood-thirstiness" has brought forth order, justice, happiness and wealth. And the "tyrant" has sacrificed his ambition, expended his talents and his health, wasted his substance and risked his all, for the good and the glory of his country.

Rosas is a man of the people. His name may be only known to the European world through the calumnies of his enemies. The refugees interested to overthrow him and his party, and the governments interested to despoil him, may deny his merit and depreciate his fame. We of a kindred country may open our ears to his slanderers, and fold our hands in cold isolation from those whose intents are one with our own, while European monarchs combine, for the policy of their cabinets or the purpose of trade, to ruin one of the fairest countries of this goodly continent, and drive its brave people into primitive savageism; but at home, in the hearts of the people, the fame of Rosas is safe for ever. They have known him long, and they love him well. Popular support is the principle of his power, and the secret of his success. Since first he taught the men of the open country to know their strength, by organizing them to drive back the savages of the wilderness, down to the time when he has taken the saddle to lead them in a forlorn despair against the savages of civilization, who now beset him from the sea-in 1828, when he unfolded his flag as "restorer of the laws"—when, away in the desert, or on the distant banks of the Rio Negro-in the dangerous days of 1840-when directing the federated armies, or when, without command or station, five times refusing the presidential dignity, which he did not at last accept-in reverse and in defeat

in danger and in triumph-the hearts of the people and the people's will have been with him; never failing him in defeat, and never flagging in his

needs. Without this, he would have been powerless, even when General Rosas, at the head of all his troops with it, he has been most strong when only Rosas, the simple farmer.

What sort of a tyrant is this? Tyrants rule by force-fear is the principle of a despotism. One reverse destroys a tyrant; the people have sustained

this one through all his reverses and all his trials. They confide in him, and he in them. They are grateful to him, and he is true to them. If he is a tyrant, he is a tyrant run mad who imagines, in his craziness, that he is a very patriot, and assumes the character and plays the part to perfection.

An event of vast importance to the commercial world immediately, and to the advancement of science eventually, has occurred inthe last five years, through the great energy and enterprise of the English government. Whatever may be the stain affixed upon the English character in a moral point of view, by their deliberate attack, on a remote nation, because its government, in the exercise of its independent sovereignty, saw proper to interdict an article which, although the chief article of export from British India, demoralized the people, and deranged the government revenues, a future good will probably grow out of it. China has been regarded, in a commercial view, with great interest, and very sanguine expectations have been excited in regard to the benefits to be derived from a future trade with it. This has arisen more from a want of acquaintance with that hitherto exclusive people than from any well-founded knowledge in regard to their wants and capacity to trade. A people like the Chinese, who for ages have known no wants that could not be supplied from their own resources, and who looked with contempt on every thing foreign, are not in a position to trade largely, even although political obstacles may be removed. China proper is divided into nineteen provinces, which are subdivided into departments and districts. The superfices of the whole, according to Sir Geo. Staunton, is 1,297,999 English statute miles, and the population three hundred and thirty-nine millions of souls; the density being the greatest in the tea

districts, amounting in Chi-heang to five hundred and ten persons per square mile. The Chinese official returns of the population are, however, very contradictory. At the commencement of the Manchow dynasty, in the early part of the eighteenth century, a census was taken in view of a poll-tax, by which the population was rated at 23,312,200. At that time, however, many of the provinces had not submitted to the new government, and returns were imperfect. Since that time various official documents have spoken of a prodigious increase in the population. In 1749, according to a statistical account of the empire, the population was 198,000,000. This included the whole area of China proper, which is about eight times the extent of France. Fifty years afterwards a return was obtained during the mission of Lord Macartney, giving the population at 333,000,000, or an increase of 66 per cent. in fifty years, in which time the United States increased 200 per cent. So far there is nothing incredible in the increase. On the other hand, the peculiar laws and social habits of the Chinese have eminently tended to encourage the multiplication of their numbers. In the first place, all emigration is prohibited on pain of "punishment according to the law against communicating with rebels and enemies." This greatly discourages emigration, more particularly in a Chinese, to whose mind the abandonment of his native place and the tombs of his ancestors, is abhorrent in the highest degree; and it must be a desperate man that, in a country like