interest, in a thinly-peopled country, and therefore generally nomadic, is always a more influential interest than the landed one. It is only after commerce, by gathering men into societies for the supply of their mutual wants, has increased population, and furnished to the owners of land tenants to rent, and labourers to cultivate the soil, that the country gentleman, possessed of real property continually increasing in value, supersedes the rank, wealth, and importance of the merchant; whose fortune is ever liable to be stranded upon the shoals of speculation, or lost in the under-currents of chance, time, and tide.

In the case of the Corrientes landed gentleman, we see that he united in his own person the dignified status of lord of the manor with the ignoble occupation (so deemed to all intents and purposes in this country) of huckster: but it was by this combination of callings that the country first began to assume an air of substantial prosperity; that the comfort of its inhabitants was increased; that a spirit of industry and enterprize was diffused; and that the landed proprietor himself was the first to feel the substantiality of his wealth, and to be taught the convertibility into gold of his

hitherto unheeded leagues of land and badly managed thousands of cattle.

Every month, every week was now bringing us nearer to a "wind-up" of our affairs for we had determined to leave, as soon as possible, a country which, after all, was somewhat removed from civilization; in which the institutions were fluctuating, and protection and security rather owing to individual tact than to established principle.

I kept, therefore, dispatching the property I had collected at Corrientes; my brother, at Goya, filling up any vacant space in the vessels I sent down, or chartering others for his own use. At length I only awaited the arrival of two brigantines from Buenos Ayres (one, called the San José, being our own) to bid adieu to Corrientes.

Your's, &c.

J. P. R.

240

LETTER XVIII.

W. P. R. to General Miller.

Departure from Don Pedro's mansion-He proves something like a Rogue Shuffles and prevaricates, but assumes an air of Ho

nesty.

London, 1842.

IF I left Don Pedro Quesney's large, airy, and comfortable residence for my own confined little cottage with regret, it was solely on his account. His reluctance that I should take up a separate abode, he manifested in many really touching little ways. It was painful to him to be left once more alone. I was the first person with whom he had held unreserved intercourse in that part of the ' world, and in whom he could implicitly confide. I had fallen easily into his peculiarities, — had never appeared to notice his deficiencies,-had helped him in some of his little difficulties; had given him, by my residence in his house, an assurance of personal security which he had never before felt; and I had helped him to pass away many evenings which, without resources in himself, would

DON PEDRO QUESNEY.

241

otherwise have hung heavily, perhaps painfully, on his hands. All these little things, nothing in themselves when taken separately, but something in their aggregate value, had rendered me a favourite with Don Pedro; and a little business matter arose, which, though at first threatening an interruption to his kindly feelings, I think in the end gained me some addition of his goodwill. The incident was agreeable to me; for while I was enabled to serve a worthy friend, I induced Don Pedro to perform an act of honesty, on a large scale, which I looked upon as some atonement for previous mercantile misdeeds, and which certainly eased his mind of one of the heaviest burthens which lay upon it. The matter to which I allude was this.

Quesney's chief supporter, when he left Buenos Ayres, was a Mr. Stroud,* a highly respectable Englishman, and very well known to my brother and myself. I have also said that Stroud could never get his property out of Quesnèy's hands,— he could not even get accounts from him.

On learning, through our friend in Buenos Ayres,

* His name became well known afterwards in Buenos Ayres by his building of a large windmill (the first ever seen in the country), and which went for many years by the name of " Stroud's Mill."

VOL. I.

M

Mr. Fair, that I was about to settle for a time in Goya, Mr. Stroud requested me to use my good offices in procuring some sort of settlement, any I could bring about or thought advisable, of his claims on Don Pedro. In reply, I requested Mr. Stroud to send me a power of attorney to act for him, and this was forthwith done.

I then opened up the business to Don Pedro in the most friendly manner. Great was his fever, great his consternation, and great also his anger at first, when he found he had the accredited agent of Mr. Stroud under his own roof; but he quickly perceived, as I foresaw he would, that the power, since it was in Goya, was better in my hands than in those of any other individual in the port. He knew his reputation, as far as his transactions with Stroud went, was safe in my keeping, and he was satisfied I would not deal harshly with him.

He began by denying absolutely and in toto that he owed a farthing to Mr. Stroud." I do owe heem noting-noting at all; rien du tout," he would say, "dee Gauch ave take all,-all dee propertee of Monsieur Strou-more, more dan all. I do owe heem noting, noting, Don Guillerm."