authority, and having no real support in the country itself. It is not a mere coincidence that the three centres—Caracas, Buenos Aires, and Pernambuco—whence the revolutionary spirit spread over South America should all have been democratic in social organisation and far distant from the old colonial capitals. In Buenos Aires, the Viceroy himself could not find a white coachman. An Argentine Creole would no more serve in a menial capacity than a North American pioneer; and a Creole hated a Spaniard very much as his contemporary, the Scotch-Irish settler of the Appalachians, hated an Englishman.
Not even religion furnished a strong bond of union between the widely dispersed cities and provinces of the Viceroyalty. The priests had not been organised into a compact hierarchy. They had little class feeling; they lived the life of the Creoles and shared the same prejudices. Half the members of the first Congress after the revolution were priests, but they pursued no distinctive policy of their own and offered no effective resistance to the growth of the power of the military chiefs.
Commerce with Spain had been authorised, but with other nations it was still unlawful. The Cadiz monopolists still fought hard to preserve their privileges and to control the Atlantic trade as they had controlled the route by the Isthmus. Great Britain had enjoyed a monopoly of the traffic in negroes during most of the colonial period, but in 1784 all foreign ships carrying slaves were allowed to enter, unload, and take a return cargo of the "products of the country." The Cadiz merchants contended that hides—then the principal article of export—were not "products" within the meaning of this law, and the Spanish courts decided in their favour. This absurd decision created a storm of opposition in Buenos Aires, but even more unreasonable restrictions continued to be insisted upon. The proposition to allow the colonies to trade with one another was vehemently opposed by the people of Cadiz and their agents in Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile, England's maritime victories in the wars of the French Revolution were sweeping Spanish commerce from the sea, and the people of the Plate saw themselves again about to be shut off from the sea unless permission were granted to ship in foreign vessels. Dissatisfaction grew apace, and the prestige of the Viceregal government and the influence of resident Spaniards were seriously compromised. At the same time there were fermenting among the intelligent and educated youth of the city the new ideas of the North American and French revolutions—liberty, the rights of man, representative government, and popular sovereignty.
For generations England had cast covetous eyes at South Africa and South America. Menaced with exclusion from Europe in her giant conflict with Napoleon, her statesmen determined to seize outside markets and possessions. The Cape was captured in 1805, and the next year came the turn of Argentina. June 25, 1806, Admiral Popham appeared in the estuary, and fifteen hundred troops, under the command of General Beresford, were disembarked a few miles below Buenos Aires. The Viceroy fled without making resistance, and on the 27th the British flag was run up on his official residence. At first the population appeared to acquiesce, but finally Liniers, a French officer in the Spanish employ, gathered together at Montevideo a thousand regulars and a small amount of artillery. The militia of Buenos Aires soon proved themselves anxious to rise against the heretic strangers. Liniers crossed the estuary and, advancing without opposition to the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, established a camp to which the patriotic inhabitants flocked. Within a short time he had armed an overwhelming number of the citizens, the scanty British garrison was shut up in the fort, and on the 12th of August the Argentines advanced. After some hard street fighting, the English were forced to surrender, and the flags which were captured that day are still exhibited in the city of Buenos Aires with just pride as trophies of Argentine valour. The British expedition might have been successful had it been more numerous, or had it been promptly re-enforced. If the capture of Montevideo had followed that of Buenos Aires, the Argentines would have had no base of operations, and their militia would have remained without ammunition and artillery stores. It is interesting to speculate what would have been the subsequent history of the temperate part of South America in such a case. It is possible that the Plate would have become part of the British Dominion; British immigration would have followed, and the Plate might have become the greatest of British colonies.
But the opportunity was quickly gone. The successes of 1806 so strongly aroused the spirit of national and race pride that thereafter the conquest of Argentina was a task too great for the small armies which in those days could be transported overseas. No sooner was Beresford expelled than the victors met in open Cabildo, declared the cowardly Viceroy suspended from office, and installed the royal Audiencia in his place. A few months later the dreaded British re-enforcement came. Four thousand men disembarked in eastern Uruguay, and Montevideo was taken by assault. In Buenos Aires all was confusion, but the people were resolute to resist. Again an open Cabildo assembled, and Liniers, the French officer under whose leadership the victory of last year had been won, was given supreme authority. Military enthusiasm spread among all classes and the people were rapidly enrolled in volunteer regiments. When General Whitelocke approached the city with several thousand regulars the Argentines confidently marched out to meet him. In the open they stood no chance, and they were compelled to fly back to the shelter of their narrow streets and stone houses. On the 5th of July, 1807, the British troops, disdaining all precautions, marched into the city. Both sides of the narrow streets were lined with low, fireproof houses, whose flat roofs afforded admirable vantage-ground. The Buenos Aires men were well supplied with muskets, and the women and boys rained down stones, bricks, and firebrands on the masses crowding the pavements below. The British could not retaliate on their enemies, but pushed stubbornly on toward the centre of the city, dropping by hundreds on the way. At the main square, in front of the fort, barricades had been thrown up, and there the English met a reception which flesh and blood could not endure. For two days the conflict raged, but finally the English general was obliged to give up and ask for terms. He had lost a fourth of his force and was allowed to withdraw the remainder only on agreeing to evacuate Montevideo within two months.
The political and commercial consequences of the English invasions were vastly important. The military power of the Argentine Creoles, hitherto unsuspected, stood revealed; local pride had been stimulated; and, at the same time, the invasions gave a tremendous impulse to foreign commerce. A fleet of English merchantmen had followed the warships. Untrammelled commerce with the world at last became a fact. English manufactured goods flooded the market. Articles until then beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest now became cheap enough for the purses of the gauchos. Buenos Aires's trade was boomed by the sales of imported goods to the interior provinces. Creole jealousy of Spaniards rapidly became accentuated. From this time dates the general use of "Goths," applied to Spaniards as a term of opprobrium, and of "Argentines," as a designation for the natives of the Plate. Recognition could no longer be withheld from the men who had organised and commanded victorious troops, and henceforth the Creoles were in fact, as well as in law, eligible to offices of trust and profit. Even in the Buenos Aires Cabildo, though all the members were native Spaniards, Creole ideas predominated.
Scarcely had the English retired from Montevideo when the course of events in Europe precipitated Spanish South America into confusion. Charles IV., the pusillanimous King of Spain, allied himself with Napoleon and aided the latter's aggressions against Portugal. The Portuguese monarch was driven to Brazil, the latter country thereby gaining complete commercial freedom and virtual political independence. This naturally suggested to the Argentines that they were entitled to the same privileges from Spain. Charles IV. and Godoy, the accomplice of his wicked wife, who really governed in his name, were bitterly hated at home. Napoleon's troops swarmed over the country and the monarchy itself was clearly tottering to its fall. Ferdinand, heir of Charles IV., conspired against his father and forced the latter to resign in his favour. The Spanish governor of Montevideo at once took the oath of allegiance to the new monarch, an act of insubordination to his titular superior, the Viceroy. The latter was the Frenchman, Liniers, who sympathised with the Creole party in desiring to wait and obtain concessions for the colony before recognising any of the various claimants. A dispute over the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand arose which marked a definite rupture between the Creoles and the old-line Spaniards—between those who regarded the special interests of the colony as paramount and those who wished at all hazards to maintain connection with the mother country.
