Some days later Robertson left for Buenos Aires in his boat La Inglesita. General euphoria. Pleasing prospects. A first sounding-out operation, suggested by José Tomás Isasi. I also allow him to leave with two brigantines loaded with products.
The Notes again confuse the dates. José Tomás Isasi did not leave with Juan Robertson, but ten years later, in the group formed by Rengger and Longchamp and other foreigners whose departure from the country was authorized by El Supremo in 1825.
The unprecedented event had its origin in a petition from Woodbine Parish, the British consul in Buenos Aires. In it he petitioned the head of the Paraguayan government to allow the English merchants to leave, taking their belongings with them. The tacit recognition of the sovereignty of Paraguay by Great Britain, as implied in the petition of its chargé d’affaires in the Rio de la Plata, had its effect, Rengger and Longchamp declare in their book. The Perpetual Dictator agreed to allow not only the English merchants, but also other European subjects chosen by him (merchants or not), to leave the country. He issued them safe-conduct warrants and allowed the boats to be fitted out, on the one condition that their crews be made up of foreigners or blacks. Moreover, he forbade them to take with them anything except those effects and goods which they had acquired with their own money. This order was rigorously enforced by the authorities. José Tomás Isasi, naturally, was not only exempted from this requirement but enjoyed the broadest special privileges. “He was able to put one over on me—his compadre was later to say—because two circumstances conspired in his favor. I allowed him to leave so that no one would think that I was yielding to necessity or to the pressure of the Englishman by freeing only his compatriots. Furthermore, my villainous compadre—an accursed institution, compaternity!—used his daughter’s cough as the letter-patent of a privateer.” Isasi never returned to Paraguay. He put the crowning touch on his disloyalty by sending back some time later several barrels of unusable gunpowder; his only, derisory restitution for the enormous sums he had embezzled. His indignant ex friend tried to secure his capture at any price. He ordered that all his property be confiscated, and a young man named Gregorio Zelaya, an employee in his commercial establishment in Asunción, was shot to death after a summary trial, exactly one year after Isasi’s escape, on April 25, 1826. On each anniversary another hostage was executed, in a sort of ritual which punished the guilty man “in-absentia”—in accordance with the immemorial symbolism of such sacrifices—in the persons of the most innocent victims. The Dictator’s power and all his efforts over the years were in vain. The enemies of Artigas (who had been given asylum in Paraguay) offered to hand Isasi over in exchange for the ex Supreme of the Banda Oriental. It was the one scheme that the Perpetual Dictator rejected with such vast indignation. He had the bearer of the offer of exchange shot to death without a trial. He nonetheless did not give up his obsessive pursuit of the fugitive, who disappeared as though the earth had swallowed him up.
As for the “implied promise” of official recognition, free navigation, and commerce, Mr. Parish postponed it indefinitely, once the travelers had made their way through the “wall of China” by way of the Puerta del Sur at La Unión de las Siete Corrientes. As a reminder, and playing the last card of his pride disguised as courtesy, the Dictator chartered another vessel for the sole purpose of taking a note to the English consul. It was not a very politic one, however; after vague considerations regarding the happy end of the journey for those who had been liberated, the note took on an extremely bitter tone: “The subjects of His Britannic Majesty have merely endured the same lot to which all of the inhabitants of Paraguay have been condemned by this iniquitous blockade. Finally, they have no reason to complain, since they came to Paraguay without ever being asked to come.” The British chargé d’affaires ignored the “implied” protest, and wrote to the Dictator requesting this time that he free Bonpland. El Supremo’s explosion of wrath was silent but eloquent: he sent the note back in the same diplomatic folder with a crude label pasted on it bearing the inscription, in his secretary’s handwriting: “To Parish, English consul in Buenos Aires.” At the same time he sent a laconic circular round to his functionaries all over the country: “You must never believe Europeans, or trust them, whatever nation they are from, and whatever they may claim their objectives to be. Slam the door in the face of any one of them that appears, and if he continues to plague you, don’t say to him: Come on in, be my guest, as is our unfailingly hospitable custom, but beat him across the snout with a club and shout at him in a good loud voice: Clear out of here, vermin!”
Of the feelings of respect and consideration that the liberated foreigners continued to have for the Perpetual Dictator outside of Paraguay (feelings as intense as those of citizens and foreigners residing in the Paraguayan Arcadia), Rengger and Longchamp offer unimpeachable testimony, cited later by the consul of France in Buenos Aires, Monsieur Aimé Roger: “Captain Hervaux, who was given permission to leave in one of Señor Isasi’s brigs following a prolonged captivity in Paraguay, died in Buenos Aires in 1832. During the seven years that passed between his liberty and his death, he never pronounced the name of El Supremo (the one title of the Perpetual Dictator’s that he accepted) or heard it pronounced without rising to his feet, coming to attention with a loud click of his heels, and raising his hand to his hat. A Paraguayan fled as a stowaway on another brig. I asked him: Why did you leave Paraguay? I was a soldier for twenty-five years. Is that the only reason you fled? The only one, sir, for twenty-five years. Were you unhappy there? No, sir, not at all! Good land, good people, and above all, what a good government. But twenty-five years!” (Compiler’s Note.)
I give Isasi fifty thousand pesos in gold coin from the public treasury to buy gunpowder and armaments of the best quality. Robertson the Englishman double-crosses me. The Paraguayan Isasi double double-crosses me. I should have suspected him when he asked me for permission to take his wife and daughter with him. He cleverly concealed his intentions, taking advantage of my weakness for the girl. Why do you want to subject your family to this sacrifice? It’s for my daughter’s sake, Sire. She suffers from whooping cough, and Doctor Rengger assures me that the change can cure her. Listen to how the poor thing coughs! Day and night, without a letup. Well, José Tomás, if it’s a question of my goddaughter’s health, take her with you. Be careful on the return voyage. You will not be escorted by the English vessels then, and it remains to be seen whether the British consul will fulfill his implied promise of negotiating the trade treaty between England and Paraguay. I have my suspicions about this Juan Parish. The English are perfidious. Best not to trust them till they show that they’re trustworthy. José Tomás Isasi, my friend, my compadre, my bosom companion of many years, listens to me deep down. From the height of his shoes. He lifts the little girl up to me. She clings to my neck in an unusual show of affection, since up to this moment she has tended to show signs of a certain instinctive fear of me. The coqueluche has not diminished the child’s truly angelic beauty. On the contrary, it has transfigured it into an expression that has an air of the supernatural about it. Perhaps by contrast to the black and not yet visible treachery of her father. In a pause between fits of coughing, which make her gasp convulsively, she gives me a kiss on each cheek. Farewell, fa…!, she sobs, breaking off as another attack overcomes her. Instinct of children who sense the farewells that will be forever. They carried her off, her long gasping cry immediately drowned out by the commotion in the port. The last I saw of my goddaughter was her fair hair gleaming in a ray of sunlight on that splendid April morning. With a strange apprehension I immersed myself in the feverish preparations for the departure.
* To the Supreme Dictator of Paraguay
Most esteemed Sir:
From the early days of my youth I had the honor of cultivating the friendship of Monsieur Bonpland and of Baron Humboldt, whose knowledge has done more good in America than all its conquerors.
It is my sentiment at p
resent that Monsieur Bonpland, my adored friend, is being held in Paraguay for reasons which are unknown to me. I suspect that certain false information may have calumniated this virtuous scholar, and that the government that Yr. Excy. heads may have been taken by surprise with regard to this gentleman.
Two circumstances impel me to earnestly beseech Yr. Excy. to grant Monsieur Bonpland his freedom. The first is that I am the cause of his arrival in America, since it was I who invited him to come to Colombia; he had already decided to make the journey when the war situation made it imperative for him to go instead to Buenos Aires; the second is that this savant can bring enlightenment to my country with his knowledge, provided that Yr. Excy. will be good enough to allow him to come to Colombia, whose government I head through the will of the people.
Yr. Excy. doubtless will not recognize my name or know of the services I have rendered to the American cause; but were I allowed to place all my personal merit in the balance in order to obtain the freedom of Monsieur Bonpland, I would be so bold as to address such a plea to Yr. Excy.
May Yr. Excy. deign to hear the outcry of four million Americans freed by the army under my command, all of whom join me in imploring Yr. Excy.’s clemency, humanity, wisdom, and justice, as a tribute to Monsieur Bonpland. Monsieur Bonpland can swear to Yr. Excy., before leaving the territory under his command, that he will depart from the provinces of Rio de la Plata so that there will be no possible way for him to cause harm to the Province of Paraguay; I, meanwhile, await him with the anxiety of a friend and the respect of a disciple, which are such that I would be capable of marching to Paraguay for the sole purpose of freeing the best of men and the most celebrated of travelers.
Most Excellent Sir: I hope that Yr. Excy. will not allow my ardent plea to go unheeded, and I also hope that you will count me among the number of your most faithful and grateful friends, so long as the innocent whom I love is not the victim of an injustice.
I have the honor to be Yr. Excy.’s respectful, obedient servant.
Simón Bolívar
Lima, October 23, 1823.
Compiler’s Note: The Supreme Dictator, in fact, did not answer this letter from Bolívar. The reply that certain novelist-historians give is apocryphal; at any rate, it gives evidence of a courtesy that was definitely not El Supremo’s style.
Letter from José Antonio Sucre, president of the brand-new state of Bolivia, to General Francisco de Paula Santander, vice-president of Colombia, both of whom were lieutenants of Bolívar’s:
“The Liberator appears to be planning to send an expedition of Army Corps from Upper and Lower Peru to take Paraguay, which as you know is groaning beneath the tyrant who not only oppresses that province most cruelly, but has also cut it off from all human interchange, since no one enters there save at the pleasure of its Perpetual Dictator.” (October 11, 1825.)
From Santander to Sucre:
“Cultivated Europe would greatly rejoice if Paraguay were to emerge from the cruel tutelage of the tyrant who oppresses it, and who has separated it from the rest of the world.” (September, 1825.)
From Dean Funes to Simón Bolívar:
“Minister García having reported this happening to me [the abrupt rupture by the dictator of Paraguay of the negotiations initiated by the English minister in Buenos Aires], I took advantage of this opportunity to make him sensible to how mistaken an undertaking it was to tame this wild beast by way of reason, and on the other hand how correct Yr. Excy.’s judgment that he should be made to feel the force of your arms by way of the Bermejo….I thought it my duty to bring all of this to Yr. Excy.’s notice, since it is my intention to provide you with sufficient matter for the fecundity of your genius, and since in my opinion the undertaking should not be abandoned.” (September 28, 1825.)
Note from Juan Esteban Richard Grandsire:
“The extract from the aforementioned periodical speaks of threats on the part of General Sucre if the head of government of Paraguay does not take into consideration the steps that have supposedly been taken by Bolívar to obtain Monsieur Bonpland’s freedom. It is to be ill-acquainted with the disposition and character of the Perpetual Dictator to believe him to be susceptible of yielding to fear, or to an indirect threat: the man who has been holding the reins of government in Paraguay for twelve years now, and who has been able to calm passions and maintain the tranquillity, both within and without, of the vast states that he governs, despite the intrigues and the revolutions of neighboring governments, will never be regarded as a coarse and common man by men of good sense and discrimination, and the threats might well bring down upon Monsieur Bonpland’s head a deplorable catastrophe which can be avoided by a direct representation of the consul general of France in Río de Janeiro; and it would be better still if the request were to come from Paris.” (September 6, 1826.)
On his return from his next-to-last journey, Juan Robertson paid for a part of his sins. My worst enemies, Artigas’s followers, were the ones charged with collecting the debt and administering the condign punishment. Between Santa Fe and La Bajada, the bandits and brigands of the Protector of the Banda Oriental pirated the pirate descended from pirates. They subjected him to terrible abuse. They spread-eagled him naked between stakes, lying face downward on the ground. The mob of Tapes*1 and Correntinos worked him over for hours. Confused story of things experienced at midnight. Dreamed of at midday. I don’t know if the gringo was sincere. I would like to read the version of the episode that he gives in his book, if in fact he works up the courage to recount it.
The episode is related by the Robertsons in The Reign of Terror. The suppression of certain revolting details is attributable not so much to Puritan prudishness as to the proverbial English penchant for reserve and decorous understatement, as well as to the remoteness of the facts narrated in measured prose by the authors. Their version nonetheless coincides in general with that given by El Supremo. (Compiler’s Note.)
Amid the reproaches and insults I heaped upon the Englishman, there suddenly stole into my mind the melody that he used to hum softly during our chess games or my divagations on the lore of the stars, indigenous myths, the Gallic Wars, or the burning of the Library of Alexandria. There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will! I can hear Juan Parish’s voice. The Beneficent Divinity finally shaped his end “how he willed” in the fields of La Bajada.
Artigas’s bandits pillaged La Inglesita from head to foot. Even the kepis and dress uniforms ordered by the military leaders of the Junta. Sashes, laces, cotton prints and percales, trinkets and baubles for their wives.
At the time of these events, neither the Governing Junta nor the Consulate that had replaced it any longer existed. The dictatorship pro tempore was on the eve of turning El Supremo into Perpetual Dictator. The ex military leaders of the First Junta were for the most part either banished or in prison. (Compiler’s Note.)
A tricorne, optical and musical instruments, a telescope, various electrical machines, articles that I had ordered wholesale and listed in great detail. The complete stock of arms and munitions, naturally, that he was bringing in for the army on my order, under cover of a shipment of coal and wheat.
The striped rag of his empire was of no use to him when it came to grabbing the red-hot handle of the frying pan where the chestnuts were toasting. When the English ephebe awoke from his nightmare he witnessed an amusing spectacle improvised in his honor. Artigas’s band of toughs, decked out in the full dress uniforms, the ecclesiastical ornaments and adornments, dolled up in the dresses and jewelry of the women, were dancing a wild, demoniacal gypsy zambra round about him, brandishing brand-new pistols and sabers. They were laying bets at the top of their lungs as to which of them was strong enough to behead him with a single stroke. Juan Parish Robertson, like the old man in Chaucer’s tale (and as happened to me a short time ago), must at that instant have been pounding with his fists on the doors
of mother earth begging her to let him in. I don’t know what thoughts must have crossed Juan Robertson’s mind at that moment. Not at all comforting ones, doubtless. A wounded heart bears the knife no love. Though an Englishman always tries his best to be timeless, Juana Esquivel was no longer at his side to stanch his wounds and lull him to sleep with her cicada’s songs.
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