Note 94 — Chapter XII · BUENOS AYRES.

Our present diplomatic relations with the Disunited Provinces of the Plata are of a peculiarly embarrassing and uncertain kind, owing to Urquiza being the ostensible head of the Confederation, though not of its most important province, Buenos Ayres. This anomalous state of things long occasioned proceedings on the part of our representative there, Captain R. Gore, R.N., that have naturally and almost unavoidably produced some strong opposition and animadversion. Into the justness of these strictures it is not the business of the author to inquire; and, accordingly, he contents himself with supplying some few data of the antecedents of the functionaries about to be enumerated. First, the gallant gentleman just named, whose salary as consul-general is 1600l., with the usual 1l. per day as chargé d’affaires. He is fourth brother of the Earl of Arran, and sat for the borough of New Ross in 1841 and 1847, when he declared himself ‘a cordial supporter of the Melbourne ministry,’ and an ‘advocate for free trade and the abolition of monopolies.’ He was appointed chargé d’affaires and consul-general in the Uruguay in 1846, and transferred to Buenos Ayres in 1851. Our Buenos Ayrean consul, whose salary, I believe, is 600l., is Mr. M. T. Hood, who was employed for some years in the consulate-general at Monte Video, appointed vice-consul there in 1841, acting consul-general there in 1846, and consul-general at Buenos Ayres in 1847. Our Buenos Ayrean vice-consul is Mr. T. Parish, to whom I shall have to express a sense of my obligations in a subsequent chapter. As regards the diplomatic representation in this country of the Argentine Confederation, like the Uruguay, and for much the same reason, it is confined merely to the consul-general in London, Mr. George F. Dixon, Great Winchester-street, City, the minister, Don Manuel Moreno, having for some considerable time left England, where he had resided for many years during the supremacy of Rosas. The consuls and vice-consuls for the Argentine Confederation are Liverpool, Mr. Hugh C. Smith; Dover, Mr. S. M. Latham; Falmouth, Mr. Alfred Fox; Plymouth, Mr. J. Luscombe; and Glasgow, Mr. George Young.