A FIVE YEARS' RESIDENCE IN BUENOS AYRES, DURING THE YEARS 1820 to 1825: CONTAINING REMARKS ON THE COUNTRY AND INHABITANTS; AND A VISIT TO COLONIA DEL SACRAMENTO. BY AN ENGLISHMAN. _WITH AN APPENDIX_, CONTAINING RULES AND POLICE OF THE PORT OF BUENOS AYRES, NAVIGATION OF THE RIVER PLATE, &c. &c. _SECOND EDITION._ LONDON: PUBLISHED BY G. HEBERT, 88, CHEAPSIDE. 1827. LONDON Stirling, Printer, 20 Ironmonger Lane, Cheapside. PREFACE. At a time when the rich and fertile provinces of South America are daily becoming increased objects of commercial consideration--when their riches and advantages are constantly forming the bases of fresh speculations--and when, under the security offered to person and property by the liberal institutions of a free and independent government, communication with them is every hour becoming more extended,--an illustration of their local affairs, customs, manners, and people, cannot but be interesting. Of these provinces, the one which forms the subject of the following Remarks is far from being the least important. Without adverting to the fertility of the soil, and the general healthiness of the climate, the prospects which Buenos Ayres presents in a mercantile point of view, forming, as she does, from her situation, the medium of communication with the whole interior of this vast continent, must ever render her an object of considerable importance to a commercial nation like England. Nor is she less a source of interest to the politician and the philanthropist. To Buenos Ayres is due the credit of setting the noble example to the other provinces, of bursting asunder the shackles of a despotic mother-country, whose selfish policy had long immured them under the deepest veil of ignorance and degradation, debarring them from any communication with the rest of the world, in order that she might reap the exclusive advantage of those treasures with which Nature had enriched them. Nor has Buenos Ayres confined herself to example merely, but, from the moment of having secured her own independence, she has never ceased to encourage and assist the other states in throwing off the same degrading yoke.