WAR BETWEEN BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA
Brazil without setting foot in England except to kiss
hands with the King. It appears that the King had
been ill, but Canning’s suggestion that “ Ponsonby would
do excellently for Buenos Ayres ” had sufficed to restore
I-I.l\/I. to health !
Lord Ponsonby was accompanied by his wife, a
daughter of the fourth Earl’of jersey, who, but for the
drawback of being deaf, seems to have been an agreeable
and clever woman.
They arrived in the country at a singularly unfortunate
moment ;--~the internal affairs of the Republic were in as
bad a plight as their foreign relations, civil strife was
universal, and Rivadavia’s Government had proved the
worst that Buenos Ayres had yet experienced.
Ponsonby’s impressions were anything but favourable.
Soon after his arrival he wrote to Sir Charles Bagot :
“ Poor Fanny [his Wife] has lost her case containing
ails her fine ssgowsns, satins, laces, silks, -\——fi_tCS- deter i-Xnrdr
what is much worse than all hermisfortunes, I have lost
in the said d-—--d case my black neck-cloths ! Alas the
day ! so pray buy me five pounds’ worth. . . .
No eye ever saw so odious a country as Buenos
Ayres is. I will not trust myself to speak of it. I do
not recollect having ever before disliked any place so
much, but I really sigh when I think I may spend my
days here. I have Italy always before my eyes to
increase my disgust at this land of rnud and putrid
carcases-—no horses, no roads, no houses . . . no books,
no theatre that can be endured. . . . Nothing good but
beef. It is April here, and I have seen ice. . . . Rio I
was delighted with. . . .
Yours ever and ever,
P,”
395