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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 637: DISASTERS IN SOUTH AMERICA.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

DISASTERS IN SOUTH AMERICA.

It is an old proverb that “misfortunes never come alone.” Thus it was with the expeditions planned by the “all talents” ministry—t was hoped that the reverses in the Mediterranean might be compensated in the South Atlantic Oceans; but this hope was illusive. In October 1806, a re-enforcement had been sent to the Rio de la Plata, under Sir Samuel Auchmuty, who, on arriving at Maldonado, resolved to attack the strong post of Monte Video, the key to the navigation of that river. His efforts were at first successful,—the town and castle with fifty-seven vessels of war and trade were captured. This success, however, was followed by a series of reverses, induced by rashness and misconduct. When intelligence arrived in England of the re-capture of Buenos Ayres by the Spaniards, orders were transmitted to General Crauford, who had been sent against Chili with 4,200 men, accompanied by a naval force, under Admiral Murray, to proceed with his army to the river Plate. He reached Monte Video on the 14th of June, where he found General Whitelocke, with a re-enforcement from England of 1,600 men. The chief command of the British forces was entrusted to General Whitelocke, and he had orders to reduce the whole province of Buenos Ayres. A general attack on the town was ordered to be made on the 5th of July, each corps being directed to enter the streets opposite to it, and all with unloaded muskets. No mode of attack could have been so ill-adapted against a town consisting of flat-roofed houses, disposed in regular streets, intersecting each other at right angles. Volleys of grape-shot were poured on our columns in front and flank as they advanced, and they were equally assailed from the house-tops. The service was executed, but it was with the frightful loss of 2,500 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Sir Samuel Auchmuty succeeded in making himself master of the Plaza de Toros, where he took eighty-two pieces of cannon, and an immense quantity of ammunition; but General Crauford, with his brigade, and Lieutenant Colonel Duff, with a detachment under his command, were obliged to surrender. Surrounded with foes, General Whitelocke, who had arrogantly refused to treat before the attack, now consented to a negociation with the Spanish commandant; and he not only agreed to evacuate the town, on condition of recovering his own prisoners, and those taken from General Beresford, but to give up Monte Video, with every other place on the Rio de la Plata held by British troops, within the space of two months. The result of this expedition brought General Whitelocke before a court-martial, and he was sentenced to be cashiered for lack of zeal, judgment, and personal exertion. Against the ill-success of these expeditions, the solitary capture of the Dutch colony of Curacoa only can be recorded: this island surrendered, on the 1st of January, to a squadron of our frigates under Commodore Brisbane.