They were
traitors, plunderers, assassins, he cried; they had committed a million
crimes, but all these things were nothing, nothing compared with that
one black crime which no other political party had been guilty of. By
the aid of Brazilian gold and Brazilian bayonets they had risen to
power; they were the infamous pensioners of the empire of slaves. He
compared them to the man who marries a beautiful wife and sells her
to some rich person so as to live luxuriously on the wages of his own
dishonour. The foul stain which they had brought on the honour of the
Banda Oriental could only be washed away with their blood. Pointing
to the advancing troops, he said that when those miserable hirelings
were scattered like thistle-down before the wind, the entire country
would be with him, and the Banda Oriental, after half a century of
degradation, free at last and for ever from the Brazilian curse.
Waving his sword, he galloped back to the front of his column, greeted
by a storm of _vivas_.
Then a great silence fell upon our ranks; while up the slope, their
trumpets sounding merrily, trotted the enemy, till they had covered
about three hundred yards of the ascending ground, threatening to close
us round in an immense circle, when suddenly the order was given to
charge, and, led by Santa Coloma, we thundered down the incline upon
them.
Soldiers reading this plain, unvarnished account of an Oriental battle
might feel inclined to criticise Santa Coloma's tactics; for his men
were, like the Arabs, horsemen and little else; they were, moreover,
armed with lance and broadsword, weapons requiring a great deal of
space to be used effectively.
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