CHAPTER VIII.
EXPERIMENTS.
"How long are the days now? for to-morrow I wish to gallop ten leagues over a field sown with corpses."—Shakespeare.
The political condition of the Republic was such as we have described in 1825, when the governor of Buenos Ayres[1] invited the provinces to unite in a congress and assume the form of a general government. This idea was everywhere favorably received, either because every military commander expected to be made governor of his own province, or because the glory of Buenos Ayres dazzled all eyes. The governor of Buenos Ayres has been blamed for proposing this question, the solution of which was to be so unfortunate for himself and for the civilization of the country.
Facundo, in behalf of La Rioja, eagerly accepted the invitation, perhaps on account of the sympathy which all highly gifted minds have for good plans!
In 1825 the Republic prepared for the Brazilian war by calling upon each province to raise a regiment for the army. Colonel Madrid went to Tucuman for this purpose, and impatient to obtain the reluctant recruits and other necessaries for his company, did not hesitate to set aside the slow authorities and to take things into his own hands in order to expedite the
- ↑ Rivadavia.
