to those who dared to make front to that rain of stones which issued from the bosom of my phalanx."
I omit the details of the boyish battle our autobiographer describes, in which he showed the determination and pluck which have characterized all his maturer acts. I omit it (his later ones were undertaken in better causes), fearing the publication of it might not receive his sanction, though he amused himself and his "hundred friends" with the relation; all the personages engaged in it being probably well known to them.
"This ends what I call the colonial history of my family. What follows, is the slow and painful transition from one mode of life to another, the life of the rising Republic, the struggle of parties, civil war, proscription, and banishment. To the family history succeeds as atmosphere and theatre of action, the history of my native country. I succeed to my progenitors, and I believe that by following my footsteps as those of another in that path, the curioso may linger over the events which form the general picture, incidents of the country known to all, objects of general interest, by the examination of which, the items of my biography, valueless for themselves, will serve as a thread of connection; for in my life, so destitute of aid, so full of contrarieties, and yet so persevering in its aspiration for all that is noble and elevated, may be seen depicted that unhappy South America, agitating itself in its condition of nothingness, making supreme efforts to unfold its wings, lacerating itself at every attempt against the iron bars of the prison in which it is chained.
"Strange emotions must indeed have agitated the souls of our fathers in 1810. The twilight perspective of a new
