Great Britain and Argentina: From Invasion to Recognition, 1806–26

Britain and an independent South America

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Request Username Can't sign in? Forgot your username? Enter your email address below and we will send you your username. Forgot your password? Both men later complained bitterly to the British Government about the conduct of the local inhabitants, many of whom had sworn their allegiance to King George III. This complaint Fortescue correctly calls ridiculous.

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If the creoles had been guaranteed some assistance from the British in liberating themselves from Spain, such lamentations would have been more understandable. Given the ambiguous nature of the enterprise from the very moment the British forces arrived in the River Plate, it was to be expected that at a certain point an insurrection would take place. Beresford was taken prisoner. Popham, who was safely on board his ship, managed to sail back to England a few months later.

He had obviously spent a considerable amount of time working on this project, and his memoranda clearly suggest that he was aware of many factors, including such as the economic oppression to which the South American colonists were subjected by the Spanish Crown, and he had probably persuaded himself that this was reason enough to atempt the expedition. The trial took place in , and was presided over by Admiral Lord St.

Vincent which Popham must have deeply resented. Among the witnesses called were Lord Melville and Huskisson, who were mainly questioned about the contacts between themselves, Pitt and Popham. Popham conducted his own defence so well that he got off with only a severe reprimand for his actions. On this head you cannot follow a better rule than that The British Invasions of the River Plate 43 which you have hitherto pursued, of abstaining from any declarations by which His Majesty would stand pledged to any conditions which might not be in his power to make good, and which might lead the inhabitants of the Spanish provinces into measures of which they might afterwards repent.

However, they are a good indication of the degree of confusion the new Government suffered with respect to the whole enterprise, although as we shall see later, their members had never even been warned that the expedition was taking place. Auchmuty naturally received from Windham the same orders that had been given to Beresford and Popham. He acquainted Auchmuty with the new situation. Auchmuty sailed towards the eastern coast of what is now Uruguay and, once there, decided to take possession of both the island of Gorriti and the locality of Maldonado, which were defenceless, in order to establish a headquarters and base from where he could eventually attempt to recapture Buenos Aires once the reinforcements from England had arrived.

However, to get closer to Buenos Aires Auchmuty decided that there was no alternative but to occupy Montevideo itself, even without reinforcements. This Auchmuty succeeded in doing at the beginning of February. In Buenos Aires meanwhile, the local militia commanders had deposed Sobremonte and named Liniers as his successor. On hearing this news Auchmuty was optimistic about the prospects of 44 Great Britain and Argentina persuading Liniers and his faction to throw off Spanish rule and accept that of King George. He was still under the impression that the creoles would prefer anything to falling again into the hands of their old masters.

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He would, however, be rapidly disillusioned by the information received from Beresford, who had arrived in Montevideo in May after escaping from the Argentine interior with the assistance of two prominent Rioplatense creoles. Auchmuty offered the command of his forces to Beresford. This offer was declined and therefore Auchmuty had no alternative but to wait for reinforcements to arrive. In the meantime he spent his time corresponding with members of the Government in Buenos Aires in search of some kind of peaceful solution. This correspondence, along with the information he received from Montevideo, might have enabled Auchmuty to form a clearer picture of the situation in Buenos Aires, of the politics of the ruling faction, and of their attitudes to both the English presence and Spanish rule.

However, in March Auchmuty sent this somewhat simplistic report to England: From the answers [of the local inhabitants] it may be supposed, that the leading people are unanimous in their determination to defend the place and to keep their prisoners. But it appears that there are two parties in that city. The second party consist of natives of the country, with some Spaniards, that are settled in it. If we would promise them independence, they would instantly revolt against the government and join us, with the great mass of inhabitants. The inference is that he sought popularity with the lower rank of the Army because he was unable to gain the respect of the higher.

Rather, the instructions implicitly ruled this possibility out. Reinforcements had been left, however, in both Colonia and Montevideo.

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Whitelocke was not optimistic about recovering the city, even if the odds seemed clearly in his favour given the advantages of his army over the local militia. It remained to be seen how this attack would be conducted. However, Whitelocke gradually abandoned his original strategy, and gave in to the arguments of his second-in-command, General Leveson-Gower, who opposed the bombardment, sustaining that it was inhumane and would only provoke even more animosity against the British army.

This was the strategy eventually adopted, which proved responsible for the capitulation of the British army a couple of days later, on 6 July. He was extremely unpopular with large sectors of British society, and an exemplary punishment was expected. This raises the question of the extent to which public opinion had been correctly informed about these events. Yet few people knew how Popham had encouraged the enterprise through his active lobbying.

The contradictions and lack of principle which characterized his actions in the River Plate were never fully exposed to the general public. Pitt, Mr. Addington, etc. Moreover, he seemed from the start to suffer the same pessimism that most of the Talents ministers had felt about the enterprise from its inception.

The public hopes and expectation were raised to the highest pitch, and no suspicion existed that it was possible for the greater part of the population of South America to entertain any than a just feeling of attachment to our Government; still less that it was possible that such a rooted antipathy could exist towards us, as to justify the assertion the proof of which has been shown to demonstration that we had not, when I arrived in South America, one single friend in the whole country.

Whether the opinion of the illustrious statesman [Pitt], now no more, who had frequently turned his thoughts towards South America, had led him to contemplate the propriety of establishing military posts there, of the co-operating only with those who gladly have followed the example of North America, and availed themselves of our assistance in their independence, I have no means of knowing, but experience has shewn, that any other course of proceeding, even if most successful, and almost in proportion to success, had the effect of placing us at a greater distance than ever from our ultimate object — those of friendly intercourse and trade with the country.

Many had expected a much harsher sanction, even death. The idea of sending expeditions to South America did not end with this episode. On the contrary, the lessons learned in the River Plate now sharpened the precise objectives of British policy in South America. Neither conquest nor emancipation had been achieved. Britain had been unable to establish either a strategic military base or a stronger commercial link in South America.

More embarrassing, as The Morning Chronicle repeatedly emphasized, was the fact that a British army had been defeated by improvised creole and Spanish militia units. Obviously many other internal and external circumstances were involved. What is beyond doubt is that Argentine independence owed little to the alleged shrewdness and sound calculation of Sir Home Popham. Ferns, for example, has suggested that Sir Home was not as much a fool as he was made out to be, given that, after all, his timing of the expedition and his assessment of the animosity of the creoles against their Spanish masters was correct.

Although there is not enough evidence to suggest that what induced Popham to invade the River Plate was, as has been fre- 50 Great Britain and Argentina quently stated, the prize money, his indecisive participation in the invasions makes it unwise to exclude this interpretation. Moreover, his actions might easily have contributed to complicate the future relations of Great Britain and the Spanish American colonies.

As it was, the events which followed his rash initiative placed Britain in an advantageous position. The River Plate adventure provoked a great deal of uproar and embarrassment in England. It did however constitute a landmark with respect to the future policy to be adopted towards these colonies. This gave them a strategic advantage over the other European powers. He had begun to move closer to the Foxites and had refused to form part of the new Pitt administration in , despite the pleas of both Pitt and George III.

He was the most prestigious member of the Administration.

For 51 52 Great Britain and Argentina more than twenty years he had been at the head of the Whig party and he represented the main opposition to the Pitt Ministry. His main objective as Foreign Secretary was to reach a peace agreement with France, although this line of policy was not the most popular among the majority in the Government. As we have said, this was a coalition Government. The last-named could scarcely claim to add to the Talents of the Ministry, but they served to give it a broader bottom, and so left its enemy the King no immediate chance of sending for a different set of servants.

Indeed, Fox seemed a very good choice as Foreign Secretary. He died on 13 September , and the Government lost one of its most valuable members. On that very same day news had arrived in Britain of the taking of Buenos Aires by British troops under Beresford on 27 June. As described in the previous chapter, the idea of an expedition against Buenos Aires had been contemplated by Popham, Pitt, and especially Melville, who also considered the possibility of aiding Miranda.

Although no serious force had been organized during those years, Miranda eventually managed to mount a small expedition of British and American volunteers and had reached the shores of Venezuela, near Caracas, in April As we have seen, Popham had persuaded Pitt to allow him to embark on an expedition to the Cape of Good Hope with the idea of eventually gaining permission from the Prime Minister to organize an expedition to South America if matters in Europe took a turn for the worse.

After the expedition commanded by Sir David Baird had taken possession of the Cape, Popham had decided to take matters into his own hands. As soon as he heard about the defeat of the Austrian army at Austerlitz, and once Baird agreed to allow him to embark on this mission, he had set off on 14 April.

As seems to have been usual in those days, Pitt and Melville had not informed the rest of the Government about any 54 Great Britain and Argentina such plans and had taken all the papers relating to these projects to their respective homes, so that by the time a new Ministry stepped in, there was no existant record. A meeting of the cabinet was immediately arranged to consider the matter.

After the meeting William Windham informed the King: It is humbly submitted to Your Majesty that Sir Home Popham should be superseded in his present command, and recalled to give an account of his conduct in having left his station and proceeded, without any instructions or authority to do so, to attack the Spanish settlements in the Rio de la Plata. The King agreed completely: Sir Home Popham and Sir David Baird having undertaken the attack upon the Spanish settlements on the Rio de la Plata without any orders or authority whatsoever, The King considers that such conduct should be checked as bad precedent, and therefore cannot disapprove of the Minute of Cabinet submitted to him by Mr.

Beresford and Sir Home Popham appear to be so important and to contain intelligence so satisfactory that Mr. Windham trusts your Majesty with them at an unusual hour. The King replied on 14 September The King has received with much satisfaction the dispatches which report the capture of Buenos Aires, as communicated by Mr.

His Majesty trusts from the reports made, that the acquisition of Buenos Aires will prove very advantageous to this Country. A few days after the news of the invasions was received, The Times reported that Lord Auckland, President of the Board of Trade, had arranged a meeting which included other members of the Government such as Grenville, Petty, Spencer, Ellenborough, and the Spanish American schemer Vansittart, to consider trading prospects with Buenos Aires, and in what way they could exploit the commercial advantages to be found there. As we have seen, when Miranda had discussed the matter with Popham, Lord Melville, and Pitt in October , Melville had assured him that if such an expedition ever took place its only objective would be to secure independence for the Latin Americans.

A footing once obtained there, the rest would do itself by a mild and gradual operation; or, if it did not, we should equally be in a situation to secure a great position or the advantages which such an event is supposed likely to produce, and what is most of consequence of all, to prevent probably the French from establishing themselves there.

They came 58 Great Britain and Argentina mainly from businessmen and politicians familiar with the area. It contained interesting observations on South America, showed a deep knowledge of the situation in the different Viceroyalties, and suggested sending a British expedition to the area as soon as possible, making very clear what the objective of this expedition should be: Any partial or predatory expedition on the other hand, would only tend to disgrace our National character.

He later added with great insight that: I must own however that my hopes of seeing anything done effectually, is very much damped by the consideration of the individuals, to whom the conduct of such an expedition is most likely to be intrusted.

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