ecatur sailed for the La Plata in company with
the Delaware. Soon after reaching Montevideo, Commodore Morris embarked
on board the former, and went in her to Buenos Ayres; ships of the size
of the Delaware not being able to approach that city on account of the
great distance to which very shoal water extends from it. After
exchanging the usual official civilities and transacting some business
with Rosas, who then embodied in his own person all the powers of the
state, the commodore returned to Montevideo; but the Decatur was soon
sent back, and Farragut spent most of the latter half of 1842 at Buenos
Ayres, in constant intercourse, both official and social, with Rosas and
his family. Of the latter he, in common with most American naval
officers who visited the La Plata at that time, received very agreeable
impressions; and since, as commanding officer, his duties were less
exacting and his time much more at his own command than as executive, he
gave free play to the social disposition which was prominent in his
character. Much of his journal during his stay is taken up with the
accounts of social and official entertainments in which he shared.
"During the month of September," he writes, "I made it a rule to spend
two or three evenings a week at the governor's" (Rosas). "On the 5th of
November I was invited to a ball at the Victoria Theatre, where, as on
all similar occasions, I danced the first quadrille with the charming
'Manuelita," the daughter of Rosas. The pleasant and familiar relations
thus established enabled him to do many kind acts for the Unitarios,
whose lives were in constant danger by political accusations, if not
from actual offenses.

Rosas himself was then in the full exercise of the dictatorial power
with which he had been invested some years before, after refusing a
re-election as governor of Buenos Ayres. His rule, which lasted under
successive renewals of his office until 1852, was arbitrary and bloody;
but in the disorganized condition of the provinces at that period a man
of his force of character seems to have been necessary, to avert the
greater horrors of constant intestine strife. "We concluded from our
observations," notes Farragut in his journal, "that he was a man of
uncommon mind and energy, and, as a general thing, reasonable; but on
the subject of secret societies he was a madman, if we might judge from
his furious denunciation of them." They constituted, indeed, the one
resource of the