ing for the expedition which
was to bring Buenos Aires within the British Empire. The attempt,
however, failed completely, and a terrible disaster ensued, the cause of
which is imputed entirely to the crass folly of Whitelocke, who sent his
regiments to march through the streets of the town, to be shot down in
hundreds by the determined defenders congregated on the housetops.

In many instances the result of this extraordinary piece of strategy was
mere slaughter, since the British troops, many of whom had been charged
to use nothing beyond the bayonet and to refrain from firing, could
adopt no retaliatory measures whatever. In the circumstances total
defeat was inevitable, and at the end of the engagement the General
found himself a prisoner in the hands of the South Americans. On this
Whitelocke signed a treaty agreeing to evacuate the River Plate
Provinces altogether, and within two months not a British soldier was
left in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. On his arrival home Whitelocke
underwent a court-martial, and was cashiered with well deserved and
bitter censure.

Apart from the extraordinary incompetence--to call it by no worse
name--shown by General Whitelocke, there is some doubt as to whether the
British would have succeeded in permanently retaining possession of the
territory they had captured. For one thing, their expectations that the
colonials would join them were not realized. The inherent loyalty of the
South American to the motherland forbade any such move at the time.
Nevertheless, it is freely acknowledged that this English expedition
played no small part in the ultimate liberation of South America, since
it was owing to the invasion that the South Americans, deserted by their
Viceroy, had only themselves on whom to rely for the expulsion of the
expeditionary army. From the force of no initiative of their own, they
had been left to their own resources, and had found that their strength
did not fail them. Amid the doubts and hesitations of later days the
knowledge of this played an important part.

CHAPTER XIV

THE NORTHERN COLONIES

It is, to a certain extent, difficult for one familiar with the South
America of to-day to realize the New Granada of the Spanish colonial
period. From Guiana westward along the northern coast was an extensive
and, for the most part, unexploited stretch of territory, devoid of such
arbitrary boundaries as characterize it to-day, and limited only on the
north an