[Gutenberg 47169] • Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata / Their Present State, Trade, and Debt

The greater part of the materials for this volume were collected during a long official residence in the country to which they relate: containing, as I believe they do, some information which may be interesting, if not useful, I feel that I ought not to withhold them from the public, in whose service they were obtained.

The chapters which give an account of the settlements made by the old Spaniards on the coast of Patagonia, and of the explorations of the Pampas south of Buenos Ayres, both by them and their successors in the present century, will be found to throw some new light on the progress of geographical discovery in that part of the world. Our occupation of the Falkland Islands, in the first instance, and the work shortly afterwards published by Falkner in this country, pointing out the defenceless state of Patagonia, joined to the enterprising character of the British voyages of discovery about the same period, appears to have stimulated the Spaniards, in alarm lest we should forestall them, to examine their coasts, to explore their rivers, and to found settlements, of which every record was concealed from public view, lest the world at large should become better acquainted with possessions, all knowledge of which it was their particular care and policy to endeavour to keep to themselves.