The people of England were so delighted with the intelligence of their new conquest, and so buoyed up with the prospect of a free and ready market for their manufactures, that the ministry, in compliance with the public feeling, but contrary to their own better judg ment, resolved to retain a possession which had been acquired without either their consent or approbation. Sir Samuel Achmuty was consequently dispatched with a strong reinforcement ; but, before his arrival, Buenos Ayres had been lost. lie, however, took Monte Video by storm, and then sent a small detachment under Co lonel Pack to occupy Colonia del Sacramento, which lies on the north side of the river, opposite to Buenos Ayres.
The English general waited now only for farther suc cours to proceed against the Spanish capital. The Spa niards, in the mean time, however, had made every pre paration for defence. Their ancient animosity against the English, which had been excited by the ravages of Drake, of Cavendish, and of the Buccaneers, was now revived ; and they determined upon a stout and resolute opposition. Every avenue to the city was barricaded with bullocks' hides, placed from fifteen to twenty feet thick, against which it would be in vain to fire. Many of the houses which had parapet walls were planted with small artillery; and every citizen that could carry arms had his appointed station. Conspiracies were also lorm ing in the very heart of the British troops. The Spa nish inhabitants of Monte Video had secreted arms and ammunition in their houses, with the intention of rising upon their conquerors ; and a Spanish gentleman and his servant were executed, for endeavouring to entice sonic of the 9th light dragoons to join the Spanish army.
General NVhitelocke arrived at Monte Video on the 10th of May 1807, to take the chief command of the British force ; and, on the 15th ol June, was joined by General Craufurd, with the expedition which had been destined against Chili, hut which the British govern ment, upon receiving intelligence of the recapture of Buenos Ayres, had commanded to repair to the Rio de la Plata. With this united force of 8000 men, consist ing of some of the finest troops in the British service, General Whitelocke sailed from Monte Video on the 2Ist of June, and, having landed on the 28th in the bay of Barragan, proceeded against Buenos Ayres. After a tedious march of above thirty miles, through a country intersected by swamps and deep muddy rivulets, du ring which the army were exposed to incredible hard ships and privations, being obliged to leave their artil lery and baggage behind, and to fight with several de tachments of the enemy, which endeavoured to oppose their advance, they reached the environs of the city. Here the English commander, having formed his troops into a line, extending along the suburbs, from the con vent of Recoleta on the left, to nearly the Residencia on the right, issued his orders concerning the plan of attack, which he proposed should be pursued on the following day. Two six pounders, covered by the ca rabineers under Lieutenant-Colonel Kingston, and three troops of dragoons, were ordered along the central street ; Sir Samuel Auchmuty was directed to penetrate with his brigade the streets on the left, and with the 38th regiment to take possession of the• Plaza de Toros and the adjacent strong grounds ; and General Craufurd was to Proceed down the streets on the right, and with the 42d regiment to take possession of the Residencia. Each column, preceded by two corporals armed with crows, for the purpose of breaking open the doors of the houses, was ordered to advance until it reached the last square of houses next the river La Plata, of which it was to possess itself, and forming on the flat roofs, there to wait for farther orders. No firing. was to be permitted, until the troops had reached their points of destination, and formed ; and a cannonade in the cen tre was to be the signal for the whole to come forward.
According to this arrangement, the army moved for wards on the morning of the 5th of July; hut this ex traordinary mode of attack was met, on the part of the Spaniards, by a most vigorous and efficacious resistance. Some of the streets were intersected by deep ditches, planted with cannon, which poured showers of grape on the advancing columns; and a heavy and continued fire of musketry from the roofs and windows of the houses, assailed the British troops at every step of their pro gress. The left division, under General Aehmuty, by the most spirited and successful gallantry, had gained the Plaza de Toros, and taken 32 pieces of cannon, 600 prisoners, and an immense quantity of ammunition, with the loss, however, of the whole of the 88th regiment, which had been overpowered and taken prisoners. The centre division had scarcely entered the street, when they were arrested by a destructive and superior fire, and took up a position in front of the enemy, a little in advance of what it held in the morning. A small part only of the right division reached the Residencia ; the rest, under General Craufurd, having taken refuge in the convent of the Dominicans, after a vigorous and pro tracted resistance, were at last compelled to surrender at four in the afternoon. What human intrepidity could accomplish, was performed by the British troops in this unequal conflict; but what was most galling to brave men in the midst of danger, they were doomed to suf fer, without the possibility of retaliating upon their enemies. Their bayonets could not reach their distant and often unseen opponents, whose destructive fire is sued from the windows and roofs of the houses, the doors of which were so strongly barricaded, that it was almost impossible to force them. " The nature of the fire," says the commander of the expedition, in his pub lic dispatches, " to which the troops were exposed, was violent in the extreme ; grape-shot at the corners of all the streets, musketry, hand-grenades, bricks and stones from the tops of all the houses ; every householder with his negroes defended his dwelling, each of which was in itself a fortress ; and it is not perhaps too much to say, that the whole male population of Buenos Ayres was employed in its defence." The disasters of this clay, which amounted to the loss of nearly a third of the Bri tish army in killed, wounded and prisoners, without having gained any material advantage—and the consi deration that these prisoners were in the hands of an exasperated populace, whose animosity to their invaders no power could restrain, if offensive measures were persisted in—induced the English commander to agree to an armistice proposed by General Linicrs, on the morning of the 6th. This armistice issued in a conven tion, by which it was engaged, that the British should evacuate the La Plata in two months; and that all the prisoners on both sides, captured in South America since the commencement of the war, should be restored. The Spaniards were now, for a time, freed from foreign hostility, for which they considered themselves as in debted to the incapacity and presumptuous temerity of the English leader ; and those bright prospects of wealth which the British merchants had been led to indulge, from the expectation of a ready market for their manu factures, and which had induced them to enter into the most hazardous speculations, to the amount, it is said, of three millions sterling, were dissipated for ever. So great, indeed, was the antipathy of the Spaniards to the British, that though greatly in want of our merchandize, and knowing that this visit to South America would per haps be our last, yet they could not be prevailed upon to purchase a single article.