The organs of the Brazilian Government are by no means
over scrupulous. They have published a singularly noble letter from Estigarribia, brigadier-general in command of the smaller army of Paraguay, rejecting an offer of Flores to grant a capitulation. Estigarribia admits that he is lost, but " honour and obedience alike command him to die rather than surrender the arms en- trusted to him for so noble a cause." He therefore fought on till 'half his army were killed, and so little touched were the slave- 'holders with his devotion that they suppressed the following para- graph of his letter :—" If your Excellencies show yourselves so _zealous to give liberty to the Paraguayan people, why do you not -begin by giving liberty to the unhappy negroes of Brazil, who compose the greatest part of your population, and who groan ander the most hard and shocking slavery, in order to enrich some hundreds of grandees in the Empire, and to let them live in auxnry?" That sentence did not suit the Brazilian Government at all, more especially as an extensive slave revolt had just broken -out in Minas tierces, the province where negroes are used up in hunting for diamonds. No attack has yet been made on the main Paraguayan army, which is well proVisioned.
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