The _Havana_ trade has been an important one to Buenos Ayres. Besides large shipments of mules which are sent there, it takes off the greatest portion of the jerk beef made in the country. It is used there and in Brazil as an article of food for the slave population; and the method of preparing it having of late years been greatly improved, there is a constant and increasing demand for it. If permitted to be equally imported into the British West India colonies it would probably find a large sale amongst the same class of persons. I have been given to understand that the best quality might be delivered there under twopence a-pound, allowing for a moderate duty:--its wholesomeness may be estimated from the fact that, during the prevalence of the cholera a few years back at the Havana, it was observed there was a much less mortality among the slaves fed upon jerk beef than on those plantations where they were kept on other diet.
With respect to the trade with _Chile_ and _Peru_, it is of very trifling importance, and, whenever it has been otherwise, has mainly consisted of re-exports from Buenos Ayres of surplus stocks of European goods, for the favourable sale of which there may have been an occasional opening in the ports of the Pacific. There is no sale for Buenos Ayrean produce on the western coast, since the stoppage of the supply of yerba-maté, of which, in old times, an immense quantity was sent across the Andes to Chile and Peru, and paid for in the precious metals.
From 1821 to 1826 the trade between Buenos Ayres and foreign countries underwent little change, but the breaking out of the war with Brazil then interrupted it, and for nearly three years Buenos Ayres was blockaded by the naval forces of the Emperor, during which time the only foreign goods imported were by such few vessels, chiefly North American, as broke the blockade:--hardly was that war concluded, when the troops returning from the Banda Oriental, elated with their successes against the Brazilians, revolted, overturned the government, and threw the whole republic into confusion; in the long struggle to put them down which ensued, the country population, taking part, abandoned their industrious pursuits, amongst the consequences of which were a loss and destruction of property infinitely greater and more ruinous to the nation than all the waste and cost of the war with Brazil. Public confidence was shaken to its foundation, and, although it is true that, after a time, the constitutional authorities were re-established, it was at an enormous sacrifice of public and private wealth.