Mariano Moreno - Political Decline and Death

Political Decline and Death

Hipólito Vieytes was about to make a diplomatic mission to Britain, but Moreno requested that he should be given the appointment instead. Saavedra accepted immediately. He traveled to Britain with his brother Manuel Moreno and his secretary Tomás Guido, on the British schooner Fame. His health declined and there was no doctor on board, but the captain refused requests to land at some earlier port such as in Río de Janeiro (Brazil) or Cape Town (South Africa). The captain gave him an emetic in common use at that time, prepared with four grams of antimony potassium tartrate. Moreno had great convulsions as a consequence, and considered that in his state he could not have resisted more than the quarter of a gram. He died shortly afterwards. His body was wrapped in a Union Jack and thrown into the sea, after a volley of musketry.

Manuel Moreno speculated later that he was poisoned by the captain. Manuel Moreno was unsure of whether the captain really given him that substance, or if he substituted something else, or gave an even higher dose. Circumstances did not allow an autopsy to be performed. Further points used to sustain the idea of a murder are the captain's refusal to land elsewhere, his slow sailing, his administration of the emetic in secrecy, and that he didn't return to Buenos Aires with the ship. Enrique de Gandía pointed to an irregular ruling of the Junta that appointed a British person named Curtis as Moreno's replacement for the diplomatic mission in the case of Moreno's death. The son of Mariano Moreno commented to the historian Adolfo Saldías that his mother, Guadalupe Cuenca, received an anonymous gift of a mourning hand fan and handkerchief, with instructions to use them soon. By that time, the murder of Moreno was a common assumption, and it was mentioned during the trial of residence of the members of the Junta. Juan Madera stated at the trial that Moreno may have requested to go to Britain because he was afraid of being murdered, and that he may have stated this during the meeting when the Junta discussed his resignation. Modern author Manuel Luis Martín studied the health of both Moreno and his family, and concluded that he died of natural causes.