Darwin records that he and the well-wishers of Argentina were looking with satisfaction and hope at the vigorous measures and rapid advances of this remarkable man, and he also adds in a note written years afterwards that these hopes had been miserably disappointed. Rosas was a rich man, and from his earliest days had been engaged in cattle-raising on the southern Pampas. In this hardy open-air life he had greatly distinguished himself by his boldness and skill in riding, and was the idol of hundreds of half-savage Gauchos. He was not endowed with signal abilities, but he was a hard, practical man, full of audacity and little troubled by scruples. He was now the chief of the Federalists, but at first there seemed little prospect that he would be able to make head against Lavalle. The latter led an army to attack his enemies in Santa Fé, while General Paz marched upon Cordoba, and at the same time they sent some veteran troops to operate against Rosas in the south. But these were overthrown by the hardy horsemen of Rosas, and he came to the rescue of the Federalists. General Paz had captured Cordoba, and defeated Quiroga with heavy slaughter, but Rosas' weight turned the scale. He marched to Buenos Aires, and in June, 1829, Lavalle, who had become involved in a dispute with the French Minister, was glad to resign and leave the country. His successor, Viamont, was a puppet of Rosas. On December 8, 1829, Rosas was elected Captain-General in the interests of the Federalists, but he had no intention of allowing Federalist principles to stand in the way of his supreme rule. Lopez was despatched against Paz, who had the misfortune to be accidentally taken prisoner. Showing unusual magnanimity, Lopez spared his life. The troops of the Unitarians never recovered from the loss of their brave leader, and being attacked by the ferocious Quiroga and driven to Tucuman, they were in a hopeless position. Quiroga butchered five hundred prisoners in cold blood, and few of the remnants of Paz's army escaped to Bolivia. Rosas then employed himself in consolidating his power at Buenos Aires, and with this object he repealed several of the Liberal laws of Rivadavia. In this task he was assisted by a clever and crafty man named Anchorena, with whose collaboration he passed a rigorous law of "suspects" directed against the Unitarians. Severe as he was against that party, and detested as he was by the late holders of office in the capital, who resented the dominion of a rustic, he was really, by his masterful measures, advancing the principle against which he posed as the nominal antagonist.[50] At the end of 1832 his term of office came to an end, and he was re-elected. But as his extraordinary powers were not renewed he haughtily refused office, and left Buenos Aires to reduce the Indians of the Pampa, who had taken advantage of the civil discords of Argentina. Again a man of straw was put at the helm. His name was Balcarce.