"Art. XII.--It is left to the will and prudence of the two Consuls to regulate by common accord all that may be requisite for the due despatch of the business of the State, in all its branches; as well as to appoint one or, if necessary, two secretaries; also to create a superior tribunal of appeal, to determine, according to law, as a Court of Last Resort, such cases as it may be necessary to refer to it. "Art XIII.--If either of the two Consuls should die or resign, the other shall proceed within a month to call together the General Congress of the Province, which shall consist of _one thousand Deputies_, chosen, like the present, by popular election; and it shall be a fundamental, general, perpetual, and invariable law and rule, that henceforward such General Congress of the Province shall assemble every year, convoked in the same manner, and to consist of the aforesaid number of one thousand representatives; and the day for their meeting shall always be on the 15th of October: and the necessary convocation and summonses shall be issued in consequence by the middle of every month of September, in order that the Province may duly, and at least once a year, meet as a free and sovereign people, to deliberate on what may be most conducive to the general good, to improve, if necessary, its government, to provide remedies for abuses, and to take all such measures as may be suggested by the wisdom of experience. "Art. XIV.--These rules shall be observed until altered by any future Congress, and shall be copied into the Book of the Resolutions of Government. "Art. XV.--The Consuls shall immediately appear before the present Sovereign Congress to swear to observe faithfully, and to cause to be observed, these rules and regulations. The same oath shall be also forthwith administered by their order to all the officers of the troops, and by the officers to the soldiers, whereof a proper record shall be inserted in the archives of the Congress; and whoever shall refuse to take the said oath shall be dismissed the service, and punished as though he had broken it. "Art. XVI.--The Province adopts the forms, as well as the number of Representatives assembled in the actual Congress, and the Government shall make no change in either one or the other. "_Done and Signed at Assumption, the 12th October, 1813._" Francia, having thus obtained one-half the power he aimed at, was not long ere he secured the other. When the thousand deputies met, in virtue of the 13th article of the Constitution, it was intimated to them that the substitution of one Governor for a pair of Consuls would be a great improvement; and Don Gaspar was, as a matter of course, elected sole Dictator, of the Republic of Paraguay.