Padre Francisco González Laguna was also a contributor to the _Mercurio_. He wrote under the name of “Thiméo.” He had marked attainments as a botanist, and participated in the work of the botanical expedition directed by Ruiz and Pavón and in that of Malaspina’s expedition. The plant _Gonzalaguna dependens_ was named in his honour by Hipólito Ruiz. Laguna and Juan Tafalla were commissioned to arrange the botanical garden of Lima. Besides articles published in the _Mercurio_, Laguna wrote various papers on natural history and a work called _Celo sacerdotal para con los no-nacidos_, in which one may find data with respect to the number of missionaries who had perished at the hands of the Indians in the wilds of Huanuco, Huamalíes, and Tarma; also an account of the exotic plants that had been introduced into Lima during the previous thirty years. [Sidenote: Ignacio Lecuanda] [Sidenote: Social confusion in Lima] Another writer for the _Mercurio_ was José Ignacio Lecuanda, who held various offices in Peru between 1782 and 1801; accountant in the tribunal of accounts, treasurer of Guamanga, royal official accountant at Trujillo, and later accountant of the customs at Lima. His articles dealt with geographical questions, agriculture, industry and commerce. He wrote also on matters of politics and administration. In the _Mercurio_ he published an account of the vagrants in Lima and of the means proposed for employing them. He affirmed that in Lima two-thirds of the inhabitants supported the rest, and that this state of vagabondage was due to the freedom with which the inhabitants, the foreigners as well as other classes, acceded to requests for charity, in this way developing in large numbers of persons an unwillingness to work. The sons of artisans, as well as many persons of other classes, refused to take up the careers of their fathers. The women refused to work preferring to attach themselves to families where they might obtain mere subsistence, or to acquire a livelihood in some other way. The existence of distinct classes added to the social confusion: the whites and the mestizos refused to treat as their equals the negroes and the mulattoes, while these in turn refused to undertake domestic service or labour in the fields, and attempted to imitate the members of the dominant class. [Sidenote: Chinchona]