For, during the first sixty years after the country had attained its freedom from Spain, Paraguay’s progress was stifled by a succession of tyrants—remarkable men, all three of them, but men who, as a result of their rule, well-nigh cost her her national existence. The first of these, Dr. José Rodríguez Gaspar Francia, had been the dominating figure in the revolutionary junta, and afterward, with his confrère, General Yegros, had been appointed Consul and invested with the supreme power. “He was a lawyer,” Dawson tells us, “who had become a sort of demigod to the lower classes by his fearless advocacy of their rights, and inspired almost superstitious reverence by his reputation for learning and disinterestedness.” A year later, the historian continues— “He forced Yegros out, and, with general consent, assumed the position of sole executive, and, in 1816, was formally declared supreme and perpetual dictator. For the next twenty-five years he was the government of Paraguay. History does not record another instance in which a single man so dominated and controlled a people. A solitary, mysterious figure, of whose thoughts, purposes, and real character little is known, the worst acts of his life were the most picturesque and alone have been recorded. Although the great Carlyle includes him among the heroes whose memory mankind should worship, the opinion of his detractors is likely to triumph. Francia will go down to history as a bloody-minded, implacable despot, whose influences and purposes were wholly evil. After reading all that has been written about this singular character, my mind inclines more to the judgment of Carlyle. I feel that the vivid imagination of the great Scotchman has pierced the clouds which enshrouded the spirit of a great and lonely man, and has seen the soul of Francia as he was. Cruel, suspicious, ruthless, heartless as he undeniably became, his acts will not bear the interpretation that his purposes were selfish or that he was animated by mere vulgar ambition....