Note 111 — Chapter XIV · PARAGUAY.

The first consul, Don Carlos Antonio Lopez, is a rich landed proprietor. He received in his youth, at the College of Assumption, such education as during the first years of this century could be met with in the American colleges. When his studies were concluded, he gave lessons in theology at the same college, and was installed in a chair of, what at that time was termed, philosophy. He afterwards devoted himself particularly to the study of jurisprudence, and to the profession of an advocate, and exercised it, according to general report, with zeal, impartiality, and disinterestedness, which acquired him credit, friends, and a select number of clients. When it became dangerous, under the tyranny of the Dictator, to exercise a profession so independent as that of advocate, M. Lopez retired to his estate, 40 leagues from Assumption, and gave himself up entirely to agriculture, and to the perusal of the few books which he had been able to procure. He very rarely went to the capital, and then only for a few days. His retired life, the description of seclusion to which he had condemned himself, providentially saved him from the distrust and terrors of the Dictator, and from imprisonment or death, which were their usual consequences. M. Lopez has never quitted his country, and previously he had not taken the smallest share in public affairs. He was unable to make acquaintance with the excellent works published on numerous branches of public administration and political economy, or to obtain the least intelligence of the events which had occurred in Europe and America during the preceding twenty years, for the Dictator persecuted, with more rigour than the Inquisition itself, men of learning and their books, and neither one nor the other had been able to penetrate Paraguay. Nevertheless, the acts and writings of M. Lopez have shown that he was no stranger to sound doctrines of administration, and that he had meditated in his retreat on the situation of his country, its necessities, the evils it suffered, and their causes, as well as on the remedies which it would be possible to apply to them. Such qualities would naturally acquire for him an ascendancy and preponderance in the management of affairs; and, thus acquired, he has exercised them discreetly and vigorously.

The second consul, Don Mariano Roque Alonzo, was a soldier who reckoned many years service in barracks and garrisons. He commanded a corps or battalion of the troops which occupied the capital, when his companions in arms appointed him Commandant-General in the interval between the death of the Dictator and the assembly of Congress. During this short period he maintained public order, and protected the tranquillity of the citizens with zeal and moderation. Like a man of good sense and honour, and of docile character, he at once acknowledged the superiority of his colleague, which of itself is a merit, and always deferred to it, in which he rendered a great service to his country.

In 1844, Congress again assembled, and elected M. Lopez president, a renewal of confidence which his excellent conduct in the interval of years that had elapsed since his first election fully justified; and the same may, of course, be said of his subsequent re-election.