ion. Since
arrangements of this sort contented many of the Spanish Americans who
had protested against existing abuses, they were quite unwilling to
press their grievances further. Given all these evidences of division
in activity and counsel, one does not find it difficult to foresee the
outcome.

On May 25, 1810, popular agitation at Buenos Aires forced the Spanish
viceroy of La Plata to resign. The central authority was thereupon
vested in an elected junta that was to govern in the name of Ferdinand
VII. Opposition broke out immediately. The northern and eastern parts
of the viceroyalty showed themselves quite unwilling to obey these
upstarts. Meantime, urged on by radicals who revived the Jacobin
doctrines of revolutionary France, the junta strove to suppress in
rigorous fashion any symptoms of disaffection; but it could do nothing
to stem the tide of separation in the rest of the viceroyalty--in
Charcas (Bolivia), Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental, or East Bank, of
the Uruguay.

At Buenos Aires acute difference of opinion--about the extent to
which the movement should be carried and about the permanent form
of government to be adopted as well as the method of establishing
it--produced a series of political commotions little short of anarchy.
Triumvirates followed the junta into power; supreme directors alternated
with triumvirates; and constituent assemblies came and went. Under one
authority or another the name of the viceroyalty was changed to "United
Provinces of La Plata River"; a seal, a flag, and a coat of arms were
chosen; and numerous features of the Spanish regime were abolished,
including titles of nobility, the Inquisition, the slave trade, and
restrictions on the press. But so chaotic were the conditions within and
so disastrous the campaigns without, that eventually commissioners were
sent to Europe, bearing instructions to seek a king for the distracted
country.

When Charcas fell under the control of the viceroy of Peru, Paraguay
set up a regime for itself. At Asuncion, the capital, a revolutionary
outbreak in 1811 replaced the Spanish intendant by a triumvirate,
of which the most prominent member was Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de
Francia. A lawyer by profession, familiar with the history of Rome, an
admirer of France and Napoleon, a misanthrope and a recluse, possessing
a blind faith in himself and actuated by a sense of implacable hatred
for all who might venture to thwart his will, this extraord