ut they occupy high
positions in political, legal, and commercial circles.

III.--THE PERIOD AFTER THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

A remarkable influx of settlers from Ireland occurred between 1825
and 1830, to work in the _saladeros_, or salt mines, of the Irish
merchants, Brown, Dowdall, and Armstrong. Previous to this a few
Irish mechanics and others had come from the United States. In 1813
Bernard Kiernan came from New Brunswick. He seems to have devoted
himself to science, as the papers mention his discovery of a comet in
the Magellan clouds on March 19, 1830. His son, James Kiernan, became
editor of the government paper, _Gaceta Mercantil_, in 1823, and held
this post for twenty years; his death occurred in 1857. There is
reason to believe that the first Irishman who landed in Buenos Ayres
in the 19th century, exclusive of Beresford's soldiers, was James
Coyle, a native of Tyrone, who came in the _Agreable_ in 1807, and
died in 1876 at the age of 86.

In 1830 some survivors of an Irish colony of 300 persons in Brazil
made their way to Buenos Ayres. They had come out from Europe in the
barque _Reward_ in 1829.

The banker, Thomas Armstrong, who arrived in Buenos Ayres in 1817,
occupied the foremost place for half a century in the commerce of
that city. He was of the ancient family of Armstrong in the King's
county, one of whose members was General Sir John Armstrong, founder
of Woolwich arsenal. Having married into the wealthy family of
Villanueva he became intimately connected with all the leading
enterprises of the day, such as railways, banks, loans, etc. He took
no part in politics, but interested himself in charities of every
kind.

In 1865 another Irishman, James P. Cahill, introduced into Peru from
the United States the first complete machinery for sugar growing and
refining.

Still another Irishman, Peter Sheridan, was one of the chief founders
of the sheep farming industry in Argentina. His family claimed
descent from the same stock in Co. Cavan as Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, the great statesman and dramatist. Sheridan died at the age
of 52, in 1844, and was succeeded in the _estancia_ or sheep-farming
business by his nephew, James, whose brother Dr. Hugh Sheridan had
served under Admiral Brown.

The number and wealth of the Irish _estancieros_, or sheep-farmers,
in Argentina have never been exactly ascertained, but after the old
Spanish families they are the most important. It would be impossib