Part 80

But Francia’s tyranny was not without signal benefits to the country. The land had peace, while all the rest of Spanish America was plunged into frightful anarchy, raging and ravening like a huge dog-kennel gone mad. Paraguay was domineered over by a tyrant, but Peru and Mexico, Chili and Guatimala, suffered the oppression of forty tyrants. Francia’s soldiers were kept well drilled and in strict subordination, always ready to march where the wild Indians or other enemies made their appearance. Guard-houses were established at short distances along the rivers, and around the dangerous frontiers; and wherever an Indian cavalry horde showed itself, an alarm-cannon announced the danger; the military hastened to the spot, and the savage marauders vanished into the heart of the deserts. A great improvement, too, was visible in other quarters. The finances were accurately and frugally administered. There were no sinecures in the government; every official person was compelled to do his work. Strict justice between man and man was enforced in the courts of law. The affair of Naboth’s vineyard could not have occurred under the Dictator’s rule. He himself would accept no gift, not even the smallest trifle. He introduced schools of various sorts, promoted education by all the means in his power, and repressed superstition as far as it could be done among such a people. He promoted agriculture in a singular manner, not merely making two blades of grass grow where one grew before, but two crops of corn in a season. In the year 1820, a cloud of locusts devastated the whole country, and the prospect of universal famine threatened the land. The summer was at an end, and there was no foreign commerce by which supplies might be obtained from abroad. Francia hit upon an expedient, such as had never entered into the contemplation of any man in Paraguay before. He issued a peremptory command, ordering, under a severe penalty, that the farmers throughout the country should sow their lands anew. The result was, that a second crop was produced, and the people amazed with the important discovery that two harvests were, every year, possible in Paraguay. Agriculture made immense progress; the cultivation of many articles, before unknown in the country, was now successfully introduced, and, among others, rice and cotton. Manufactures kept pace with agriculture, and the clothing of the people, which had previously, for the most part, been imported ready made, at a great expense, was now entirely produced at home.

The city of Assumpcion was an assemblage of narrow, crooked, irregular streets, interspersed with trees, gardens, and clumps of tropical vegetation. It had no pavements, and, standing on a slope of ground, the sandy thoroughfare was torn by the rain into gullies, impassable, except by taking long leaps. Numerous springs issued from the soil in every part of the city, and formed streams, or stagnated into pools, where every species of filth became deposited. Francia determined on having it remodeled, paved, and straightened. The inhabitants were ordered to pull down their houses, and build them anew. The cost to private purses was great, and caused infinite grumbling; but Assumpcion is now an improved, paved city, and possesses convenient thoroughfares.

The stern temper and arbitrary political system of Francia led him to acts which could not fail of being denounced as the wanton excesses of a sanguinary disposition. He put to death upwards of forty persons, as we are assured by a traveler, who utters the bitterest denunciations against him. He had frightful prisons, and banished disorderly persons to a desolate spot in the wilderness. How far his executions were wanton and unjustifiable, we have not sufficient means of judging. In the early part of his career, a plot was formed for the purpose of taking his life; it was discovered, and executions followed; after which we hear nothing more of these sanguinary deeds. His enemy, the bandit chieftain Artigas, had done a great deal of injury to Paraguay, and had incensed him further by fomenting revolts among his Indians. Yet, when one of this chieftain’s lieutenants rebelled against him, and forced him to retreat with the wreck of his army, Artigas threw himself on the mercy of the Dictator, and was treated with clemency. He suffered him to reside in Paraguay, assigned him a house and lands, with a pension, and ordered the governor of the district to furnish him besides with whatever accomodations he desired, and to treat him with respect.

The Dictator’s treatment of foreigners who found their way into his dominions, was most rigorous and unjust, and has contributed more than any other cause to blacken his character among strangers. Paraguay was a sort of mouse-trap, easy enough to get into, but very difficult to get out of. M. Bonpland, the fellow-traveler of Humboldt, and two Swiss naturalists, wandering into Francia’s domains, were detained there many years. Sometimes, by special permission, an individual was allowed to leave the country, but these instances were rare. The foreigners detained were informed that they might pursue what avocations they pleased, provided they did not interfere with the government.

The father of Francia was a man of very eccentric habits; his brothers and one of his sisters were lunatics, and the Dictator himself was subject to fits of hypochondria, which seem occasionally to have affected his intellect. When under such influences, he would shut himself up for several days. On one of these occasions, being offended at the idle crowds gazing about the government-house, he gave the following order to a sentinel:――‘If any person presumes to stop and stare at my house, fire at him; if you miss him, _this_ is for a second shot, (handing him another musket loaded with ball;) if you miss again, I shall take care not to miss _you_!’ This order being quickly made known throughout the city, the inhabitants carefully avoided passing near the house, or, if their business led them that way, they hurried on with their eyes fixed on the ground. After some weeks, an Indian, who knew nothing of the Spanish language, stopped to gaze at the house, and was ordered to move on, but continued to loiter. The sentinel fired, and missed him. Francia, hearing the report, was alarmed, and summoned the sentinel. ‘What news, friend?’ On being told the cause, he declared that he did not recollect having given such an order, and immediately revoked it.

The domestic establishment of the Dictator of Paraguay consisted of four slaves, three of them mulattoes, and the fourth a negro, whom he treated with great mildness. He led a very regular life, and commonly rose with the sun. As soon as he was dressed, the negro brought him a chafing-dish, a kettle, and a pitcher of water. The Dictator made his own tea; and after drinking it, he took a walk under the colonnade fronting upon the court, smoking a cigar, which he always took care previously to unroll, in order to ascertain that it contained no poison; although his cigars were always made by his sister. At six o’clock came the barber, an unwashed and ragged mulatto, given to drink, but the Dictator’s only confidential menial. If his excellency happened to be in good humor, he chatted over the soap-dish, and the shaver was often intrusted with important commissions in preparing the public for the Dictator’s projects; so that he might be said to be the official gazette of Paraguay. He then stepped out, in his dressing-gown of printed calico, to the outer colonnade, an open space which ranged all around the building; here he walked about, receiving at the same time such persons as he admitted to an audience. About seven, he withdrew to his room, where he remained till nine. The officers then came to make their reports, and received orders. At eleven, his chief secretary brought the papers which required inspection by him, and wrote from his dictation till noon. He then sat down to a table, and ate a frugal dinner. After this, he took a siesta, drank a cup of _mate_, and smoked a cigar. Till four or five in the afternoon, he again attended to business; the escort then arrived to attend him, and he rode out to inspect the public works. While on this duty, he was armed with a sabre and a pair of double-barreled pocket-pistols. He returned home about nightfall, and sat down to study till nine, when he took his supper, consisting of a roast pigeon and a glass of wine. In fine weather, he took an evening walk in the outer colonnade. At ten, he gave the watchword, and, returning into the house, he fastened all the doors with his own hands.

Though possessing unlimited sway over the finances of the state, he made no attempt to enrich himself, and his small salary was always in arrears to him. His two nephews, who were officers in the army, were dismissed, lest they should presume upon their relationship. He banished his sister from his house, because she had employed a grenadier, one of the soldiers of the state, on some errand of her own. He was a devoted admirer of Napoleon, whose downfall he always deplored. The Swiss traveler, Rengger, who, after a long detention, was permitted to depart, left behind him a print of the French emperor. Francia sent an express after him, inquiring the price of it. Rengger sent him for answer, that the print was at his excellency’s service,――he did not sell such trifles. The Dictator immediately despatched the print after him;――he would receive no gifts. There seems to have originally existed in him somewhat of the simple and severe virtue, which is more characteristic of a stern republican than of a sanguinary tyrant. He has left one witticism upon record, which we will subjoin, as it is much in character. Rengger, who was a surgeon, was about to dissect a body. ‘Doctor,’ said the Dictator, ‘examine the neck, and see whether the Paraguayans have not an extra bone there, which hinders them from holding up their heads, and speaking out.’

In the accounts which were written of this extraordinary man during his lifetime, he has been represented as an arbitrary and cruel oppressor, universally detested, and whose death, inasmuch as he had made no provision for the continuance of the government, would plunge the state into anarchy and ruin. Both these representations have been completely falsified by the event. Francia died peaceably, on the twentieth day of September, 1840, aged eighty-three; the people crowding round his house with much emotion, and even, as we are assured, with tears of anxiety and sympathy. The funeral discourse pronounced on the occasion surprised the world; it was filled with praises of the deceased Dictator, whom it represented as the real father of his country.

Enough is known of Dr. Francia to assure us that he was a most remarkable individual; but it would be both difficult and unsafe to draw his character with confidence and minuteness, from the meagre and questionable materials which we possess respecting him. That he was a man of iron integrity in a country where corruption and venality were almost matters of course with public men; that he spent thirty years of his life in toilsome devotion to his country; that he was above the vulgar love of money, and disdained to take advantage of his unlimited power for enriching himself,――are all incontrovertible facts; that his government was also, on the whole, advantageous to his country, is not to be denied. But what were the motives which guided his conduct? Was it patriotism, or a simple love of power? Why adopt so strange a system of policy――that of interdicting all intercourse with other nations? Was it from a conviction that this was best adapted to the condition of the people, or that it was indispensable to the preservation of his despotic sway? Why enshroud himself in such mysterious isolation, holding as little commerce of affection and sympathy with his fellow-men us of trade with foreign nations? These are questions which we cannot easily answer. If we may rely upon the scattered glimpses of his career that have been presented to us, we should venture to decide that the main elements of his character consisted of stern integrity and devoted patriotism; blended, however, with natural sternness of temper, a love of power, and a conviction that a despotic government was best suited to the condition of the people. His singular habits were, probably, the result of native eccentricity; his exclusive policy was doubtless adopted with the double motive of perpetuating his authority, and insuring tranquillity to the country. Of the vigor of his mind and energy of his character, there can be no doubt. That he should have created and sustained, for thirty years, the sternest despotism that the world ever witnessed, in the heart of a continent where everything besides was tending to the dissolution of tyrannical power and the establishment of popular institutions, is a phenomenon that may well excite the curiosity and astonishment of the world. We may, indeed, suppose that his government was modeled after that of the Jesuits, the effects of which were still visible in his time; but that he should have been able to assume to himself, and exercise for so long a period, the unlimited power wielded by these sagacious priests, must still excite our surprise.

ALEXANDER WILSON.

This extraordinary man, who, from being originally an operative weaver, became by his own unaided exertions one of the most celebrated ornithologists of his day, was born in Paisley on the 6th of July 1766. His father was a distiller, poor in fortune, though said to have been endowed with an active and sagacious mind. He was so unfortunate as to lose his mother at the early age of ten, and was left without the tender and judicious care which a mother alone can give. On attaining his thirteenth year, he was bound apprentice for three years to his brother-in-law, to learn the business of a weaver, and on the expiry of this term, continued to work as a journeyman for four years more.

The employment of a weaver was by no means congenial to the disposition and propensities of the future ornithologist; but as his father, though a highly respectable man in character, was in very indifferent circumstances, young Wilson had no choice left, but was compelled to adopt that which was readiest and most easily attained. It is much to his credit, however, that though he must have felt――indeed it is certain that he did feel, and that at a very early age――that he was fitted for higher things, he yet diligently labored at the humble but honorable calling to which destiny had appointed him, and never allowed such feelings to interrupt his industry. At this period of his life he indulged in a predilection for poetical composition, and wrote several pieces which appeared in the ‘Glasgow Advertiser;’ but in these juvenile attempts he was not very successful, nor was he ever, at any after period, fortunate in this department of literature, though his poetical productions are certainly not without very considerable merit.

Having continued at the loom, as already said, for four years as a journeyman weaver, at the end of this period he abandoned the business, to accompany his brother-in-law, who had commenced traveling merchant or pedlar, in a tour through the eastern districts of Scotland――an employment which, though it could scarcely claim any sort of precedence in point of rank over that which he had left, he yet gladly embraced, as it at once released him from the confinement and dull monotony of his former occupation, and permitted him to indulge in one of his strongest propensities, which was to ramble over hill and dale, and to enjoy unfettered and unrestrained, the beauties of his native land. With such a disposition, it is not to be wondered at that, as a pedlar, he made much greater progress in the study of nature, and perhaps of man, and in the extending of his ideas, than in the improvement of his fortunes. The acquisition of money was no object with him, and of course, as it was not sought, it was not found.

At this time Burns was in the zenith of his fame, and Wilson, tempted by his success, resolved to publish his poems――the accumulated pieces of preceding years――and in 1789, contracted with a printer in Paisley for this purpose, but was obliged to abandon the idea for the time, for want of means to carry it into effect. He, however, published them some time afterwards, with the title of ‘Poems, Humorous, Satirical, and Serious,’ at his own risk, after having in vain endeavored to procure subscribers, and carried them about with him in his hawking expeditions, but met with little or no success in the sale of them. Finding that he could make nothing of either poetry or traffic, he returned once more to his loom, at which he was again quietly seated, when he learned that a debating society in Edinburg had proposed for discussion the question, whether Ferguson or Allan Ramsay had done most honor to Scottish poetry. Seized with an ambition to distinguish himself on this occasion, he borrowed from a friend the poems of Ferguson, which he had never read before, and in a few days produced a poem, which he entitled the ‘Laurel Disputed,’ and in which he awarded the palm to Ferguson. With this poem in his pocket, he proceeded to Edinburg, and recited it before the audience assembled to hear the discussion. Before he left Edinburg, he also recited in public two other poems, and acquired by all a considerable degree of respect and favor. He likewise contributed occasionally, about this time (1791), to a periodical work called ‘The Bee.’ But though Wilson’s poetical efforts procured him some reputation, they did nothing for him in the way of advancing his worldly interests. The volume of poems which he published in 1789, at which period he was only twenty-two years of age, went through two small editions in octavo, but without yielding the author any pecuniary advantage. His literary reputation was, nevertheless, considerably increased by the publication of his ‘Watty and Meg,’ a poem in the Scottish dialect, and of such decided merit, that it was universally ascribed to Burns on its first appearance, which was in 1791. It is a droll and satirical description of a drunken husband and scolding wife, and shows that the author possessed a fund of broad humor.

Having soon after this embroiled himself in some serious disputes which took place in his native town between the operative weavers and their employers, by writing some severe personal satires on certain individuals of the latter class, he found his residence in Paisley no longer compatible with his comfort or happiness, and therefore determined on proceeding to America. But before taking his departure, he called on those persons whom he had satirised, expressed his sorrow for what he had done, and solicited their forgiveness. This circumstance is a pleasing proof of the generosity of his nature――that which follows a very striking one of the determination of his character. Although he had resolved on going to America, he did not possess a single shilling wherewith to pay his passage. To supply this desideratum, he instantly abandoned every other pursuit, and for four months labored with incessant industry at his loom, confining the expense of his living during this time to one shilling in the week. The result of this perseverance and rigid economy was, that at the end of the period named, he found himself in possession of the requisite sum, but nothing more. With this he set out for Portpatrick on foot, crossed to Belfast, and there engaged a passage to America; and he arrived at New York on the 14th of July 1794, with only a few shillings in his pocket, and even these were borrowed from a fellow-passenger.

Up till this period, and indeed for several years after, Wilson exhibited no indications of a genius or even predilection for that particular department of natural history in which he afterwards acquired so brilliant a name; but it is said that, immediately after landing in America, and while proceeding from the place of his disembarkation to Newcastle, his attention was strongly excited by the specimens of the feathered inhabitants of the New World which he met with, and that he was particularly delighted with the splendor of the plumage of a red-headed woodpecker, which he shot by the way. Whether or not his genius received on this occasion that bent which afterwards led to such splendid results, it is certain that he always retained a lively recollection of the feelings of surprise and delight with which he for the first time contemplated the beauties of the American woodpecker.

For many years after his arrival in America, Wilson’s condition underwent but little improvement. He found there nearly the same difficulties to contend with, and prospects nearly equally cheerless, with those he had left behind him in his native land. The first employment he obtained was with a copperplate printer in Philadelphia; but this he soon relinquished, and betook him to his original trade, weaving. This he again resigned for the pack; but his success as a pedler was not sufficient to induce him to continue by it, and he abandoned it also, and commenced teacher; making his first experiment in this laborious and somewhat precarious profession near the town of Frankford in Pennsylvania. While in this situation, he in a great measure repaired the defects of his early education, by close and unremitting study in various departments of science and knowledge; and, as has often been the case, by instructing others, he taught himself. He afterwards removed to Milestown, where he remained for several years, adding a little to the limited income arising from his school, by surveying land for farmers.