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CHAPTER IV

THE REIGN OF THE ELDER LOPEZ

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Once the breath was out of the old man's body, his secretary attempted to seize the government. He concealed Francia's death for several hours and issued orders in the dead man's name. But as soon as the news came out, the army officers, whose assistance was essential, refused to obey him. The poor secretary escaped a worse fate by hanging himself in prison, and the troops amused themselves setting up and pulling down would-be dictators. After several months of anarchy, it was determined to assemble a Congress in imitation of the first Congress which had named Francia consul. A real representative government was, of course, impossible in Paraguay, but the Creoles, who naturally formed the bulk of the Congress, were desirous of insuring themselves against another dictatorship. They wanted a government where the offices would be passed around. However, an executive was necessary and the only executive they knew was an irresponsible one. The title borne by Yegros and Francia in the early days seemed a good one, and so it was agreed that two consuls should be elected for a limited period, during which, however, they were to exercise very limited power.

Among the ambitious and turbulent deputies a directing spirit arose in the person of Carlos Antonio Lopez, a well-to-do rancher who had received a lawyer's education and had been careful to keep out of public view during Francia's reign. At this juncture he inevitably came to the front, because he was the most learned and far-sighted among his fellow Creoles. He was a man of great natural ability and shrewdness, highly intelligent, well read, agreeable and affable in his manners. Selected as one of the two Consuls by the Congress of 1841, he soon pushed his colleague to one side, and became dominant. In 1844 an obsequious Congress which had been summoned by him and whose members he virtually named, conferred upon him the title of President for the nominal term of ten years, which really was intended to be for life. It is, however, significant of the milder character of Lopez and the increased power of the office-holding class that he preferred the more republican title of President, held for a nominally limited period, to the semi-monarchical one of "El Supremo," borne by his terrible predecessor. As a matter of fact, Lopez succeeded to all the absolute power and prerogatives of Francia.

The new ruler was no such determined doctrinaire as Francia. He was rather a clever opportunist than a gloomy idealist. He adopted many liberal measures, such as the law providing that all negroes thereafter born should be free, and he even attempted to frame a regular constitution. He abandoned the policy of isolation, so dear to Francia, and opened the country in 1845. He loved appreciation and especially wished the approbation of foreigners. Though cautious and reluctant to engage in outside complications, he was by nature and taste a diplomat, and he welcomed the opportunity to try his wits in wider competition than Paraguay afforded. In 1844, Rosas, the tyrant of Buenos Aires, was engaged in a contest with revolutionists in Corrientes. His ultimate purpose was manifestly to unite the whole Plate valley under his authority. Lopez shared the uneasiness of other neighbouring rulers at the growth of Rosas's power. The latter promulgated a decree forbidding the navigation of the Paraná to any but Argentine vessels. This decree was an attack on Paraguay's very plain and natural right to reach the ocean, and absolutely shut her off from the outside world. Lopez resented the aggression, and after many protests declared war against Buenos Aires in 1849. Nothing came of it, however, except to give his oldest son a chance to see actual service and to emphasise Lopez's enmity to Rosas and his policy. The way was prepared for his friendship with Urquiza, the great leader of the Argentine provincials, and for the opening of Paraguay to foreign commerce.

Permission was granted in 1845 for foreign ships to ascend the Paraguay as far as Asuncion, and foreigners were no longer forbidden to enter the country. On the contrary, Lopez evinced a marked desire for their society and encouraged them to come and engage in trade. His manners were engaging and his courtesies untiring, unless his will was crossed or his suspicions aroused, when he could be very unreasonable and arbitrary.

The spirit of the Paraguayan Creoles had been so broken by the terrible proscriptions of Francia's reign that Lopez did not experience much difficulty in ruling them. His milder methods and the terror of a renewal of the cruelties of Francia's time succeeded in holding all demonstrations of lawlessness or rebellion in check. He was averse to shedding blood, and his subjects enjoyed substantial liberty in their goings and comings. Justice was well and regularly administered, and life and property were almost absolutely safe. Over every kind of affairs, however, he exercised a patriarchal supervision. One trustworthy traveller tells of being waited on at table in a remote part of Paraguay by a fine-appearing man whose face was very sad and who seemed very awkward in handling the dishes. On inquiry, it turned out that the waiter was the richest man in eastern Paraguay and had been condemned by the President to serve in a menial capacity as a punishment for insulting a woman. Lopez's ideas of freedom did not contemplate that his people might engage in politics or the discussion of any public affairs. During the civil war in Corrientes, Paraguayans were forbidden to speak of what was going on across the river. Sometimes farmers were required to cultivate a certain area in a certain crop. He maintained the government monopoly of yerba and completed Francia's work of incorporating the free Indians.

An instance of his ready interest in foreigners was his connection with a young American, named Hopkins, who had been sent out in 1845 by the United States Government to investigate the advisability of recognising Paraguay, then accessible for the first time. This enterprising young man fired Lopez's imagination with his accounts of the material progress of the United States, and Lopez even lent him money to return and form a company for the purpose of introducing American goods and cigar manufacture into Paraguay. Hopkins, after several years, succeeded in interesting some American capitalists and came back and established his factory. At first Lopez was delighted, but he soon quarrelled with the Americans. The etiquette in Paraguay was that the President should remain seated with his hat on when he granted an audience, and the manners of the visitor were expected to be correspondingly humble. The Americans mortally offended him by forgetting themselves in his presence. The situation soon became intolerable and the company retired.

After the overthrow of Rosas in 1851 the Paraná was declared free for navigation to vessels of all nations by Argentine law and by treaties to which Brazil and Uruguay were parties, although Paraguay was not. Nevertheless, Lopez permitted ships to ascend freely to Asuncion. Lopez wished to concentrate all trade at Asuncion and opened no ports north of his capital. The upper course of the river belonged to Brazil, but the boundary between Brazil and Paraguay had remained unsettled from colonial times. In his control of the Lower Paraguay, Lopez had a lever to force Brazil to terms. He steadfastly refused to permit ships to ascend into Brazil in spite of the latter's persistent efforts to procure the natural and necessary right of egress to the ocean by an international river. While this matter still remained unsettled, Lieutenant Page of the United States Navy appeared in the Water Witch at Asuncion on his survey of the Paraguay. Lopez was delighted, and extended every facility to the officer as far as the northern boundary of Paraguay. Page went on up to Brazil. Lopez was offended, for he feared that he would be at a disadvantage in his further negotiations with Brazil by having apparently granted to an American ship the permission which he had steadily refused to Brazilians. Unfortunately, just at this time occurred the quarrel with the American promoter, Hopkins. The American officer took his countryman's side, giving him refuge on board the Water Witch. This so enraged Lopez that he issued a decree prohibiting foreign war-vessels from entering Paraguayan waters, and one of his forts fired at the Lieutenant's vessel, killing a man. This outrage brought about Lopez's ears a naval expedition which compelled him to apologise and to agree to reimburse the Hopkins Company.

Brazil also sent a fleet up the Paraná to coerce Lopez into granting free transit along the Paraguay, but he cleverly held the Brazilians in parley until he had an opportunity to fortify the river. England's gunboats at Buenos Aires virtually held the Paraguayan flagship, with Lopez's eldest son on board as hostage for a young British subject named Canstatt, who had been imprisoned and condemned to death for complicity in a conspiracy at Asuncion. Lopez was forced to release him and pay damages.

These humiliations changed his love for foreigners into a bitter hatred, and he began to prepare his country to resist their aggressions more effectively. From his youth he had trained his sons to succeed him. Francisco, the eldest, early evinced a taste for military affairs. When only eighteen years of age, he commanded the expedition of 1849 into the Argentine, and thenceforward continued to be his father's general-in-chief and minister-of-war and the active agent in improving Paraguay's military resources. The second son, Venancio, was commander of the garrison at Asuncion, and the third, Benigno, was Admiral. Though so rigid with his other subjects, he gave both his sons and daughters unlimited license and they grew up to regard themselves as members of a royal family. They enriched themselves at the public expense. The sons took as many mistresses as they pleased and gave free rein to all their cruel and bad instincts. The selfishness, obstinacy, unspeakable cruelty, and hard-heartedness of Francisco were soon to bring the guiltless Paraguayan people to the verge of extinction.

In 1854 Lopez had sent Francisco to Europe as ambassador. The young man spent eighteen months in the different Courts of Europe, and returned an expert in the vices of great capitals and enamoured of military glory. After seeing the reviews of European armies, he became convinced that Paraguay could be made an efficient military power and that he himself might play a Napoleonic rôle in South America. His father, exasperated by the repeated humiliations put upon him by other countries, gave hearty support to his plans for the improvement of the Paraguayan army. In 1862, after a long and painful illness, the elder Lopez died. Francisco took possession of his effects and papers and produced a will naming himself Vice-President. Word sent to the military chiefs of the different towns insured the assembling of an obedient Congress at Asuncion, by which he was formally elected and proclaimed President and invested with all the absolute power wielded by his father and Francia.