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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2021
Post-revolutionary Spanish America barely features in existing scholarship on nineteenth-century British political and social thought. But the region was widely discussed, and raised distinctive issues about republican government, the effects of colonial rule, and the operation of absolute power. This article examines how the British debated the autarchic dictatorship erected in newly independent Paraguay. Their attempts to make sense of this spectacular experiment in government, and its architect Dr Francia, helped to crystallize public attitudes towards the condition of Spanish America in the 1820s and 1830s. Francia's broader significance, however, was as a token in wider debates about the proper limits of republican and constitutional principles, and about the merits of arbitrary directive rule in less developed polities. For his admirers, he cast light on how other comparable regimes had gone wrong.
1 Heinowitz, Rebecca Cole, Spanish America and British diplomatic romanticism, 1777–1826: rewriting conquest (Edinburgh, 2010)Google Scholar; Brown, Matthew and Paquette, Gabriel, eds., Connections after colonialism: Europe and Latin America in the 1820s (Tuscaloosa, AL, 2013)Google Scholar; Bantman, Constance and da Silva, Ana Cláudia Suriani, eds., The foreign political press in nineteenth-century London: politics from a distance (London, 2017)Google Scholar; Paquette, Gabriel, ‘The intellectual context of British diplomatic recognition of the South American republics, c. 1800–1830’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 2 (2004), pp. 75–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harris, Jonathan, ‘An English utilitarian looks at Spanish-American independence: Jeremy Bentham's Rid yourselves of Ultramaria’, The Americas, 53 (1996), pp. 217–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cot, Annie L., ‘Jeremy Bentham's Spanish American utopia’, in Cardoso, José Luís, Marcuzzo, Maria Cristina, and Sotelo, María Eugenia Romero, eds., Economic development and global crisis: the Latin American economy in historical perspective (Abingdon, 2014), pp. 34–52Google Scholar.
2 For introductions to these themes, see Miller, Rory, Britain and Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (London, 1993)Google Scholar; Knight, Alan, ‘Britain and Latin America’, in Porter, Andrew, ed., The Oxford history of the British empire, III: The nineteenth century (Oxford, 1999), pp. 122–45Google Scholar; Brown, Matthew, ed., Informal empire in Latin America: culture, commerce and capital (Oxford, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and for the cultural dimensions of the relationship, Aguirre, Robert D., Informal empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian culture (Minneapolis, MN, 2005)Google Scholar.
3 Lynch, John, The Spanish American revolutions, 1808–1826 (London, 1973), p. 110Google Scholar; Whigham, Thomas, The politics of river trade: tradition and development in the Upper Plata, 1780–1870 (Albuquerque, NM, 1991), p. 23Google Scholar; Davis, Harold E., Revolutionaries, traditionalists, and dictators in Latin America (New York, NY, 1973), p. 132Google Scholar.
4 Guides include Cooney, Jerry W., ‘The many faces of El Supremo: historians, history, and Dr. Francia’, History Compass, 2 (2004), pp. 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peter Lambert and Andrew Nickson, eds., The Paraguay reader: history, culture, politics (Durham, NC, 2013). The most useful (if dated) bibliographical resources are R. Andrew Nickson, Paraguay (Oxford, 1987), and Jerry W. Cooney, Paraguay: a bibliography of bibliographies (Austin, TX, 1997).
5 For Francia's continental reception, see Schröter, Bernd, ‘Dr. Francia von Paraguay – Diktator und Reformer im Lichte Zeitgenössicher Quellen’, Lateinamerika, 25 (1990), pp. 49–61Google Scholar; Kahle, Günther, ‘Ein Sudamerikanischer Diktator, Dr. Francia von Paraguay, im Spiegel der Europäischen Geschichtsschreibung’, Saeculum: Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte, 15 (1964), pp. 249–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Antje Schnoor, Das Bild des paraguayischen Diktators Dr. Francia in der internationalen Geschichtsschreibung des 20. Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 2005); James Dunkerley, Americana: the Americas in the world, around 1850 (or ‘seeing the elephant’ as the theme for an imaginary Western) (London, 2000), pp. 171–7; and n. 21 below.
6 Spectator, 11 Apr. 1868, p. 7. See also ‘The end of the Paraguayan experiment’, Spectator, 16 Apr. 1870, pp. 8–9.
7 ‘Life of Dr. Francia, the late dictator of Paraguay’, Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, 32 (1838), pp. 83–5, at p. 83; ‘Francia's reign of terror’, Monthly Review, 1 (1839), pp. 241–59, at p. 248.
8 Literary Gazette, 551 (1827), pp. 515–16, at p. 515; Sir Woodbine Parish, Buenos Ayres, and the provinces of the Rio de la Plata (London, 1839), p. 228.
9 [Thomas Carlyle], ‘Dr. Francia’, Foreign Quarterly Review, 31 (1843), pp. 544–89. All the few mentions of Francia in work on Victorian Britain rest on this one text: e.g. Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian frame of mind, 1830–1870 (New Haven, CT, 1957), pp. 122, 217; James Gregory, Victorians against the gallows: capital punishment and the abolitionist movement in nineteenth-century Britain (London, 2012), pp. 184–5.
10 Beyond dutiful discussion by Carlyle specialists, important readings include Hugh Trevor-Roper, History and the Enlightenment (New Haven, CT, 2010), pp. 236–8; John Morrow, Thomas Carlyle (London, 2006), pp. 128–9; Collmer, Robert G., ‘Carlyle, Francia, and their critics’, Studies in Scottish Literature, 14 (1979), pp. 112–22Google Scholar.
11 For Anglo-Paraguayan commerce and diplomatic relations, see Whigham, Thomas, ‘Some reflections on early Anglo-Paraguayan commerce’, The Americas, 44 (1988), pp. 279–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tate, E. N., ‘Britain and Latin America in the nineteenth century: the case of Paraguay, 1811–1870’, Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv, 5 (1979), pp. 39–70Google Scholar; Kiernan, V. G., ‘Britain's first contacts with Paraguay’, Atlante, 3 (1955), pp. 171–91Google Scholar; Leslie Bethell, The Paraguayan war (1864–1870) (London, 1996), part II.
12 E.g. Times, 3 Oct. 1831, p. 4; Examiner, 1721 (1841), p. 56.
13 David Sinclair, The land that never was: Sir Gregor MacGregor and the most audacious fraud in history (London, 2004).
14 ‘America’, Edinburgh Annual Register, 15 (1822), pp. 347–60, at pp. 359–60; Brackenridge, H. M., Voyage to Buenos Ayres (London, 1820), p. 99Google Scholar; ‘South American affairs’, British Critic, 15 (1821), pp. 544–57, at p. 552.
15 ‘Caldcleugh's and Proctor's Travels in South America’, British Critic, 1 (1826), pp. 330–47, at p. 333.
16 Michael P. Costeloe, Response to revolution: imperial Spain and the Spanish American revolutions, 1810–1840 (Cambridge, 1986), p. 99; ‘The philosophy of contemporary criticism’, Monthly Magazine, 60 (1825), pp. 329–33, at p. 330; ‘Geographical discoveries’, Edinburgh Annual Register, 17 (1824), pp. 221–51, at p. 237; [John Barrow], ‘South America’, Quarterly Review, 32 (1825), pp. 125–52, at pp. 139–41.
17 Times, 18 June 1825, p. 3, and 20 June 1825, p. 2.
18 Morning Chronicle, 23 Aug. 1824, [p. 2].
19 Morning Post, 13 Sept. 1825, [p. 4], reprinted from the Journal des débats.
20 A narrative of facts connected with…Paraguay, under the direction of Dr. Thomas Francia (London, 1826), pp. 18, 14–15, noticed in e.g. Times, 26 Nov. 1826, p. 2. I am grateful to one of the reviewers for pointing out that this was written by the Bolivian publicist Vicente Pazos Kanki. Some writers continued to refer to it long after it was debunked: e.g. Alfred Mallalieu, Rosas and his calumniators (London, 1845), pp. 98–9.
21 For readings of these texts, and European responses, see Prieto, Moisés, ‘“History's so strong”: the topos of Historia magistra vita and the rediscovery of dictatorship in Latin America’, History of Humanities, 5 (2020), pp. 225–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moisés Prieto, ‘Dictadura y sentimiento: las emociones en un relato europeo sobre el Doctor Francia, Supremo Dictador del Paraguay’, Iberoamericana, 18 (2018), pp. 127–50; Leila Gómez, Iluminados y tránsfugas: relatos de viajeros y ficciones nacionales en Argentina, Paraguay y Perú (Madrid, 2009), ch. 3.
22 Mm. Rengger and Longchamp, Essai historique sur la revolution du Paraguay, et la gouvernement dictatorial du Docteur Francia (Paris, 1827); Messrs. Rengger and Longchamps, The reign of Doctor Joseph Gaspard Roderick de Francia, in Paraguay; being an account of six years’ residence in that republic, from July, 1819–to May, 1825 (London, 1827).
23 Rengger, Reign of Francia, pp. 112, 193–4. Someone claiming to be Francia responded to the criticism in a letter published in The Times: Times, 6 Nov. 1830, p. 3; and Rengger's response, ibid., 8 Dec. 1830, p. 4.
24 J. P. and W. P. Robertson, Letters on Paraguay: comprising an account of a four years’ residence in that republic, under the government of the dictator Francia (2 vols., London, 1838); J. P. and W. P. Robertson, Francia's reign of terror, being the continuation of letters on Paraguay (London, 1839). There were some further relevant passages in J. P. and W. P. Robertson, Letters on South America; comprising travels on the banks of the Paraná and Rio de la Plata (3 vols., London, 1843). Parts of the Robertsons’ narrative had appeared anonymously: ‘Narrative of captivity in Paraguay’, Newcastle Magazine, 7 (1828), pp. 104–10; ‘A traveller’, ‘Francia, the dictator’, New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, 43 (1835), pp. 417–29.
25 Robertsons, Francia's reign of terror, p. 389. For their motives, see Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford, Rage for order: the British empire and the origins of international law, 1800–1850 (Cambridge, MA, 2016), pp. 170–1.
26 Robertsons, Francia's reign of terror, p. 9; Robertsons, Letters on Paraguay, I, p. 338.
27 For the larger history here, see Phillips, Thomas, ‘Heaven and hell: the representation of Paraguay as a utopian space’, European Journal of American Culture, 27 (2008), pp. 15–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Boyd Hilton, A mad, bad, and dangerous people? England 1783–1846 (Oxford, 2006), pp. 301–5.
29 Illustrated London News, 28 Jan. 1843, p. 58.
30 E.g. J. R. McCulloch, A statistical account of the British empire (2 vols., London, 1837), II, pp. 595–6; Robertsons, Letters on Paraguay, I, pp. 7–8, 41–2, 60–1, 90–1. For context, see Paquette, Gabriel, ‘The image of imperial Spain in British political thought, 1750–1800’, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 81 (2004), pp. 187–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Chile became politically stable in the 1830s, under the presidency of Joaquín Prieto Vial and the direction of the eminence grise Diego Portales, but remained in a state of confusion during the 1820s.
32 Caledonian Mercury, 18 Nov. 1826, [p. 3]; Rengger, Reign of Francia, p. vii; Parish, Buenos Ayres, p. 237; ‘Letters on Paraguay’, British and Foreign Review, 7 (1838), pp. 569–611, at p. 611.
33 Charles Darwin, Journal, 18 and 19 Oct. 1833, in Paul H. Barrett and R. B. Freeman, eds., The works of Charles Darwin, II: Journal of Researches, I (London, 1992), p. 128.
34 Rengger, Reign of Francia, pp. xii–xiii.
35 ‘History of the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres’, Annual Review, 6 (1807), pp. 260–3, at p. 263.
36 ‘Letters on Paraguay’, Dublin University Magazine, 12 (1838), pp. 474–84, at pp. 478–9; [W. D. Cooley], The history of maritime and inland discovery, III (London, 1831), p. 276. Others praised the Jesuits’ beneficence: e.g. ‘Notices of new works’, Metropolitan Magazine, 23 (1838), pp. 9–12.
37 Bolivia retaining a seaboard until 1884.
38 ‘Francia's reign of terror: sequel to Letters on Paraguay’, Athenaeum, 585 (1839), pp. 27–8, at p. 27; ‘The dictator of Paraguay’, Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, 337 (1838), pp. 193–5, at pp. 194–5.
39 ‘Dr. Francia's reign in Paraguay’, Monthly Review, 5 (1827), pp. 374–86, at p. 379.
40 ‘Letters on Paraguay’, Dublin University Magazine, 12 (1838), p. 481; ‘Letters on Paraguay’, British and Foreign Review, 7 (1838), p. 602. French writers also used the Napoleon analogy: e.g. Alcide D'Orbigny, Voyage pittoresque dans les deux Amériques (Paris, 1836), p. 219.
41 Robertsons, Letters on South America, I, pp. 19–20; ‘The reign of Dr Joseph Gaspard Roderick Francia in Paraguay’, Examiner, 1019 (1827), pp. 501–3, at p. 502.
42 ‘Francia's reign of terror’, Monthly Review, 1 (1839), p. 246; ‘Dr. Francia's reign in Paraguay’, p. 374; Robertsons, Letters on Paraguay, II, p. 300.
43 Caledonian Mercury, 11 June 1827, [p. 2], reprinted from the Constitutionel.
44 In the hands of British reviewers, Francia was by turns a ‘dictator’, a ‘despot’, an ‘autocrat’, a ‘tyrant’, and an ‘absolute ruler’, and the selection of terms rarely did much analytic work. Cf. Andreas Kalyvas, ‘The tyranny of dictatorship: when the Greek tyrant met the Roman dictator’, Political Theory, 35 (2007), pp. 412–42, and the historiography surveyed in n. 3 therein.
45 Melvin Richter, ‘A family of political concepts: tyranny, despotism, Bonapartism, Caesarism, dictatorship, 1750–1917’, European Journal of Political Theory, 4 (2005), pp. 221–48, at pp. 237–8. See also Peter Baehr and Melvin Richter, eds., Dictatorship in history and theory: Bonapartism, Caesarism, and totalitarianism (Cambridge, 2004).
46 Porter, Bernard, ‘“Bureau and barrack”: early Victorian attitudes towards the continent’, Victorian Studies, 27 (1984), pp. 407–33Google Scholar; Markus J. Prutsch, Caesarism in the post-revolutionary age: crisis, populace and leadership (London, 2019).
47 Jennifer Pitts, A turn to empire: the rise of imperial liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton, NJ, 2005), esp. ch. 5.
48 For this problem in imperial policy, see Alan Lester, Kate Boehme, and Peter Mitchell, Ruling the world: freedom, civilisation and liberalism in the nineteenth-century British empire (Cambridge, 2020), esp. part I. Some Positivists made the case that autocratic rule was in general the best means of promoting ordered social progress: see John Lynch, Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800–1850 (Oxford, 1991), p. 421; and e.g. Richard Congreve, The Roman empire of the West (London, 1855), pp. 61–2.
49 For debates about absolute rule in British history, see J. W. Burrow, A liberal descent: Victorian historians and the English past (Cambridge, 1981).
50 Henry, Lord Brougham, Political philosophy (3 vols., London, 1842–4), I; George Cornewall Lewis, A treatise on the methods of observation and reasoning in politics (2 vols., London, 1852), II, pp. 50–60.
51 ‘Rosas, the dictator of Buenos Ayres’, Fraser's Magazine, 45 (1852), pp. 596–602, at p. 596.
52 ‘Francia's reign of terror’, Monthly Review, 1 (1839), p. 242; Robertsons, Letters on Paraguay, II, p. 302.
53 Parish, Buenos Ayres, p. 229; ‘Dr. Francia, the dictator of Paraguay’, Monthly Magazine, or British Register, 13 (1832), pp. 17–26, at p. 19.
54 ‘Letters on Paraguay’, Dublin University Magazine, 12 (1838), pp. 482–3; ‘Letters on Paraguay’, British and Foreign Review, 7 (1838), p. 605.
55 Cleave's Penny Gazette, 30 Oct. 1841; ‘Sketch of the progress and state of literature’, Le belle assemblée, 6 (1827), pp. 277–307, at p. 280.
56 ‘Francia's reign of terror’, Monthly Review, 1 (1839), p. 246.
57 ‘Letters on Paraguay’, Dublin University Magazine, 12 (1838), p. 484; P. Campbell Scarlett, South America and the Pacific (2 vols., London, 1838), I, p. 138. In some versions, the key to Francia's rule was the ‘unlimited license’ he allowed his soldiers and officials: ‘The reign of Dr. Francia’, London Magazine, 9 (1827), pp. 11–25, at p. 20.
58 Literary Gazette, 551 (1827), p. 515.
59 By some distance the most widely extracted portions of both Rengger's and the Robertsons’ texts were those which dealt with Francia's personal habits and conversation.
60 Mrs Erskine Norton, ‘Francia, dictator of Paraguay’, New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, 43 (1835), pp. 331–46, at p. 341.
61 ‘Paraguay and the dictator Francia’, London Saturday Journal, 1 (1839), pp. 167–9, at p. 167; ‘Life of Dr. Francia, the late dictator of Paraguay’, p. 83.
62 J. A. B. Beaumont, Travels in Buenos Ayres, and the adjacent provinces of the Rio de la Plata (London, 1828), p. 91.
63 Parish, Buenos Ayres, p. 229; ‘Letters on Paraguay’, British and Foreign Review, 7 (1838), p. 606.
64 Alexander Caldcleugh, Travels in South America, during the years 1819–20–21 (2 vols., London, 1825), I, p. 135; cf. Rengger, Reign of Francia, pp. 41–2.
65 ‘The reign of Dr Joseph Gaspard Roderick Francia in Paraguay’, p. 503.
66 For these categories, see Jonathan Parry, The politics of patriotism: English liberalism, national identity, and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge, 2006); Alex Middleton, ‘Victorian politics and politics overseas’, Historical Journal (advance access).
67 R. Torrens, The principles and practical operation of Sir Robert Peel's bill of 1844 explained (London, 1848), p. 75; Spectator, 28 Mar. 1840, p. 10; Sir Harry Verney, Hansard's parliamentary debates, third series, 19:694, 16 July 1833; William Ferrand, ibid., 62:828–9, 19 Apr. 1842.
68 ‘Earl Spencer and the state of parties’, Westminster Review, 41 (1844), pp. 257–95, at p. 261; Captain F. B. Head, A few practical arguments against the theory of emigration (London, 1828), pp. 61–2.
69 Francia became the subject of an unsuccessful 1851 novel by the inventor E. Clarence Shepard, which gave him a long-lost son and put the pro- and contra-Francia arguments in the mouths of its two protagonists, but which ended in an inconclusive bloodbath: E. Clarence Shepard, Francia, a tale of the revolution of Paraguay (London, 1851).
70 Erskine Norton, ‘Francia, dictator of Paraguay’, p. 341.
71 Thomas Carlyle, Latter-day pamphlets. No. II. Model prisons (London, 1850), p. 25.
72 See Middleton, Alex, ‘Rajah Brooke and the Victorians’, Historical Journal, 53 (2010), pp. 381–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
73 Richard Shannon, Gladstone: God and politics (London, 2007), p. 36.
74 Frederic Harrison, ed., The new calendar of great men (London, 1892), p. vi; S. H. Swinny, ibid., pp. 577–8.
75 John Morley, ‘A new calendar of great men’, Nineteenth Century, 31 (1892), pp. 312–28, at p. 323. Liberal luminaries would continue to deal similarly with Francia: James Bryce, Modern democracies (2 vols., London, 1921), I, p. 215; James Bryce, South America: observations and impressions (London, 1912), pp. 525–51.
76 Editor [John Morley], ‘Carlyle’, Fortnightly Review, 8 (1870), pp. 1–22, at p. 21. On Morley's hesitancy about defending despotism under British authority as secretary of state for India, see Jon Wilson, ‘The silence of empire: imperialism and India’, in David Craig and James Thompson, eds., Languages of politics in nineteenth-century Britain (Basingstoke, 2013), pp. 218–41, at pp. 233–4.
77 [Morley], ‘Carlyle’, p. 21.
78 ‘The dictator; or two scenes in Paraguay’, Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, 184 (1847), pp. 17–22, at p. 21.
79 ‘The public and state prisons at Paraguay’, Imperial Magazine, 11 (1829), pp. 127–31.
80 ‘Tea of Paraguay’, Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, 412 (1839), pp. 382–3, at p. 382.
81 Literary Gazette, 551 (1827), pp. 515–16.
82 Carlyle, ‘Francia’, p. 574. Cf. ‘Dr. Francia, the dictator of Paraguay’, p. 534.
83 Times, 9 Oct. 1841, p. 3.
84 J. M. R. Cameron, ‘John Barrow, the Quarterly Review's imperial reviewer’, in Jonathan Cutmore, ed., Conservatism and the Quarterly Review: a critical analysis (London, 2007), pp. 133–50.
85 [Barrow, John], ‘Letters on Paraguay – Dr. Francia’, Quarterly Review, 63 (1839), pp. 342–69Google Scholar, at p. 369.
86 ‘The conversazione, on the literature of the month’, New Monthly Magazine, 54 (1838), pp. 277–88, at p. 283.
87 ‘Dr. Francia, the dictator of Paraguay’, p. 26.
88 ‘The reign of Dr. Francia’, p. 13.
89 William Walton, A letter, addressed to Sir James Mackintosh, M.P. (London, 1829), p. 186.
90 E.g. [Senior, Nassau], ‘King's Argentine Republic’, Edinburgh Review, 87 (1848), pp. 534–65Google Scholar, at p. 565.
91 McLean, David, ‘Trade, politics and the navy in Latin America: the British in the Paraná, 1845–46’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 35 (2007), pp. 351–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
92 House of Commons parliamentary papers, LXIV.1, 769 (1847), pp. 294–5; ‘The treaty with Paraguay’, Daily News, 5 Nov. 1853, [p. 6]; ‘British-built war-steamers for Paraguay’, Leader and Saturday Analyst, 5 (1854), p. 1161.
93 Times, 5 June 1867, p. 9; Captain Richard F. Burton, Letters from the battle-fields of Paraguay (London, 1870). See Hendrik Kraay and Thomas L. Whigham, eds., I die with my country: perspectives on the Paraguayan war, 1864–1870 (Lincoln, NB, 2004); James Schofield Saeger, Franciso Solano López and the ruination of Paraguay: honor and egocentrism (Lanham, MD, 2007).
94 ‘The war in Paraguay’, London Quarterly Review, 34 (1870), pp. 296–327, at p. 300; ‘Paraguay’, St. James's Magazine (July 1862), pp. 475–9, at p. 477; Dillon, E. J., ‘The ruin of Spain’, Contemporary Review, 73 (1898), pp. 876–907Google Scholar, at p. 903.
95 E.g. Thompson, George, The war in Paraguay (London, 1869), pp. 4–5Google Scholar; and for a more balanced account, George Frederick Masterman, Seven eventful years in Paraguay (London, 1869), pp. 29–32.
96 The supplement to the Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, I (London, 1851), p. 602; ‘Mansfield's Paraguay, Brazil, and the Plate’, Fraser's Magazine, 54 (1856), pp. 591–601, at p. 601; [P. W. Gifford], ‘From Montevideo to Paraguay’, Macmillan's Magazine, 52 (1885), pp. 96–111, at p. 107–8.
97 Lynch, Caudillos, p. 420.
98 Thomas Carlyle to John Forster, 23 June 1843, in Ian Campbell et al., eds., The collected letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (42 vols., Durham, NC, 1970– ), XVI, p. 216; Thomas Carlyle to John Forster, 10 June 1843, ibid., XVI, pp. 194–5.
99 Carlyle, ‘Francia’, p. 552.
100 Ibid., p. 551.
101 Beyond using Francia's dictatorship to support a few idiosyncratically Carlylean positions, not least an enthusiasm for the terrorization of shoemakers: Carlyle, ‘Francia’, pp. 584–5; cf. Thomas Carlyle to Margaret A. Carlyle, 12 May 1835, Campbell et al., eds., Carlyle letters, VIII, pp. 114–18.
102 Carlyle, ‘Francia’, p. 552.
103 Ibid., pp. 572–3.
104 Ibid., pp. 575–80, 585.
105 Ibid., pp. 575–85.
106 Ibid., p. 553.
107 E.g. ‘Letters on Paraguay’, British and Foreign Review, 7 (1838), p. 571.
108 This would be true also in other European countries, and in the United States. For US critiques of Francia, see e.g. Washburn, Charles A., The history of Paraguay (2 vols., Boston, MA, 1871), I, p. 167Google Scholar; Page, Thomas J., La Plata, the Argentine Confederation, and Paraguay (New York, NY, 1859), pp. 124–5, 204Google Scholar.