Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/85



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 55

After about six months the people of the capital " pro- nounced/^ and consequently, on March 12, 1841, an Extraor- dinary Congress of 500 members, elected by the usual farce of general suffrage,metat Asuncion. This body, which is described as being more than usually ridiculous, restored the consular government, or rather a duumvirate, consisting of D. An- tonio Carlos Lopez, and an old soldier. Colonel D. Mariano Roque Alonzo. It opened, also, Paraguayan ports to general commerce; it concluded a treaty of friendship and trade with the Province of Corrientes, then at war with Buenos Aires ; and it convened an extraordinary session of itself — the deliberative body usually met for five days every five years — in order to consider the desideratum of re-establishing foreign connexions. At the same time most of the 600 political prisoners left in the dungeons of Dr. Francia were amnestied.

In November, 1842, the Complimentary Congress held its session. It ratified Paraguayan independence, deter- mined the flag, and chose blue as the '^ color de la Patria.^-* Approving of all the consular acts and plans, it offered commercial relations to Buenos Aires, but Dictator Kosas, insultingly refusing to acknowledge the Republic, closed to her the Rio de la Plata till such time as the Province of Corrientes should desist from its " rebellion." At this time an ecclesiastic long persecuted by Dr. Francia, Padre Marcos Antonio Maiz, the " terrible father " as he was called by the English, the " pretre estimable k tons egards,"" according to M. Demersay, was made Professor of Latin and Philosophy at Asuncion, and took the first step towards becoming Coadju- tor Bishop in part, infid.

A third National Congress, meeting on March 16, 1845, put an end to the consular government, and sanctioned by a Constitution the fundamental law of the Republic which en- trusted executive powers to aPresident. The only obligation of