CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
95 
would not have been tolerated, it was certainly one well calcu- 
lated, in the actual state of Paraguay, to attain the objects he 
had so much at heart, and in which he gradually succeeded. 
The good results of these wise measures are well attested by the 
prosperous advancement of the country up to the present time. 
His success naturally raised up against him a host of irreconcile- 
able enemies in all the Argentine Provinces, who strove to blacken 
his character and vilify his conduct. All these Provinces, suf- 
fering under the extinction of the trade in Yerba, were leagued 
against the policy of Francia ; but their attention being too 
much occupied in their constant internecine wars, they had little 
time or force to spare in the attempt to revolutionize Paraguay. 
At length, however, the Governor-in-chief of Entrerios, having 
made peace with the other provinces, turned his attention to that 
object, and endeavoured at the same time to establish settlements 
at the former Jesuit Missions (then almost depopulated), with 
the view of cultivating the trade in Yerba. And we now come 
to a knowledge of the state of affairs that existed when the 
celebrated Bonpland visited the River Plate, and how the sub- 
sequent phases of his life became connected with the history of 
the trade in Yerba. 
The fall of the emperor Napoleon and the re-establishment 
of the Bourbon dynasty in France were events most galling to 
Bonpland, and be resolved to seek an abode in one of the repub- 
lican States of South America. Accordingly he reached Buenos 
Ayres in 1817, with a nominal appointment of Professor of 
Natural History in that capital. About the same time, a con- 
siderable number of his countrymen, from similar causes, settled 
themselves in the Argentine Provinces, at which period the in- 
ternecine wars before alluded to were raging furiously. Many 
of these Frenchmen became active partisans in these quarrels, 
and, either by their direct or indirect interference, soon came 
under the ban of the several opposing chiefs. When I passed 
through Buenos Ayres, in 1819, I saw Bonpland; he was then 
under great excitement in consequence of the execution of two of 
his companions, who, having been detected in assisting the mili- 
tary chief Carrera, were accordingly sentenced to be shot. It 
was in the same year that Bonpland established himself near 
Candelaria, one of the old Jesuit Missions on the left bank of 
the Parana, contiguous to Paraguay, where he formed a con- 
siderable establishment, chiefly, as I understood, with a view to 
the production of and trade in Yerba, under the special auspices 
and protection of the Governor-general Artigas, who, as I have 
before mentioned, intended ultimately to carry out his designs 
against Paraguay. In the following year. General Ramirez, 
who commanded Artigas^s forces, being bought over by the rival 
