colonists were empowered to make a provisional appointment; but, latterly, that power was, as a rule, vested in the Audiencia. In 1806 all this was changed by Royal decree, which enacted that, in case of a vacancy, the military official of the highest rank then in the colony should assume the vacant post. On the death of Muñoz Guzman, the Audiencia of Chile raised its own President to the vacant office. The officers stationed on the frontier of Araucania protested against this appointment, and proclaimed Colonel Don Francisco Garcia Carrasco Provisional Governor and Captain-General, and the Audiencia was forced to yield.
The new Captain-General took with him to the capital, as his secretary and councillor, a man who had for many years resided at Concepcion, who had great influence in the south and was highly thought of throughout the country. This was Dr. Don Juan Martinez de Rozas, an Argentine, born in Mendoza, who was at that time forty-nine years of age. He was a graduate of the University of Cordoba, and a fellow-student with Dr. Castelli, through whom he afterwards entered into political relations with Belgrano. In various official positions in Chile he had gained experience of public affairs, and his wife was a daughter of one of the principal families of the South. Of a passionate character, he was at the same time prudent, was well read in the current literature of the day, and was the leading spirit in a group of men who discussed among themselves the future destinies of America.
The new Captain-General was a man of limited intelligence, violent in his proceedings, and with no firmness of character. Thus he soon made himself hated, and was despised by all. His one passion was cock-fighting, his greatest pleasure was in listening to jokes, and his affections were concentrated upon a domestic of African race, through whose hands all favours were bestowed. The whole aim of Rozas was to make him an instrument for social and political reform. To this end he strove to raise
