PREFACE.
Since the translation of this work by Colonel Sarmiento was begun, the tide of events has carried its author to the proudest position before his country which any man since San Martin, the hero of its independence and of the independence of some of its sister Republics, has ever occupied. It is true that circumstances of even a trivial nature, and still more frequently of a corrupt nature, often bring a man to the chieftainship of his country, whether the office is elective or otherwise; but in this instance such circumstances have been singularly wanting. Colonel Sarmiento, after an absence of seven years from his country, without any political party, without any pledges of policy given or required, without any of the machinery that is generally used to set in motion such important measures, has by an almost unanimous movement been made the candidate par excellence for the Presidency of the Argentine Republic, and the returns are already
