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These remarks are also applicable to the country commandant. This personage is of more importance than the former, and requires in a higher degree the combination of the reputation and antecedents which distinguish him. Far from being lessened, the evil is even aggravated by an additional circumstance. The title of country commandant is conferred by the rulers of the cities; but as the city is destitute of power, influence, and supporters in the country, the administration lays hold of the men it most fears, and confers this office upon them in order to retain their obedience—a well known procedure of all weak governments, which put off the evil of the moment only to allow it to appear later in colossal dimensions. Thus the Papal government has dealings with banditti, to whom it gives offices in Rome, encouraging brigandage by this means, and making its continuance certain; thus did the Sultan grant Mehemet Ali the rank of Pacha of Egypt, having afterwards to purchase the continuance of his own reign by recognizing his vassal's title to an hereditary throne. It is singular that all the chieftains of the Argentine revolutionary movement were country commandants: Lopez and Ibarra, Artigas and Guemes, Facundo and Rosas. This is the constant starting-point of ambition. When Rosas had made himself master of the city, he exterminated all the commandants to whom he owed his elevation, intrusting with this influential position commonplace men, who could only follow the path he had traced. Pajarito, Celarragan, Arbolito, Pancho el ñato, Molina, were among the commandants of whom Rosas cleared the country.