In that year, after taking part in a disorderly and fruitless expedition planned by Rosas to secure the southern frontier against Indian attacks, he suddenly made his appearance at Buenos Ayres, with a body of armed satellites, who inspired the newly-seated Dictator—­the famous Juan Manuel de Rosas, who has been already so often mentioned in these pages—­with vivid apprehensions.  Rosas, Quiroga, Lopez—­the Triumvirate of La Plata—­ were bound together, it is true, by a potent tie,—­by the strongest, indeed,—­that of self-interest; but as each of the three, and especially Rosas, was in continual dread lest that consideration in his colleagues should clash with his own intentions, the presence of Quiroga at Buenos Ayres was far from satisfactory to the remaining two.  His influence over half a dozen of the despotic governors in the interior was still immense; the Pampa was his own, after all his defeats; and it was shrewdly suspected that his indifference to power in La Rioja, and his mysterious visit to the maritime capital, were indications of a design to seize upon the government of Buenos Ayres itself.  Nor were the actions of Quiroga suited to remove these apprehensions.  The sanguinary despot of the interior bloomed in the Buenos Ayrean cafes into a profound admirer of Rivadavia, Lavalle, and Paz, his ancient Unitarian enemies; Buenos Ayres, the Confederation, he loudly proclaimed, must have a Constitution; conciliation must supplant the iron-heeled tyranny under which the people had groaned so long; the very jaguar of the Pampa, said the Porteno wits, —­not yet wholly muzzled by the dread Mazorca, or Club, of Rosas,—­was to be stripped of his claws, and made to live on matagusano twigs and thistles! Redeunt Saturnia regna! The reign of blood, according to Quiroga, its chief evangelist, was approaching its termination.

In order to form a conception of the effect produced by these transactions, we must imagine Pelissier or Walewski entertaining, twenty-three years later, the cercles at Paris with discourses from the beauty of the last regime, with eulogies of Lamartine, and apotheoses of Louis Blanc; sneering at Espinasse, and eulogizing Cavaignac; vowing that France can be governed only under a liberal constitution, and paying a visit to his Majesty, the Elect of December, with a rough-and-tumble suite of Republican bravos.  Assuredly, were such a thing possible in Paris, the gentlemen in question would very shortly be reviling English hospitality under its protecting aegis, if not dying of fever at Cayenne.  Nor could Rosas, who was at that time far less firmly seated on his throne than is at present the man who wields the destinies of France, endure so powerful a rival in his vicinity.  But how to get rid of him?  Assassination, by which a minor offender was so speedily put out of the way, could not safely be attempted with a man who yet retained a singular mastery over the minds of thousands of brutal and strong-armed horsemen; a false step would result in inevitable destruction; and many anxious days were spent by the gloomy tyrant ere he could decide upon a plan for disposing of his inconvenient friend.