Post-revolutionary Spanish America barely features in existing scholarship on nineteenth-century British political and social thought. But the region was widely discussed, and raised distinctive issues about republican government, the effects of colonial rule, and the operation of absolute power. This article examines how the British debated the autarchic dictatorship erected in newly independent Paraguay. Their attempts to make sense of this spectacular experiment in government, and its architect Dr Francia, helped to crystallize public attitudes towards the condition of Spanish America in the 1820s and 1830s. Francia's broader significance, however, was as a token in wider debates about the proper limits of republican and constitutional principles, and about the merits of arbitrary directive rule in less developed polities. For his admirers, he cast light on how other comparable regimes had gone wrong.

革命后的西班牙美洲几乎没有出现在现有的关于 19 世纪英国政治和社会思想的学术研究中。但该地区被广泛讨论，并提出了关于共和政府、殖民统治的影响和绝对权力运作的独特问题。本文探讨了英国人如何辩论在新独立的巴拉圭建立的独裁专政。他们试图理解这一壮观的政府实验，其建筑师弗朗西亚博士帮助明确了公众对 1820 年代和 1830 年代西班牙裔美国人状况的态度。然而，弗朗西亚的更广泛意义是在关于共和和宪法原则的适当限制以及欠发达政体中任意指令统治的优点的更广泛辩论中作为象征。对于他的崇拜者来说，