SOTO, Marco Aurelio, president of Honduras, born in Tegucigalpa, 13 November, 1846. He studied in the University of Guatemala, where he received the degree of LL. D. in 1866, and began the practice of law. President Barrios soon called him to his cabinet as secretary of foreign affairs, and public instruction and worship, which place he held till February, 1876. At that time hostilities between Guatemala and Honduras began, President Ponciano Leiva, of the latter republic, was deposed, and, by agreement of the contending parties, Soto was sent as commissioner to his native country, and in August was appointed provisional president. In May, 1877, he was elected constitutional president, and, assisted by his general secretary, Dr. Ramon Rosa, he created resources, fostered the mining industry, encouraged the exportation of cattle, built telegraphic lines, and pushed forward the construction of the interoceanic railway. In 1881 he was re-elected for a second term, but in 1883, when President Barrios brought forward again the scheme of a Central American confederacy, with a view of becoming its leader, Soto, out of personal jealousy, opposed the idea strenuously, and retired in May to San Francisco, whence he attacked Barrios in several pamphlets. A triumvirate had meanwhile taken charge of the executive, and after Soto's formal resignation, 15 October, 1883, General Bogran, Barrios's intimate friend and follower, was elected president. Soto came later to New York, where he schemed against Bogran, and in February, 1886, an alleged filibustering expedition for Honduras was captured in the steamer "City of Mexico " by the United States sloop "Galena" and brought to Key West. Soto then left New York for Costa Rico, and thence despatched in August of the same year an expedition of seventy-seven men, under the leadership of the officers that had been captured in the "City of Mexico," to stir up a revolutionary movement. But in Honduras none seemed inclined to join the enterprise, the expedition was defeated and captured near Comayagua, and the four leaders were shot in that city on 18 October, 1886. Soto then left Costa Rica, and returned to the United States.