OTL Argentina was discovered and claimed first by an English expedition that reached Cape Hoorn from the east in 1565. The area south of the equator stayed barely settled, though; most settlers went to northern Braseal to start sugar plantations instead. Since the 1790s, many nobles and other opponents of the French republic fled from the latter sphere of influence, mostly to Britain or their colonies of Braseal and Argentine, where many get land from the British state, thus growing the population.