# ^ \, \\«UNIVER5/^ -^HIBRARYQ^ ^ 1 3 i \e^ ^ s s ^OFCAUFW;^ ^OFCAUFOff^ AWEUNIWR% o ^^jnvDJO'^ ^^DNVsoi'^ "^aMiNflaftV^ ^10SAKCEI% <(J133NVS01^ %iaAIN(13V{i^' 1^ - 9 '^JSTDKVSOl'^ «^5j\EUNIVEW{j^ %MAINfl-3V«^ ^'m»i'%s^ "^^rntrn^ ^•UBRARYOc. ^lUBRARYQc^ ^lOSANCEUr^ ^OFCAUFOR^ ^OFCAllFOff^ ^IUBRARYQa ^iUBRARYQ<> ,5y!UNIVER% AjclOSANCEl£f^ ^..>rr_ Tv^ I '^^Aavaan#' *%3dnvsoi'^ ^juainq-ivj^ *%AavHan-3f^ ^om\ "^/WUAINftlV^ ^l-UBRARYQ^ i5 ^ ^OFCAUFOff^ "^(^AdviaiH^ ^^OilWJJO'^ ^OFCAlIFOff^ <^^WEUNIVER%. ^lOSA 45^lUBRABYa^ .IjaEUNIVERJ/^ C5 ^lOSAMCElftt^ § 1 ii-^ ^ ^^ojnvjjo'^ ^TiiaDNYso^ "^aaAiNn-atf^ ^ojitvdjo^ ^lUBR ^^ilT ^OFCAUFOR^ ^5J\EUNIVER% ^10SANCEI% o uivaan# ^(?Aavjiaii-^^ A\«UNIVER% ^lUBRARYQc. ^tUBH 5 1 ir"^ 3 '»'l/A I !T 2142 A SOUTH AMERICAN HOME BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA A History of British Activities in Explo- ration, Military Adventure, Diplomacy, Science, and Trade, in Latin-America BY W. H. KOEBEL Author of "Argentina, Past and Present," "Modern Chile," "Romance of the River Platte," "Uruguay," "The South Americans, from the Social and Industrial Point of View," "Modern Argentina," Editor-in-Chief of the "Encyclopedia of South America." ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND OLD PRINTS NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1917 63912 ■^ PREFACE Among such merits as I may claim for this work is a total lack of haste in its preparation. Written under the stress of no other pre-occupation save that caused by the deep shadow of the war, there has been no question here of a rapid gathering together of material; but rather that of a lengthy process of selection. To pick out the most salient features from the vast field of British enter- prise in South America is not an easy task. This book having been written in the comparative soli- tude of the country, and its sources of information largely derived from my own library, I have taxed the good na- ture of a smaller number than usual of the various ex- perts. It is, nevertheless, impossible for me to pass by the names of three gentlemen without a special note of thanks. The first of these is his Excellency Senor Don Agustin Edwards, that most notable Chilean Minister Plenipoten- tiary in London, whose kindness in obtaining information concerning the early British in Chile must be gratefully acknowledged. To Mr. Herbert Gibson I am deeply in- debted for similar good offices in regard to Argentina and to the British writers on that country. I have, more- over, to express my obligation to Mr. Francis Edwards, who has not only placed at my disposal his wide knowl- edge of South American bibliography but has most courte- ously taken the trouble to send me down for purposes of reference those particular books which I lacked for this work. The subjoined letter, which I found myself under the necessity of sending to the editor of a minor London pub- ▼iii PREFACE lication, will explain itself. It is true that it was written in the heat of an indignation which appeared justifiable to me; but, on mature consideration, the special nature of this present book, written at this period, seems to de- mand its inclusion, sincerely reluctant though I am to introduce any personal matter of the kind. I include it in full, moreover, although some lines have no bearing on the subject. But this is preferable to the employ- ment of the asterisk — than which there is surely no instru- ment of the pen which lends itself more readily to the un- fair practices of a juggling mind. It is unnecessary to give the name of the publication to which the following was directed : Sir: — In this secluded spot most things, including periodicals, are belated. It is for this reason that I have only now been enabled to read your review, published on the thirtieth of Novem- ber, of my book, The South Americans. I have, up to now, man- aged to deliver myself of eighteen books without sparring with a reviewer — possibly because there has seemed no reason! But there are two points in this review of yours that cannot be passed over in silence. The first is a personal one. According to your reviewer: "The name of our author leads one to suppose that he knows a good deal more than he tells of the unceasing efforts of Germany for supremacy — not commercial supremacy alone — in some of the states, especially in parts of Brazil; as a matter of fact he dismisses this subject airily in twenty lines." Now this, leaping from the flat body of a review, is startling, and imbues one with the sensations of a sitter on a needle-point concealed in a cushion ! If the words have any meaning at all, sir, they surely convey the gravest slur on the loyalty of one who has never willingly missed an opportunity of pointing out the German peril, not only in South America, but elsewhere. Those who are familiar with my work — and I am fortunate in that, though clearly lacking your reviewer, their number is not small — know that I have laboured this very point with persistence for the last ten years. They, I am sure, will not need from me any comment on this imputation. The others (I suppose, sir, that it would savour too much of egotism to class them as the "remainder"?) will, I hope, accept my unqualified denial that PREFACE ix there is the faintest ground for this queer insinuation concern- ing some dark and mysterious knowledge which I am jealously guarding from the British public. As regards the precise degree of taste in interpolating such matter, on such evidence, in a review — well, I do not think that I have any peculiar reason to be sensitive on this point. As one whose father held a commission from Queen Victoria, and as one who at the outbreak of the war alone out of five brothers — the number is no longer intact — did not hold a commission in the regular forces, I cannot produce a blush of shame even to gratify your reviewer! IMoreover, that I am still a civilian is the fault, not of four years on the shady side of the slacker's haven (forty) but of a slightly sprung heart. So much for a personal outpouring rendered unavoidable by our critic. The second point I can turn to with some relief, since it is not of an intimate nature, and since it seems to me to come within the reviewer's legitimate province. In any case it strengthens my theory that I have the misfortune not to count your reviewer among my readers. According to him, again: "Mr. Koebel ' cannot know much of Pernambuco or its surroundings, or he could not have failed to observe the copious and interesting Dutch remains still to be seen in that part of the continent. ' ' I freely admit that an ambiguous sentence which the reviewer has picked out might produce this supposition — in the mind of one who has not read on and arrived at the description of these very Dutch remains at Pernambuco (p. 265). Accept my apologies for the length of this letter, which is primarily due to the fact that it is not only men having the advantage of homely names who pride themselves on being Eng- lish. There are others, such as, Yours very truly, W. H. Koebel. Castle Combe, Combe Martin, N. Devon. These latter apologies must be repeated here to the present reader. May his breast be free from that justi- fied resentment which one who has paid to enter a place of public entertainment must experience when he finds himself buttonholed and drawn into a corner for an in- timate and heart-to-heart talk with a performer whose X PREFACE rightful place is on the stage, and whose private affairs are a mere matter of boredom to others ! Nevertheless, it is preferable to run this risk than to permit the re- motest doubt of the loyalty with which the affairs of the British in South America are regarded in these pages. CONTENTS PART I THE NAVIGATORS OHAPTEB PAGE I The Romantic Period in South America ... 3 II The First English Mariners to Sail the Spanish Main 15 III The Beginnings of British Trade with South America 46 IV The Buccaneers 80 PART II the BRITISH IN COLONIAL SOUTH AMERICA V Early British Adventures in Spanish America . 101 VI Some Eighteenth-Century British Voyages to South America 116 VII The British Expedition to the River Plate , . 141 VIII British Guiana and the Falkland Islands . . 156 IX British Fighters in the Cause of South Ameri- can Independence (I) 163 X British Fighters in the Cause of South Ameri- can Independence (II) 188 XI British Fighters in the Cause of South Ameri- can Independence (III) 214 PART III south AMERICA IN THE EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY XII The First British Relations with the New Republics 235 XIII Early Travelers and Traders in the Republics . 255 XIV The British in Brazil (I) 281 XV The British in Brazil (II) 295 XVI The British in Brazil (III) 311 XVII The British in Brazil (IV) 327 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XVIII The British in Brazil (V) 340 XIX The British in Brazil (VI) 364 XX The British in the South American Internal Wars 374 PART IV scientific and literary observers XXI Some British Naturalists in South America . 395 XXII South America in English Print 420 XXIII Achievements of the British in the Nineteenth Century (I) 481 XXIV Achievements of the British in the Nineteenth Century (II) 494 XXV Achievements of the British in the Nineteenth Century (III) 512 XXVI To-day and To-morrow in South America . . 525 Appendix 553 Bibliography of Modern Works 555 British Arrivals in the River Plate at the Be- ginning of the XIXth Century .... 570 Index 573 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A South American Home Frontispiece TACING PAGE Sir John Hawkins 20 Sir Francis Drake 20 The Santos River in Brazil 48 Old Fort at Mouth of Santos River, Brazil 48 Island of Juan Fernandez 88 Valdivia, Chile (1836) 102 Conference of President 'Higgins with the Indians . . 112 Ambrose O'Higgins 124 Sir Home Riggs Popham 144 Lieutenant-General Whitelocke 144 General San Martin 168 General Bolivar 184 An Early View of Valparaiso, Chile 190 Plaza de la Independencia, Santiago, Chile (early XlXth century) 206 Araucanian "Witch Doctors at Work 218 An Early Raid by Araucanian Indians, Chile 228 A British South American on His Rancho 244 British South Americans 244 Crossing the Andes 262 South American Indian Encampment 276 Rio de Janeiro (1809) 300 Landing Stage, Rio de Janeiro (early XlXth century) . . 332 Public Gardens (1835) 332 Sugar Loaf Mountain, Rio de Janeiro 372 Garibaldi 380 General Rosas 380 ILLUSTRATIONS JACINQ PAGE South American Indians 412 South American Cattle 432 South American Oxen 432 Early View of Valparaiso, Chile 456 Plaza San Martin, Mendoza, Argentina 472 Cattle Market at j\Iontevideo 488 Plaza Constitucion Station, Buenos Aires 496 Avenue de Mayo, Buenos Aires 496 South American Indians 508 Old Print of the Llama and Indians 508 A Modern British South American Ship 516 Early Type of Royal Mail Steam Packet Company Ship . . 516 Railroad Construction in South America 520 Forest Clearing in South America 520 Viaduct Construction in South America 532 Bridge Construction in South America 532 Avenue Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro 548 Street Scene in Rio de Janeiro 548 The publishers acknowledge with thanks the courtesy of The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in supplying several of the above illustrations. PAET I THE NAVIGATORS BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA CHAPTER I THE KOMANTIC PEEIOD IN SOUTH AMEKICA The charm of the Americas — Iberian navigators — Prince Henry of Portu- gal and his seamen — Some famous captains — Columbus — ^Manner in which the English were attracted to the new lands — The English crusaders as comrades of the Portuguese — Ramifications of friend- ship which succeeded the first alliance — The interchange of Portuguese wines and English cloth — The alliance consolidated in battle against the Spaniards — The treaty of Windsor — The marriage of John of Portugal to Philippa of England — Prince Henry, the navigator of English blood on his mother's side — Some ethics of the slave trade — Effect of the discoveries of the new lands upon the English in Portu- gal — The return of the galleons — Awakening of the navigating spirit in the West of England — The story of Robert Machin — Romance which is alleged to have led to the discovery of Madeira by the English — Death of Machin and Anna d'Arset — Links connecting the tale with the accepted discovery of the island by Joao Goncalves Zarco— Se- bastian Cabot — His South American discoveries made in the Spanish service — Condition of South America when William Hawkins, father of Sir John, set sail for that continent in 1530 — Achievements already effected by the navigators and conquistadores — Iberian colonization — Extent of the continent occupied — Questions of Indian and Negro labor — Doctrine of Las Casas — The early English navigators unwit- tingly act as the avenging spirits of the slaughtered Indians — Mis- taken policy of the Spanish Empire. THE rich flavor of such names as the Spanish Main and the South Seas has retained its charm almost unimpaired from the dawn of the New World to the present day. For four centuries the promise of the new and rich lands has drawn adventurers from the North to compete with each other and with the descend- 3 4 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ants of those Iberian conquistador es who first set foot on the neck of a wondering continent. The tale of the early Iberian navigators is clear enough, from the brave band of Portuguese voyagers, fathered by Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, to Columbus and his comrades. It was the Portuguese who first drove boldly into the Western Ocean. Their seniority as dis- coverers is not to be questioned. It was some three quarters of a century before Columbus set sail for the West when their two seamen, Bartholomeu Perestrello and Joan Gongalves Zarco, discovered the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira respectively in 1419 and 1420: But after this the more famous of the Portuguese navi- gators, such as Nuno Tristao, Vasco da Gama, and Pedro Alvarez Cabral (although this last was at a later period responsible for the discovery of Brazil), forsook the west- em course for the southern, and, fringing the African coast, turned to the east, and sought India and China by way of the Cape of Good Hope. The significance of the voyages of Columbus and of the other navigators in the service of the neighboring king- dom of Spain is perhaps even more generally understood. The manner in which one of these great events followed on the heels of another has been made abundantly clear. But what of the English? How did these Northern islanders come to put their spoke into these new wheels of land and water from which their home was so remotely situated? What was it that first set on the track of the tropical seas the bearers of such charmed names as Haw- kins, Drake, Raleigh, Cavendish, and Dampier? For a sufiiciently comprehensive answer to all this it is neces- sary to hark back to a precolonial age, almost three cen- turies before the discovery of Madeira. It was as early as 1147 that a number of English cru- saders, on their way to the Holy Land, halted on the banks of the Tagus, and assisted the Portuguese to cap- ture the city of Lisbon from the Moors. The men of the ROMANTIC PERIOD IN SOUTH AMERICA 5 oak and the men of the olive found that, however much they might differ in complexion, they had at least much sympathy in common. Thus was begun the alliance be- tween England and Portugal. The relations between the two countries rapidly be- came consolidated. The following year, 1148, we find an Englishman, Gilbert of Hastings, as Bishop of Lisbon. In 1217 another fillip was given to this international friendship by the arrival of a second, and more formid- able, army of English crusaders, by whose assistance a Moorish army of fifty-five thousand men was completely defeated. Nearly twenty years after the falling through of a proposed matrimonial alliance between the English and Portuguese royal houses, the earls of Lancaster and Arundel arrived in Portugal in 1344, charged with an important mission of friendship, and three years after this some further matrimonial schemes were drawn up, but these, too, proved abortive. These delicate failures seemed to have no ill effect on the relations between the two countries. Commercial bonds had now entered into the field to strengthen the military friendship. Through the instrumentality of a young Portuguese wine mer- chant, sent on a mission to London, many special agree- ments and clauses were arrived at between the English and Portuguese merchants. As a result, the red wines of the Douro Mountains and the Collares and Algarve slopes began a northward journey in ships, which they have continued practically without intermission from that day to this, while the first consignments of an equally lengthy and unbroken procession of English clothes began to come rolling southwards across the Bay of Biscay. It is certainly curious that in those days of small and cranky ships we should have established our most inti- mate relations with a people dwelling just the wrong side of the dreaded Bay of Biscay ! The bay whose entrance 6 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA is guarded by the jagged and equally menacing rocks of Ushant! But so it was. At the beginning of the four- teenth century English merchants were already familiar with Portuguese soil, while in 1381 two thousand fresh English men-at-arms set sail for the Tagus. Four years later these were 'followed by five hundred English arch- ers, who fought side by side with the Portuguese among the vines and olives, and whose long-bows twanged to some purpose on the field of Aljubarrota, where the Cas- tilian knights went down before them. In 1386, the following year, the treaty of Windsor con- firmed the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, and this friend- ship — no new thing even at the time of the compact — has lasted, practically unbroken, from that day to this. Surely this must constitute the oldest-standing known treaty in the history of the world ! The following year John of Gaunt triumphantly en- tered Portugal at the head of an English army of two thousand lances and three thousand archers, and on the second of February, 1387, his daughter Philippa, by his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, was married to King John of the then solid realm of Portugal. Those who have taken the trouble to wonder what these affairs of crusaders, cloth, and port wine have to do with the English in South America will now begin to obtain some inkling. For one of the issue of this mar- riage was Prince Henry the Navigator, the first and greatest patron of deep-sea voyagers, who devoted him- self heart and soul to the science of discovery. It was he who called astronomers and mathematicians to his aid, and who, zealously studying the problems of the ocean in his austere Sagre Castle on the southern Portu- guese coast by Cape St. Vincent — the nearest point in all Europe to tropical America! — directed the voy- ages of those famous mariners who sailed into the un- known. Thus the friend and patron of the Portuguese sea cap- ROMANTIC PERIOD IN SOUTH AMERICA 7 tains — the leading navigators of their day — was of Eng- lish blood on his mother's side. It was under his au- spices that central and southern Africa, India, and Brazil were discovered, and that Lisbon became the western gate of Europe, while decaying Venice bewailed the loss of her monopoly of the overland trade route to In- dia. From the modern point of view it can scarcely fail to militate against Prince Henry's repute that he should have been the founder of the Negro slave-trade. But, according to the morality of the fifteenth century, the procedure was not only excusable; it was sound policy. For centuries the Portuguese had become accustomed to the enslaving of prisoners in the hands of the Moors, and they themselves — in common with all the European na- tions of the Mediterranean coast line — ^had retaliated in similar fashion, until that degraded condition had grown to be regarded as a part of ordinary life. The war-worn and depopulated lands of Southern Portugal were sorely in need of tillers. It must be the business of his captains, the Navigator decided, to supply this need. A point of interest in connection with this is that it was owing to their intimate association with the Portuguese, whose ex- ample they copied, that the English first approached the coasts of Spanish America as carriers of those slaves who were destined to labor in the mines and plantations of the conquistador es. The noises of these great discoveries sounded but dully in the ears of most of the Northern Europeans, who had small means of grasping fully what was afoot. But the case was very different with those English who, encour- aged by the crown and welcomed by the inhabitants, found themselves in Portugal at that period. These saw with their own eyes the return of the deeply laden gal- leons, as their painted bows breasted the rapid tide of the broad Tagus. They watched the processions bear- ing treasure, spices, strange woods, and stranger aborig- 8 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA inal Imman beings from the landing place at Belem to the center of Lisbon. They heard, moreover, with their own ears the barking of the cannon and the booming of the church bells that saluted the return of a rich armada from the Indies or Brazil. Many of them made overtures to the returned mariners, and, over deep cups of Lisbon wine, listened eagerly to the tales of the glittering South — tales of what the sailors had actually seen, as well as those vaporings of their vivid imaginings concerning what lay behind the mere fringe of the New World that they had so far ex- plored. When these tales floated northwards from the blue skies to the gray, they were answered by a stir in the blood of the Englishmen, more especially in the West, the center of the chief intercourse with Portugal, where the bales of cloth slid down into the holds and the barrels of wine rumbled out on to the quays. We thus at length arrive in England, together with these amazing reports and rumors ! Very soon the echoes of these began to be heard in Plymouth, where William Hawkins, a fine old sailor of King Henry the Eighth's, was preparing to unfurl his sails for the first equatorial voyage ever made by an Englishman with an English crew. But before we get into the stride of this — or into the wash of Hawkins' wake, whichever you prefer — let us dispose of three remaining preliminary matters and thus clear the decks for consecutive action. The first of these concerns the story of Eobert Machin, almost certainly the first Englishman, mythical or phys- ical, to sail the Western Ocean. The legend runs that in the first half of the fourteenth century there lived in the southwest of England a man, Robert Machin, of a gentle but impoverished family. In an ill-starred moment he became enamored of a lady, Anna d'Arset, of a rank superior to his own. In addition to her noble birth, Anna d'Arset possessed rare beauty, large fortune, and stern ROMANTIC PERIOD IN SOUTH AMERICA 9 relatives. These last, observing with sordid anger that the Lady Anna regarded Machin with favor, caused him to be fiung into prison, and presently forced Anna d'Ar- set into a marriage with an abhorred but wealthy noble- man. The marriage once celebrated, all futile romance was considered at an end. The detested husband bore his bride away to his castle near Bristol, and Machin, now considered a negligible factor, was released from his cell. But his persecutors had failed to reckon with the real ardor of the foiled lover. Machin, collecting a small band of tried friends, proceeded to Bristol, and opened his plan of campaign. He succeeded in communicating with the Lady Anna, whose conjugal ideas appear to have been in advance of her times, and eventually procured her es- cape from the castle. This once effected, the entire party fled from Bristol in a small vessel, hoping to reach France. But the elements showed no greater pity upon the lovers than had Anna d'Arset's family. Assailed by tempestuous weather, the amateur sailors missed their desired port, and in great tribulation were tossed about for days on the broad, roaring ocean. On the dawn of the fourteenth morning, the hapless wanderers discerned the loom of a dark mass across the waters. Full daylight revealed an island. They had ar- rived at a fair spot, Madeira. The storm had died away ; all was peace and sunshine now. White and yellow birds flitted about the vessel, while for a background stood the fairylike island. Here Machin landed, accompanied by his ladylove and some others of the party. But misfortune still dogged the pair. Lost in the rapture evoked by their surround- ings, the small company delayed the landing of such few necessary articles as they had brought with them. A sudden tempest arose and blew the vessel from its an- chorage out to sea. The next morning there was no trace of it, nor of the party that had remained on board. This 10 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA final catastrophe marked the end of the beautiful Anna d'Arset, doubtless much weakened by her sufferings at sea. Neither the beauty of the spot nor the presence of Machin sufficed to counteract the shock. She expired in the arms of her agonized lover, and he, for his part, sur- vived her but a few days. Machin 's last request to his friends was that his re- mains should be placed in the same grave with those of his beloved. His wish was faithfully executed. Above the bodies of the ill-fated couple was erected an altar shaded by the branches of a stately tree. Upon the altar was inscribed the tragic history of Machin and Anna d'Arset, and a pious request that if Christians should ever come to settle in the island they should erect a church upon the spot. A number of the earlier historians seem inclined to give full credence to this story. Gaspar Fructuoso, the sixteenth-century Portuguese chronicler, for one, en- deavors with some seeming success to pick up links con- necting the tales told by the survivors of Machin 's voy- age with the accepted discovery of the island by the one-eyed explorer, Joao Gon§alves Zarco, in 1420. Even at the present day the very rare visitors to the lit- tle Madeirense town of Machico — the nomenclature is sig- nificant^ — are shown a very small and ancient chapel, which is said to be in part the original building which Zarco piously constructed over the bodies of the dead lovers. But the features of the tale, if they ever existed in material life, are much obscured by the mist of ages. Perhaps at this stage of the book it may seem that I have dragged in Machin and the Lady Anna rather superflu- ously by their dead or mythical heels. I have merely in- troduced them to show the possibility that an Englishman made an excursion into the Western Ocean before any other European plowed it with his keel on his way to the Americas in search of the road to India. ROMANTIC PERIOD IN SOUTH AMERICA 11 The second matter may be tackled with considerably more assurance, since, concerning Sebastian Cabot, it rests at least on a secure historical basis. The memory of Cabot, great navigator and explorer though he was, suffers just a little from the variety of his interests, when living. The name of Columbus, though himself an Ital- ian, is an indissoluble part of the birthright of every Spaniard. There are other explorers, too, whose feats have made them part and parcel of a land which could not claim them by birth or descent. But the case of Cabot is not on all fours with any of these. A Venetian by birth and an Englishman by choice, he served the Spanish Empire as well as the land of his adoption. On this account it is a little difficult to determine the neighborhood of his correct niche in his- tory. It is doubtless owing to this that some inevitable neglect has supervened, and that many of the more inti- mate details of his career are unknown. * ' He gave Eng- land a continent," says an American author, *'and no one knows his burial-place." Some side issues of the evil fate which has dogged this great man's memory enter even into these pages, for, although Cabot, having two Englishmen in his company, sailed southwards to investigate Brazil and the river Plate in 1527, and thus formed one of the first flight of the explorers of the South American mainland, he achieved this not in the English service but as a high official of the Spanish marine. So, for the particular purposes of this book Cabot must remain unclaimed, and the first of the English keels to enter the Southern Ocean and our picture must be that of the first of the three most notable generations of navigating Hawkins'. Before setting sail with him we must take a rapid sur- vey of South America as it was when the first flight of seamen from the North were preparing to invade its pri- vacy. When William Hawkins set sail from Plymouth in 12 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA 1530, the tide of Iberian colonization had not yet swollen to its full flood. Spain had succeeded in planting her foot firmly on the coast of what is now Venezuela and on the Isthmus of Panama, whence she was preparing to send her forces southwards to conquer the Pacific slope. But the great Empire of the Incas still lay intact among its gigantic mountain ranges, and Pizarro had not yet destroyed the Inca rule, nor slain the Emperor Atahu- alpa, nor plundered the heavy gold of the sacred cities near Lake Titicaca. It was only on the eve of such mighty occurrences as these that William Hawkins sailed his ship out of Plym- outh. At that period, too, was still lacking the Span- ish colonizing stream which, headed by Pedro de Men- doza, was to set in from the southeast and embrace the countries of the river Plate and Paraguay. The coast of Brazil had been explored by Cabral, Pin- zon, and others, and the wonted stone pillars engraved with the arms of Portugal had been left at various points on the shore. Moreover, the Portuguese, following an- other custom of theirs, had marooned a few of their condemned criminals among various tribes of the coastal Indians — a procedure which had a double advantage in that it served to test the real sentiments of the Indians (for if the Portuguese were found alive in their midst by any subsequent expedition it might be taken for granted that the natives were friendly!), and to prepare, by this humble and somewhat maculate instrumentality, the mind of the aboriginal for the advent of the white man. But the actual settlements of the Portuguese on the Brazilian coast had as yet scarcely come into being. Bahia, the first real center of Portuguese colonization, was still the haunt of Indians, and Kio de Janeiro itself had not yet even been discovered. It was only on a narrow strip of the right shoulder of the continent, therefore, that active colonizing was pro- ROMANTIC PERIOD IN SOUTH AMERICA 13 ceeding. Elsewhere the red-skinned South American In- dian was still permitted to attend to his own affairs himself and had not yet been forced into the fatally hard labor of the mines, which sent so many millions of these unfortunate folk to their death. It is true that the pity which cannot fail to be meted out for the sufferings of these long-dead Indians is in some instances apt to be tempered by a closer acquaintance with some branches of the modem race. After reading ''Richard Spruce," for instance, the inclination is to be- stow an extra amount of commiseration on the aboriginal female and a lesser amount on the male. That botanist's opinion of the average Indian of the forests with whom he was brought into contact was that : "He is naturally apathetic and dislikes exertion; but he makes his wife work like a slave. On the Rio Negro I have seen the poor women grating mandiocca by moon- light until midnight; and they must be stirring before daybreak to give their husband his morning drink ; while he, extended in his hammock, is warming his nether ex- tremities near a fire which must not be allowed to go out. When I had seen this, I felt no pity for the Indian when the white man took him by force to row his boats and do other work for him." But this comment affords no excuse for the methods adopted by the conquistador es. Those who endeavor to follow the workings of fate and of a poetic justice, which is only too rare on this earth, may derive an instance from the retribution which over- took the Spaniards in their inhuman policy toward the aboriginal tribes. So stupendous was the wastage of native life that the Indian's best friend. Bishop Las Casas, saw no other remedy but the homeopathic measure of the introduction of the Negro slave — in order that the sturdy African should bear part of the other's burden, and that, instead of the extinction of the one race, the two should continue to live and to labor side by side. 14 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA The remedy served well enough to tide over the crisis : but it was in this remedy that lay the seeds of incalculable loss and tribulation to the Spaniards of the succeeding generations. For it was this transport of the Negro slave from West Africa to South America that brought upon the scene such men as Sir John Hawkins and his bold sea-dogs. And when the Spaniards, resenting the growing familiarity of these sailors with their tropical coasts, turned upon them to chase them away, they fre- quently enough found the proof that they had caught a tartar in the torn planks of their sinking galleons and the smoke and flames of their burning coast towns. So the early English navigators — although they had no intention of posing for the part — of which, indeed, they were profoundly unconscious — served as very efficient avenging spirits of the countless slaughtered Indians. At the same time it must be candidly supposed that this retribution would never have been brought about had not the Spaniards begun their long, incessant, and hopeless struggle to retain as their close and private property the territories of a continent and a half ! It is clear enough now that no empire, however ma- jestic, could build a fence strong enough to shut off so large a part of the world from the rest of the earth's inhabitants. But Spain made a conscientious and costly endeavor to achieve the impossible, and it was in the course of frustrating this attempt that the admirable group of Elizabeth's English sailors learned much of their seamanship ! CHAPTER II THE FIKST ENGLISH MAEINEKS TO SAIL THE SPANISH MAIN William Hawkins not the first Englishman to sail South American seas — Sir Thomas Pert — Thomas Tison — William Hawkins' voyage to the Brazilian coast — Marine superstitions of the period — William Haw- kins' intercourse with the Brazilian Indians — One of these latter is taken to England to be shown to King Henry VIII — Notwithstanding the Indian's death, the English hostage is released by the Brazilians on William Hawkins' return to Brazil — Other early voyagers — Robert Reniger — Thomas Borey — Thomas Pudsey — Sir John Hawkins — Span- ish attitude toward foreign seamen — Pope Alexander VI's division of the earth — Establishment of the Inquisition in Lima — John Haw- kins carries slaves from West Africa to Spanish America — Respecta- bility of the sixteenth-century slave trade — General theories concern- ing the Negro — John Hawkins' financial supporters — Reception of his squadron in Hispaniola and on the mainland — A profitable expedi- tion — John Hawkins' second voyage — Episodes in West Africa — Trade complications in Spanish America — The ways of imperial ofiicialdom — On his next voyage John Hawkins is accompanied by Drake — Drake's youth — How his early days were spent — Hawkins' squadron off West Africa — Fruitless treaty with a Negro potentate — Increas- ing official difiiculties concerning the disposal of slaves in Spanish America — John Hawkins storms Rio de la Hacha — His squadron treacherously attacked in the harbor of San Juan de Ulloa — Losses of the English after a desperate defense — Escape of John Hawkins in the Minion, and of Drake in the Judith — Privations endured on the homeward voyage — Drake's voyage in the Pacha — El Draque avenges San Juan de Ulloa — Depredations on the Spanish Main — The Pacific sighted — Captain John Oxenham penetrates to these for- bidden waters — His achievements there — Some of his men betrayed by fioating feathers — Capture and execution of his company — Drake, Queen Elizabeth, and King Philip of Spain — ^Circumnavigation of the world — His squadron, men, and sentiments — Some episodes of the voyage — Paraphernalia of a progress of state — Feats of compression — Drake loses his cap to a Southern Indian — Tha tragedy of San Julian — Execution of Captain Doughty — ^The Golden Hind sails alone into the Pacific Ocean — The rich reward of his daring — The toll of the South Sea — Lady Elliott Drake and Miss Zelia Nuttall on Sir Francis Drake — A notable map — Episodes on the Pacific coast — Effect on the morale of the Spaniards — Drake's last voyage — In the course of a J5 16 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA less successful expedition — Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake die witliin a short period of each other — Andrew Barker's voyage — Mutinous spirit of the officers and crew — Punishment dealt out to the survivors of an imfortunate expedition — Richard Hawkins' voy- age to the Spanish Main in 1593 — His theories concerning the nomen- clature of ships — His prolonged fight against an overwhelmingly su- perior Spanish fleet, commanded by Don Beltran de Castro — His im- pressions and observations — Chivalry displayed by the Spaniards — Some notable booty. THAT fine old sailor, William Hawkins, has some just — if comparatively vicarious! — demands on posterity, for the reason that he was the father of Sir John Hawkins. But, beyond this, he has more varied claims to celebrity. He was the first English- man who ever let fly the sails of his own ship to belly out before the trade winds, and to bear his staggering vessel on a successful voyage down the latitudes, leaving the Spanish Main to the north, as far as the coast of Brazil. It must not be gathered from this that William Haw- kins was the first Englishman to sail the South American seas. As early as 1516 a certain Sir Thomas Pert, in company with Sebastian Cabot, is said to have penetrated to these waters, and to have made a half-hearted attempt at a landing at the island of Hispaniola. But, according to Hakluyt, it appears that Sir Thomas Pert was one ''whose faint heart was the cause that the voyage tooke none effect; if, I say, such manly courage, whereof wee have spoken, had not at that time beene wanting, it might happily have come to passe, that that rich treasurie called Perularia, (which is nowe in Spaine in the Citie of Sivill, and so named, for that in it is kept the infinite riches brought thither from the newfoundland of Peru) might long since have beene in the tower of London, to the kings great honour and wealth of this realme." Nor was William Hawkins the first Englishman to set his foot on South American — or West Indian — soil. It is known that in 1526 there was resident somewhere in THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 17 the depths of those then mysterious latitudes an English- man named Thomas Tison, who is supposed to have acted secretly as the agent of some English merchants, and to whom consignments of armor and other commodities were sent from time to time. Beyond this, nothing seems to be known of the enterprising spirit of Thomas Tison. In Pedro de Mendoza's expedition, moreover, which sailed from Seville in 1534, and which founded the first European settlements in the Rio de la Plata and in Para- guay, were two or three Englishmen, the names of two of which are thus rendered in the Spanish records: Richarte Limon and Juan de Rute. William Hawkins, the first Englishman who success- fully sailed his own ship to South America, is said to have been one of King Henry VIII 's most valued sea-captains. William Hawkins made three voyages to Brazil. On his first voyage he left the port of Plymouth in the year 1530. This was only some thirty years after the Portuguese navigators had first set eyes on that tropical shore, and those on board his vessel — the Paul of Plymouth, of two hundred and fifty tons — seemed to have been little con- cerned with the scanty Portuguese colonists of that pe- riod. William Hawkins appears to have picked up a certain amount of information by one means and another. So that, although he was sailing into seas unknown to him, he was at all events spared the terrors of the first Latin mariners of the Atlantic, who, when caught up in the ceaseless and unchanging rush of the trade winds, made certain that their wicked and damnable daring in trying to penetrate into the regions beyond the world was being punished, and that Satan had sent this extraordinary breeze to blow them straight into the mouth of hell, which was supposed to be yawning redly somewhere below the horizon just ahead. Hawkins arrived in Brazil before the coast had been regularly settled by the Portuguese, and when he cast 18 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA anchor before those shining tropical beaches backed by their palms he had an opportunity of personal inter- course with the Indians. He was anxious to show one of these painted and feathered specimens of humanity to King Henry VIII — a desire that seems to have been a popular weakness of that period. Where we are satis- fied to-day with bringing home a monkey or a paroquet, the sixteenth-century traveler had large ideas, and pre- ferred a human curiosity! So when William Hawkins sailed back to England he bore with him a Brazilian chief, as a hostage, for whose safe return he had left behind one of his ship's company, Martin Cockaram of Plymouth. The Brazilian chief duly arrived in England, and was exhibited in his feathers and paint, in fact, *'in all his wild accoutrements" to bluff King Hal, who doubtless laughed at the man as bluffly as he did at most things. In- deed, as the chronicler continues, he was one: *'at the sight of whom the King and all the nobility did not a little marvaile, and not without cause, for in his cheekes were holes made according to their savage manner, and therein small bones were planted, standing an inch out from the said holes, which in his owne country was re- puted for a great braverie. ' ' But the poor denizen of the land of palms and sun- shine and blinding white sand did not long survive the sensation he had caused. His was the fate of many fellow martyrs, to say nothing of millions of those marmosets and parrots already referred to! Strange people, stranger food, and strangest climate proved rapidly fatal to the first native of Brazil who set his foot on the shores of England. It is true that when William Hawkins set out again for Brazil in 1532 the Indian was still alive. True to his word, William Hawkins took him on board his vessel, but the man — with a complete and provoking disregard for the safety of Martin Cockaram of Plymouth — died THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 19 on the outward voyage. Nevertheless, on the arrival of the vessel, when explanation had been made and be- lieved, Cockaram was freely allowed to return to his compatriots, a circumstance which redounds infinitely to the good faith of both parties. After this there are some sufficiently vague accounts of various voyages undertaken about 1540 with profit to Brazil by the Southampton merchants, Robert Eeniger and Thomas Borey. In 1542, moreover, a certain Thomas Pudsey of Southampton is said not only to have sailed out to Bahia de Todos os Santos in Brazil, but actually to have built a fort there. The next to take up the quest of regular commerce in the southern seas was William Hawkins ' son, the famous Sir John, who undertook his first important voyage in 1562. By this time, the frontier delimitations of the whole globe had been settled between the Spaniards and Portu- guese. Pope Alexander VI, when appealed to, had ar- ranged the afiPair in a manner which contemporary opinion considered as inspired. He had simply taken a pen, and had drawn a direct line one hundred leagues westward of the Azores from pole to pole. Excluding Europe, the effect of this partition — though the boundary was after- wards moved closer to the setting sun — was that all the lands and oceans to the west of this line belonged to the Spaniards, and all the lands and oceans to the east of it became the property of the Portuguese. This is undoubtedly the most comprehensive present ever recorded in history. Moreover, the mere fact of a subsequent heretic protest to the effect that the Pope had won this record reputation for generosity at the expense of other people's property scarcely affected the value of the gift at the time it was made ! By this time, too, the lesser lights of the Roman Church had been busy in their own way, and as early as 1533 the Inquisition set out across the ocean and established itself 20 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA in its dungeon-infested palace in Lima in order to be prepared with some acute physical discouragements for those heretics who might dare to sully the South Amer- ican atmosphere with the blight of some foreign faith ! So the empire of the New World had already issued its warning and clanged to its gates, when the free-lance, John Hawkins, dared to sail southwards through the bright blue waters and the shoals of flying-fish to the out- raged and threatening shadow of the Spanish Main. His advent heralded an unquiet period for the authorities of the Indies, for he was the first bold wasp to buzz about the ears of the Spanish giant. Hawkins' first relations with the Spaniards of South America were by no means hostile. His little vessels — the Soloman, the Swallow, and the Jonas — of which the largest was of 120 tons and the smallest 40 — carried that cargo for which the whites of South America were clam- oring. Under the reeking hatches her hold was crammed full of valuable black ivory — Negro slaves ! Hawkins had sailed from England to Sierra Leone, and had gathered these in with the scant ceremony to which the unfortunate human chattels were destined to become accustomed in those days. It is no doubt regrettable enough that the English should have made their first definite trading appearance in South America in the light of slave carriers. But the ethics of the sixteenth century differed widely from those of to-day. At that period there was no question even of by how much the Negro was less than the white ; the only surmise was by how little he was better than the beasts ! This doubt was fully shared by the clergy, who, for a long period after the Negro had become Chris- tianized, hesitated to admit him to the sacraments. In fact, although humane persons were protesting against the ill-treatment of slaves, it was far from occurring either to cleric or to layman that there was anything rep- rehensible in the actual traffic in human beings. THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 21 Indeed, John Hawkins had very solid commercial com- pany in his venture, for, "being amongst other partic- ulars assured, that negroes were very good Marchandise in Hispaniola, and that store of negroes might easily bee had upon the coast of Guinea, resolved with himself to make triall thereof, and communicated that devise with his worshipfuU friendes of London: namely mth Sir Lionell Ducket, Sir Thomas Lodge, M. Gunson his father in law. Sir William Winter, M. Bromfield, and others. All which persons liked so well of his intention, that they became liberall contributers and adventurers in the ac- tion." It is important for Hawkins ' repute that this should be made clear. His morality must no more be judged by this commerce than must Queen Elizabeth's table man- ners from the fact that she — and all her courtiers — fre- quently used fingers where we should use forks. John Hawkins was not going in the least against contemporary opinion when he carried to Hispaniola three hundred of those unwilling but profitable passengers! If anything will make this clear it is his instructions to the officers of his squadron on a subsequent slave-carry- ing voyage: "Serve God dayly, love one another, pre- serve your victuals, beware of fire, and keep good com- panie." These show to us John Hawkins as we would have him : they are emphatically not the words of a man with an evil conscience. There may yet come a time when we of to-day shall be held up to unborn generations as interesting examples of a barbarous age when men forced horses to labor by flogging them and by stabbing steel points into their sides ! When Hawkins arrived off the great Island of His- paniola he was received with mixed feelings. So great had become the demand for Negroes that — although the local authorities fumed and chafed — he was welcomed by S2 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the colonists with open arms, and managed to dispose of his sorry human wares at an enormous profit. As a re- sult, his three ships, accompanied now by two additional freighters, returned, loaded as deep as they could con- veniently sail with hides, ginger, sugar, and some far less bulky packets of pearls ! So brilliant were the financial results of this trip that Hawkins undertook another voyage with two ships and two barks in 1564. On this occasion his squadron was a considerably more imposing one. It consisted of the Jesus of Luheck, a great ship of some 700 tons ; the Tiger, a bark of 50 tons, and the Soloman and Sivallow, which had accompanied him on the previous voyage. The squadron was manned by 170 men. In the course of their slave gathering on the west coast of Africa the expedi- tion would seem to have come into contact with some peculiarly unsophisticated tribes of Africans, who at first took no notice of the arquebuses, ''but used a mar- vellous crying in their fight with leaping and turning their tayles, that it was most strange to see, and gave us great pleasure to beholde them. At the last, one being hurt with a harquebuz upon the thigh, looked upon his wound and wist not howe it came, because hee could not see the pellet." Then, w^hen the hungry holds had been restocked with human freight, the vessels sailed across the warm ocean to the tropical islands of the Spanish Empire. But this time the various Spanish governors showed themselves more resolute in their determination to pre- vent any trade between these foreigners and heretics — intruding now for the second time — and the colonists. Moreover, when these latter met with a governor who was more amenable in this respect, they found that both the officials and the colonists were now intent on obtain- ing the slaves at a price which was very far below their market value. There were more departments than is usually imagined in the profession of an Elizabethan navi- THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 23 gator. Hawkins had now to meet these Spanish wiles with some guile of his own. So he sent for the "princi- pals of the Towne, and made a shewe hee would depart, declaring himselfe to be very sory that he had so much troubled them, and also that he had sent for the gov- ernour to come down, seeing nowe his pretence was to depart." This ruse prevailed, and the Spaniards, falling into the trap, begged him to remain. Nevertheless he had to re- peat such haggler's tricks as this on several occasions before he concluded a satisfactory sale of all his slaves. But when it came to the demand for a royal tax of thirty ducats for every slave sold, stronger measures became necessary. Nothing short of a landing party of one hun- dred men armed to the teeth had to be brought forward as an argument here. But these proved entirely success- ful in convincing the governor that the ordinary tariff of seven and a half per cent, was all that could be reason- ably demanded in this case. After this another feint of departure brought up the buyers in earnest, and the last slaves were satisfactorily disposed of. Then the squadron set sail for England, and arrived safely at Padstow in Cornwall, with a total loss of no more than twenty men, "and with great profit to the venturers of the said voyage, as also to the whole realme, in bringing home both golde, silver, Pearles, and other Jewels great store." On his next voyage Hawkins was accompanied by Drake — El Draque, of the Spaniards — who commanded the little fifty-ton bark Judith. Heroic cycles would seem to belong to the youthful, as is surely exemplified looking backwards from Napoleon's generals across the ages. At the time of this voyage Drake was twenty-two years of age! But he could alreadj^ look back upon an adven- turous life. Drake's early youth in his father's cottage on the beau- tiful banks of the Tavy must have been of a scrambling 2* BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA and rough-and-ready order, for the means of the family- were slender, and he was the eldest of twelve! It may have been his father's appointment as chaplain to the fleet stationed in the Medway which gave young Francis Drake his first taste for the sea — or, to be more accurate, materialized the instinct that had been his from his birth. In any case he was early afloat. At the age of eighteen he had been purser of a bark trading with the ports of Biscay. And now here he was, in command of the little Judith, under the leadership of Hawkins, his commodore and fellow Devonian, on a venture to these balmy new Southern territories that held fabulous riches and moun- tains of gold — somewhere inland ! The expedition, which sailed in 1567, paid its indispen- sable preliminary call on the West African coast. On this occasion they found the natives warier than before. Sambo had no more mind to turn himself into merchandise than had a sheep to transform itself into mutton. But these navigating traders were men of resource. They made an alliance with a Negro king who had fallen out with a neighboring monarch. By the terms of this, Haw- kins, in return for his military assistance, was to receive all the prisoners captured in the proposed battle. When the battle had been fought and the victory had been won, Hawkins observed with pleasure that his dusky ally had captured some six hundred prisoners : he himself had secured two hundred and fifty. But the next morning's sun rose on a scene of vacant deceit ! The African victor had disappeared — and he had taken his six hundred pris- oners with him! The sable potentate, it appears, was also a man of resource! So Hawkins was obliged to set up to the West with no more than the two hundred and fifty Negroes who were the trophies of his own men's prowess. Arrived off Spanish America, they found the colonists were once again only too glad of an opportunity of trading with them. But on this occasion the authorities at Rio de la THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 25 Hacha were firm in their refusal to permit any dealings with the foreigners. Enraged at this, Hawkins stormed the town, though the nations were at peace, and succeeded in secretly disposing of all but fifty of his slaves to the colonists in the night. But this act cost him the bitter enmity of the Spaniards. Soon after this a storm drove Hawkins' squadron to the north, and they took shelter at the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulloa, where a number of treasure ships lay at anchor. The situation was a curious one, and doubtless the English sailors fretted not a little at their bits at being crowded so temptingly close together in the small harbor with these vessels laden with gold and silver. Nevertheless they honorably kept the peace, and suffered the treasure to remain in what they considered the wrong holds ! As for the Spanish officials of the port, they be- gan to breathe freely again when they found that these dreaded Northern sailors only required to purchase some victuals. The next day thirteen Spanish vessels appeared off the harbor. Hawkins, viewing this spectacle with some unease, sent to ascertain their intentions, and received an assurance that these were friendly. So, unopposed by the English, the thirteen vessels entered the already crowded harbor. That which followed has been told many hundred times. The Spaniards broke faith, and the quiet of the port was shattered by the sudden din of battle and slaughter, as the Spaniards treacherously took advantage of the close proximity of the vessels to attack the English. The majority of these were slaughtered before they had time to prepare themselves for defense (Sir Francis Drake is reported on a subsequent occasion to have esti- mated the dead at three hundred), but some were en- abled to take a heavy toll of their assailants. Before the fight was ended the Spanish admiral 's vessel and two of her consorts were destroyed, and presently the lazy, flap- 26 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ping buzzards glutted themselves with equal zest on Eng- lish and Spanish corpses. Only the Minion, in which was Hawkins, and the little Judith, commanded by Drake, managed to escape. Un- prepared for sea as they were, they made their way to England as best they could, and — mauled and short- handed — arrived in a pitiable condition, their crews hav- ing barely kept themselves alive on the ships' rats and on their pet monkeys and parrots, and such other crea- tures as they had collected. ''If all the miseries and troublesome affaires," says John Hawkins bitterly, ' ' of this sorrowf ull voyage should be perfectly and thoroughly written, there should neede a painefull man with his pen, and as great a time as he had that wrote the lives and deaths of the Martyrs." An English Merchant, John Chilton, who is quoted later, remarked on a relic of the tragic expedition which he saw in the Mexican town of Tehuantepec: "Heere in the yeere 1572 I saw a piece of ordinance of brasse, called a demy culverin, which came out of a ship called the Jesus of Lubec, which captaine Hawkins left in S. Juan de Ulloa, being in fight with the Spanyards in the yeere 1568 ; which piece they afterwards carried 100 leagues by land over mighty mountains to the sayd city, to be embarked there for the Philippinas. " The careers of Hawkins and Drake seem to have been curiously bound up with one another. This first really serious misfortune in the careers of both they suffered in company, and the two were destined to sail together in their final great venture — the memorable voyage from which neither returned. The actual monetary loss incurred by the expedition in this attack at San Juan de Ulloa was two millions of ducats ; but it would have taken a great many such dis- asters to discourage that great seaman Drake perma- nently. Four years or so after that affair he hoisted his sails again for the forbidden coasts in the Pacha, a THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 27 vessel of seventy tons, and his brother accompanied him in the Swan, a little craft of twenty-five tons. Here was a typical expedition such as set out from the west country in those days : a squadron of two vessels not mustering a hundred tons between the pair of them, and having a total complement of seventy-three men and boys ! It is true that Drake was subsequently joined on the South American coast by an Isle of Wight ship, com- manded by a Captain Rawse, that brought the strength of his crews up to one hundred and fifty men. But even so, what a force with which to tweak the might of Spain in its own waters ! It is only possible, of course, to follow the doings of Drake and of his peers in the most sketchy fashion here. It is — or should be — a matter of commonest history how the Pacha became a terror to the Spanish Main, and how fully El Draque avenged San Juan de Ulloa. He paid special attention to the Isthmus of Panama, for it was across this that ran the famous ''gold roan," the track cut through the dense tropical forest, along which the trains of laden mules transported the riches of Peru and the Pacific to the Atlantic coast for shipment to Europe. And when Drake and his men, boldly penetrating in- land, planted themselves astride this road, there was a pretty flutter among the royal caravans, and a profitable spilling of gold and silver! It was on one of these incursions that Drake, between the graceful palm-tops and the bright festoons of tropical flowers, caught sight of the Pacific Ocean glittering in the distant West. Then and there he swore an oath that he would one day navigate those forbidden waters for the honor of England. But, though he kept his word, he was not destined to be the first Englishman to float upon those waters. John Oxenham has that honor. In 1575 that daring captain sailed to the neck of the continent with seventy men in a ship of one hundred and forty tons, ran his vessel ashore. 28 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA concealed her with a mass of tropical vegetation, and forced his way with all his men through the dense forests of the isthmus until he gained the Pacific shore. There he built himself a pinnace forty-five feet in length, and in it he and his men floated at length upon the strictly guarded waters of the South Sea ! The material rewards of this great venture were not long in forthcoming. Of two barks captured, the one yielded sixty thousand pesos in gold, the other, one hun- dred thousand pesos in silver. After obtaining some pearls, in addition, he proceeded inland up the river. The outraged Spaniards were now in full chase. A strong force of men sped to the mouth of the stream. Here they lay in doubt for a while as to which of the three branches they should ascend, when a great many birds' feathers, floating down in light betrayal on the water, revealed which of the streams it was up which the English had traveled. Never had plucked birds a more dramatic posthumous revenge! Owing to this a small party of Englishmen was dis- covered near the spot, and, in the end, after a fierce fight, John Oxenham, and those of his men who had not been slain, were made prisoners. Most of his men were hanged at Panama, though one or two boys were spared ; but Oxenham and two or three others were taken to Lima, and were imprisoned there for a considerable time before being executed as a penalty for their daring. When it came to Drake's turn to navi- gate the Pacific he had reason to suspect that these com- rades of his were actually imprisoned in the dungeons of Lima, w^hen he was off Callao, the port of that town. But neither warnings and threats directed to the viceroy, nor an attack on the shipping of the harbor, could effect their release, and Drake was forced, reluctant, to sail away and to leave Oxenham and his men to the mercies of the Inquisition. But all this has brought us ahead of our proper period. THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 29 Drake returned to England with his vessels deeply laden with booty. Elizabeth — who, with all her varied virtues, never lacked an eye to the main chance — re- ceived him cordially, and extended to him her royal en- couragement to set out again. *'We do account that he who striketh at thee, Drake, striketh at us," said the Queen. A more tangible mark of her favor was a green scarf with ornamental red bands at both ends, on which were embroidered it is said, by her maids of honor — the words, '^The Lord guide and preserve thee until the ende." And then, no doubt, she sent a message to Philip of Spain complaining how little control she had over people like Sir F.rancis Drake ! Elizabeth was a great queen, but she had her weaknesses, not the least of which was that of opposing guile to ponderous force, and of indulging in that diplomat pastime which modern slang would know as pulling Philip of Spain's leg! She found a more than willing horse in Drake, whose views exactly coincided with those of the Queen. In- deed, it was no doubt with considerable glee that he pro- pounded his theories to her concerning the chastening of Philip of Spain, explaining the ' * smale good that was to be done in Spayne, but thonly waye was to anoy hym by his Indyes." The next voyage was the most famous that Drake un- dertook, for it was in the course of this that he circum- navigated the world. This feat, as a matter of fact, had already been accomplished by Magellan's expedition. But, since Magellan had been slain on the homeward way, it followed that Drake, although his expedition was the second, was himself actually the first commanding navi- gator to sail round the world. So far as the material side of the expedition was con- cerned, Drake seems to have intended this more espe- cially in reprisal for the surprise attack on Hawkins' squadron at San Juan de Ulloa. For all its insignificant 30 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA size, it was to be a punitive fleet. Drake himself made some rather quaint and humorous observations concern- ing his objects : * * For the reason that the King had, since that time, been his treasurer for the sum that had been taken from him ten years ago, he now wished to act as treasurer of the King's estate. Therefore the silver which he took from the King was for himself ; the silver taken from private individuals was for his Queen, his Sovereign Lady. ' ' He embarked on this voyage in 1577, and this time he set out with some pomp. It is true that the largest vessel of his five ships, the Pelican, was of no more than 120 tons, while the smallest, the Christopher, was a cockleshell of 15 tons. The total number of his ** gentle- men and sailors," too, was only 164. Nevertheless, since this mission of Drake's was of a far more official character than his previous undertakings, he made a brave show of it. He saw no reason why the Dons should have it all their own way in the matter of dignity and splendor. So he adorned his cabin with much silver, and many handsome fittings. "Whereby," as he said with no little reason, ''the credit and magnificence of his native country might ... be all the more ad- mired. ' ' Who can fail to admire the shrewd intelligence of Drake! Three centuries and a half ago he had already discovered that which sovereigns and statesmen have only fully begun to realize to-day — that a little judicious advertising may benefit captains, cruises, countries, and causes quite as much as merchants who own shop win- dows, and have goods to sell ! Drake's thoroughness did not end here. He engaged what he described as "an orchestra of expert musicians" who should serve to make his entry into the Southern Seas the more imposing. The addition of this harmoni- ous luxury to the crowded space must have involved an astonishing feat in the way of packing, when the size of THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 31 the little Pelican is remembered. Indeed, how these musicians — crammed sardine-like together with the ser- ried inhabitants, provisions, and warlike stores of a vessel that did not much exceed in size a modern sailing trawler — could have delivered themselves of sweet strains is not easy to understand. Yet we are told that they did, and that they gave many pleasant entertainments in tropical seas both to Drake's fellow countrymen and to his Spanish prisoners. How was it done? How was this extraordinary feat of compression achieved? The main secret undoubtedly lay in the fact that the value of ventilation and elbow room had not yet been discovered! After all, the region of comfort is included in that of science, which means that its benefits have to be sought for as assiduously as were once the unknown lands of the earth. But there all similarity ends; for, whereas the horizon of the earth has steadily contracted, that of science has expanded with an astonishing rapidity. Surely the sense of discomfort is only awakened by the knowledge of something better ! We, who travel in town- like liners, probably do not pity the cooped-up commu- nity of the Judith any more deeply than Drake's men com- miserated their remote forefathers who pushed out from the shore in little round basket-like coracles of hide ! Drake sailed southwards along the ocean track that was gradually becoming familiar. He snapped up some prizes in the Atlantic, and then, taking in fresh water in the broad estuary of the river Plate, bore southwards to the ''roaring forties," driving through the warm belt of the tropics to the wild and gray waters on the further side, until he came to an anchorage where the uncouth Southern Indians proved themselves moderately friendly, and some intercourse was attempted. Judging by the following occurrence these wild people were no respec- tors of persons ; ''These people would not of a long time receive any- thing at our handes; yet at length our generall being 32 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ashore, and they dauncing after their accustomed manner about him, and hee once turning his backe towards them, one leapt suddenly to him, and tooke his cap with his golde band off his head, and ran a little distance from him and shared it with his fellow, the cap to the one, and the band to the other." Such an incident must have been irritating in the ex- treme ; but Drake undoubtedly restrained his temper, for no untoward incident followed. After this he set forth to the south again until he arrived at the haven of San Julian, a few degrees north of the eastern entrance to the Straits of Magellan, through which he intended to pass. On the rugged shore of San Julian the English mariners discovered a grim object — a giblet pricking up gauntly against the desolate sky. It was the one, it was imagined, from which Magellan had hung some of his rebellious crew. The bones of the victims, it is even said, were found close by. This must have seemed an ominous mes- sage, left behind by the first ship 's company that had ever gained Europe by that road to the second band of daring men who were about to follow, from Atlantic to Pacific, on their heels ! If the object had been placed there as a warning the sinister omen held good, and the superstition that none could pass with impunity into the Pacific Ocean had yet another link added to the unbroken early chain of tragedy that supported it ! It was in this very bay of San Julian that occurred the execution of Doughty, one of Drake's captains. Both the cause and justice of this act have been in dispute for too many hundreds of years to make it probable that the veil will ever be lifted from the tragedy. It is certain that Drake received the sacrament in com- pany with Doughty on the last day of the condemned man's life. Then the two dined together, pledged each other, and immediately afterwards Doughty, rising from the table, walked out to bare his neck for the executioner 's ax. THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 33 For so young a port, San Julian had a strangely gloomy record. After this Drake navigated the Magellan Straits, where the trees *'seeme to stoope with the burden of the weather," changing the name of his vessel from the Peli- can to the Golden Hind in the middle of the passage. But, when he had emerged into the Pacific and had passed from the stormy southern waters into temperate lati- tudes and sunshine, the Golden Hind sailed alone. Of the two other ships which had been in his company when he left San Julian, one, the Marygold, had been blown by a withering tempest to an unseen death somewhere in the dark and icy South. Captain Winter, of the second vessel, the Elizaheth, appears to have had enough of it, and, in the face of the protests of his crew, put about, achieved the feat — then supposed impossible — of navi- gating the Magellan Straits from west to east, and sailed back to England, arriving at Ilf racombe on the 2d of June, 1579. But Drake went on. That which he achieved with a single ship, manned now by a force of just over eighty men, makes breathless reading. He beat up the Pacific coast, and found the reward of his daring. Tall ships, pieces of eight, bars of gold and silver, precious stuffs, silks, Chile wines and Peruvian jewels: all these came tumbling in rich profusion into his net, while the aston- ished peaks of the Andes looked down with a dry and cold smile. It is true that the manner of boarding the first ship they came across lacked a good deal in polite- ness. For here they were mistaken for friends, and were about to be greeted with the offer of wine when, **one of our company called Thomas Moone began to lay about him, and strooke one of the Spaniards, and sayd unto him, Abaxo Perro, that is in English, Goe downe, dogge." All this time the panic was spreading along the shores of the most private waters of the Spanish South Sea, and, lest the dwellers on those coasts should experience 34 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA an unjustifiable sense of ease and security, now and again Drake would arrange a land excursion ! Indeed the disturbance caused by this unwelcome visit of Drake's was extraordinarily far-reaching. No longer could the loads of silver be carried from one port to an- other in safety on the broad bosom of the Pacific. In- stead of this convenient transport, the ingots had to be placed on the backs of mules and llamas and be painfully and toilfuUy carried across the mountainous country. And all along the coast were now posted points of ob- servation, with the bonfires stacked in readiness to send up their warning smoke. It would seem a curious axiom of history that, the fur- ther one is removed by time from a famous character, the closer are the glimpses obtained of his personality and private habits ! Each separating generation, in fact, seems to throw back a longer ladder of popular knowledge than the last. It is only quite recently, for instance, thanks to the re- spective works of Lady Elliott Drake and Miss Zelia Nuttall, that some of Drake's more intimate touches have been placed on record. To those who have looked on him merely in the light of a bluff sailor his intimate knowledge of the Spanish tongue will come as rather a surprising revelation. Curiously enough, too, it has been left to the recently unearthed testimony of some of his Spanish prisoners to point out Drake 's hobby of painting, and how he and his young cousin, John Drake, would amuse them- selves for hour after hour by painting in Sir Francis' cabin. It is Miss Zelia Nuttall, too, who has pointed out a remarkable proof of Drake 's patriotic ambition and keen judgment, which is also, by the way, referred to in Hak- luyt. This is patent on a map corrected by him — a map on which he has placed a northern limit to Spanish Mex- ico, and on which the words *'Nova Albio" indicate the very territory which afterwards became the southern THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 35 part of the British colonies! This land would seem to be well to the south of that Nova Albio so christened by Drake for two reasons : *' The one in respect of the white bankes and cliffes, which lie towards the sea: and the other, because it might have some affinitie with our Countrey in name, which sometime was so called." To a student of Drake the importance of this discovery is not to be overestimated. ''It thus appears," says Miss Nuttall, "as though the present occupation of the North American continent by the Anglo-Saxon race is, after all, but a realization of what may be called Drake's Dream." To return to the Pacific and to the cruise of the Golden Hind: there is a lighter side to the most weighty adven- tures, and not all the incidents were epoch-making, or even dignified ! There were minor episodes, such as that which occurred one day when a party, having landed, found a Spaniard fast asleep on shore, having thirteen bars of silver by his side. "We took the silver and left the man, ' ' they explained joyfully. They would certainly have stormed a great galleon in the same cheerful mood. But it happened to be very easy hunting that day, and this kind of thing is not likely to go down to history as one of the great incidents of Drake's life! It was cer- tainly a flea bite in the way of plunder compared with the capture of the great Spanish ship Cacafuego, which yielded over £200,000. And a sovereign in those days had as much value as a dozen of our modern ones. Incidentally, there were others besides the Spaniards who suffered in pocket from Drake's visit to these shores. Here for instance is the plaint of an English merchant, John Chilton, one of the few examples of that period who made himself at home among the Spaniards in Europe, and was permitted to sail from the Peninsula to the new world, with apparently all the privileges and rights to Vrode that were possessed by any native-born Spaniard. Chilton must have regarded Drake 's advent with mixed 36 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA feelings, for, when speaking of the town of "Aguatulco" he remarks: "in which place Sir Francis Drake arrived in the yeere 1579, in the moneth of April, where I lost with his being there above a thousand duckets, which he tooke away. ' ' Drake sailed his rich ship home by way of the Molucca Islands, Java, and the Cape of Good Hope, dropping an- chor at Plymouth on the 26th September, 1580, after a voyage of two years and ten months. On his return with enormous treasure Queen Elizabeth most adroitly man- aged to keep the enraged Spanish ambassador at one arm's length while she extended the other to Drake. One day in the spring of the following year the Golden Hind, decorated and burnished, lay at Deptf ord to receive her gracious and virgin Majesty to dinner. When the meats had been eaten and the wines drunk, and when, the music having been enjoyed and the laudatory Latin verses nailed to the masts had been admired, Drake bade fare- well to his royal mistress no longer a plain master, but a knight. In 1585 Drake set out for the Spanish Main again, in command this time of a most formidable fleet of twenty- five vessels manned by some two thousand three hundred men. With him sailed many notable men, and his vice- admiral was no less a personage than Martin Frobisher. Perhaps the most important event of this voyage was the capture of the town of Cartagena, which was eventually ransomed by the Spaniards for the sum of one hundred and ten thousand ducats. In the course of this expedition eight captains and some seven hundred and fifty men lost their lives, either from sickness or wounds ; nevertheless the voyage was regarded as a successful one, and when the fleet arrived at Ports- mouth on the 28th of July, 1586, it was claimed with justice that it was to the "no small honour to our Prince, our Country, and ourselves." It was, of course, inevitable that such raids should have THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 37 had their effect on the morale of the Spaniards, and the tension of the period is revealed in a letter which Hieronima de Navares wrote from Panama in 1590 to the Licenciate Juan Alonso of Valladolid. In this he remarks that : "I can certifie your worship of no newes, but only, that all this countrey is in such extreme feare of the Englishmen our enemies, that the like was never seene or heard of: for in seeing a saile, presently here are alarmes in all the countrey. ' ' Here we have Drake at the height of his fame and suc- cess. Doubtless many, had they achieved half as much as he, would have considered their life's work done, and would have retired to the enjoyment of the soft airs of the west country varied by an occasional trip to court. Not so, Drake ! The call of the Spanish Main was in his blood, and the chastising of the Spaniard had become part of his creed. It was his fate to continue upon the seas to the end, and, his death preceded by the hangings of cannon, and the charges of his forces on Spanish soil, to have his fever-worn body sink beneath the limpid blue swell of the tropical seas. Judging by its strength, this last expedition in which Drake, accompanied by John Hawkins, took part, should have excelled all the previous ones in results. Twenty- one ships and nearly two thousand five hundred men sailed under these famous leaders from Plymouth on the 28th of August, 1595. But the expedition was ill fated. Towns were captured and Spanish forces were defeated in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main, it is true. But in general its objects were frustrated, and a landing force, making for the town of Panama, was assailed on all sides in the woods, and was obliged to retreat with great loss. Before this, fever had begun to work its will on the men of the fleet. Sir John Hawkins was one of the first of the leaders to fall a victim to this. His anxiety on the ac- count of his son, a prisoner in the hands of the Spaniards, b O i? 1 ^ 38 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA had sent him into a condition of depression which was deepened by the news of the capture by the Spaniards of the Francis, one of the vessels of the expedition — a misfortune that revealed its plans to the Spaniards, and thus made the success of the enterprise almost hopeless. His vessel had just cast anchor in an inlet of the east coast of Puerto Rico, when Hawkins died. As fate would have it, his old friend Drake's spirit was within an ace of winging its way to the spot where the souls of all fine sailors go, within a few hours of Hawkins' passage to the same place. As he sat at sup- per in his cabin the next day opposite to the town of Puerto Rico a hea\y shot from the fort on shore crashed in, wounding to death Sir Nicholas Clifford and Mr. Browne, damaging Captain Stratford and one or two others, and actually striking the stool from under Drake himself, without causing him any hurt! But the fever was less merciful. On the 15th of Janu- ary, 1596, Drake was stricken down. He made that gal- lant fight for his life that was to be looked for in such as he, and an hour before his death he rose and attempted to dress himself. On the 28th of January he passed away, and w^as solemnly buried at sea in the presence of Sir Thomas Baskerville and all his captains. We may hark back for a short time to some lesser men than Drake, and to a voyage which was marred chiefly on account of the mutinous conduct of those who partici- pated in it. Master Andrew Barker of Bristol appears to have been a peculiarly unfortunate man. In 1574 a cargo of goods which he had sent to Teneriffe was confis- cated at the instance of the Inquisition. In order to avenge this and to reimburse himself, Andrew Barker fitted out two barks — the Ragged Staff e, of which he him- self was captain and Phillip Roche, master; and the Beare, of which William Coxe of Limehouse was captain and master — and with these he set out for the Spanish colonies. THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 39 From the moment the vessels left Plymouth the tone of their companies seems to have been a little reckless, judging from the conscious, and seemingly unusual, recti- tude betrayed by this phrase : "in our course we met with a ship of London, and afterwards with another ship, but tooke nothing from either of them." Nevertheless, after they had visited Trinidad, where the Indians gave them "friendly and courteous enter- tainment," they found legitimate prey in a Spanish frigate, overhauled near Cartagena, which contained some gold, silver, and emeralds, "whereof one very great being set in gold, was found tied secretly about the thigh of a frier." It may have been the sight of these treasures that in- creased both the greed and the mutinous spirit of Andrew Barker 's officers and men. Judging by the events of the voyage, Andrew Barker could have possessed few of the qualities of a leader. At Veragua his relations with his master had grown so strained that they landed to fight a duel, in the course of which Barker was slightly wounded in the cheek. After this, when off the island of San Francisco, William Coxe, the master of the Beare, took a hand in the general insubordination. Coming on board the Ragged Staff e, he took possession of the ship and its treasure, and sent Barker ashore, where the lat- ter fought with a German of the name Weiborne, both being wounded. So occupied had they been with their own affairs that these turbulent spirits had overlooked the possibility of damage at the hands of the Spaniards. They were re- minded of this by a sudden attack by these on the men ashore, in which the unfortunate Andrew Barker and eight of his men were killed. This disaster appears to have sobered William Coxe for a while. He consented to receive on board again those of the English who survived on the island, and soothed the conscience of his crew by dividing among them 40 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA a golden chain which had been found in Andrew Barker's cabin after his death. But ill luck dogged the expedition. Raiding boat parties were chased by Spanish warships; the captured frigate was capsized in a squall, and in her were lost fourteen lives and much treasure, while shortly after this Philip Roche died. The remnants of the party, having divided among themselves such little booty as remained, returned furtively to England. But there their crimes were brought home to them, and John Barker of Bristol, the brother of the dead Andrew, haled them before the justices. That the chief malefactors were punished by a long term of imprisonment instead of death w^ould seem to prove that, in the opinion of the judges, there had been faults on all hands. The morals to be deducted from this voyage are too abundant and patent to need any emphasis here! On this occasion, moreover, the spirit of poetic justice ap- pears to have been peculiarly thorough, for, although some of the lesser criminals ''escaped the rigor of man's law, yet could they not avoide the heavy judgement of God, but shortly after came to miserable ends. Which may be example to others to shew themselves faithfull and obedient in all honest causes to their Captaines and Governors." Richard Hawkins, the son of John, and therefore of the third South Sea navigating generation of the Haw- kins, sailed for the Spanish Main in 1593. The style in which he describes his numerous adventures is diffuse but quaintly gallant. He tells us that he caused to be constructed in the river of Thames a ship of between three and four hundred tons, "pleasing to the eye, profitable for stowage, good of sayle and well conditioned. ' ' There was a considerable to-do about the naming of this ship. The Lady Hawkins (whom Richard Hawkins terms his mother-in-law by which term he means, I take THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 41 it, his stepmother) craved this privilege. But the name she chose, the Repentance, came as a shock to Richard Hawkins. He considered it uncouth, and told her so. In vain. Lady Hawkins absolutely refused to modify her views on nomenclature. All the satisfaction that he ever obtained from her was her expressed conviction that, ** repentance was the safest ship we could sayle in to purchase the haven of Heaven." This seems to have consoled Richard Hawkins to a certain extent, for he remarks, "Well I knew, shee was no Prophetesse, though a religious and most vertuous lady, and of a very good understanding. ..." At the same time Richard Hawkins has much to say concerning the giving of these names of celestial char- acter. What luck did the Revenge ever have? Had she not been all but cast upon the Irish coast? Had she not run ashore coming into Plymouth, with his father. Sir John, aboard? Had she not all but sunk of a leak off the coast of Spain, turned "topsie-turvie" at her moorings in the river of Rochester, and suffered other catastrophes too numerous too mention ? And in her last voyage, when fifteen hundred Spaniards and three Spanish ships perished about her, did she not give England and Spain just cause to remember her? "What English died in her, many living are witnesses: Amongst which was Sir Richard Greenfield, a noble and valiant gentleman, Vice- Admirall in her of her Majestic 's Fleete, so that well considered she was even a ship loaden and full fraught with ill successe." So much for the Revenge. But, after all, the Repent- ance was not destined to go to sea under so ill-omened a name. As she lay at Deptford, Queen Elizabeth, pass- ing down the river in her barge, caught sight of her, and commanded her men to pull round her. The Queen, ' * viewing her from Post to Stemme, disliked nothing but her Name, and said that shee would Christen her a-new." So the Repentance fell at one royal swoop from her 42 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA austere pinnacle to the opposite and light and airy pole of the Daintie. But this cheering metamorphosis worked no good in the long run. Once in South American waters, after some successful cruising, Hawkins found himself, on a June day in 1594, surrounded by an overwhelmingly superior Spanish fleet under Don Beltran de Castro. Eichard Hawkins made preparations for a most gallant defense, which lasted three days; '*we hayled first with our noise of trumpets; then with our waytes, and after that with our Artillerie. ' ' The English commander has a very great deal to say concerning the lessons that should be learned from this fight — of the best methods of employing ships, cannon, and leaders; of Spanish ideas of discipline and strategy; of the benefits of glistering" armor compared with over- indulgence in the alcoholic cup, and of the foolishness of mixing gunpowder with wine. He does not appear to have been over-sanguine concerning the merits of wine itself, a rare doubt in those days, for he complains : ''Al- though I had a great preparation of Armours, as well of proofe as of light Corseletes, yet not a man would use them ; but esteemed a pott of wine a better defense than an Armour of proofe." But no armor or wine — whatever their respective claims — could hope to prevail against the immense superiority of the Spanish forces. The time came when the Spanish proposals of terms had to be considered seriously, though not until they had been frequently rejected : ''Came wee into the South Sea to put out flagges of truce ? ' ' cries Sir Richard in gallant indignation. "And left we our pleas- ant England with all her contentments with intention and purpose to avail ourselves with white ragges and by ban- ners of peace to deliver ourselves for slaves into our enemies' ranks'?" But what would you? Torn sails, perished masts, rent pumps, fourteen shots under water, eight feet of water in the hold, many slain men, and scarcely a whole one among THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 43 those that survived — these are not the factors with which to snatch a victory against overwhelming odds. Richard Hawkins, himself bleeding from six wounds (" one of them in the necke very perillous") found himself hesitating be- tween two alternatives. In his hand was the glove sent to him as a guarantee of good faith by Don Beltran de Castro; in his memory was the broken Spanish pledge from which his father had suffered at San Juan de UUoa. In the end he struck his colors, the only alternative left him if he wished to preserve a man of his crew alive. In this instance at least he found that his confidence had not been misplaced. When the Spaniards came aboard it was with shouts of "Buena Guerra! Buena Guerra! Hoy por mi, manana por ti!" which may be translated thus: * ' Honorable Warfare ! Honorable Warfare ! To-day to me: to-morrow to thee!" There is surely a most pleasant touch of true chivalry in this, as well as in the reception with which Eichard Hawkins met at the hands of Don Beltran de Castro. For the latter nobleman received him with *' great Courtessie and compassion, even with tears in his eyes, and words of great consolation," and ''commanded mee to bee ac- comodated in his own cabbine where he sought to cure and comfort mee the best he could, the like he used with all our hurt men, sixe and thirtie at least." Presently, at their leisure, the Spanish and the English leader appear to have discussed the exact definitions of pirates, corsairs, and legal and honorable enemies. Sir Richard ''laboured to reforme the idea that the Generall in Peru and in all Spaine held (before our surrendry) of English Men-of-Warre to be pirats and corsarios." In this, being as mighty a man in speech as in war (to say nothing of some outbreaks into what in a less gallant fellow would perilously have approached verbosity) he seems to have succeeded. And then, as the intimacy of the two ripened, Richard Hawkins abandoned general- ities, and broached a topic of considerable personal im- 44 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA portance. He strongly deprecated the custom of making officers (frequently needy) pay a heavy ransom, and ex- cusing the common soldiers (frequently better off than the officers) with the payment of some mere trifle. Considering his comparatively tender years, there is no doubt that Sir Richard was an all-round man, and no mean hand at finance ! And here again Don Beltran de Castro reassured him, for he promised him that, if any ransom at all were exacted, he should ask no more than a couple of greyhounds for himself, and another couple for his brother. There are other instances of Spanish courtesy in vic- tory which afford equally agreeable reading. But the oc- casions were frequent enough when the Iberian mariners, even if they would, had no opportunity of displaying any magnanimity of the kind! Apart from any qualities of seamanship, it was only to be expected that victory should rest most often with the bold and predatory sea-dogs who, fully prepared, swept down like hawks across the blue waters, and disappeared again beneath the shimmering horizon like the greyhounds coveted by Don Beltran de Castro. One of the bitterest pills that the Empire of Spain had to swallow was the fact that at its mightiest it could not always prevent its great galleons from suffering capture practically at the end of their voyage. This occurred with an irritating frequency at the hands of even the Barbary pirates, who, athirst to avenge their fathers' and forefathers' expulsion from Spain, would boldly sally out from time to time, and would strain the bleeding backs of their galley-slaves at the oars to board, almost within sight of its port, many a treasure ship that had toilfuUy sailed its voyage from Puerto Bello or Mexico. It was not only in American waters, moreover, that the English made their prizes. Many a one of these was snapped up off the Spanish coast itself, and occasionally even an outward vessel proved to be laden with a more THE FIRST ENGLISH MARINERS 45 valuable cargo than might reasonably have been expected by the fortunate captor. Of this kind were the two ships captured in 1592 by Master Thomas White in the Amity of London on his homeward voyage from Barbary, after an action in which the Amity's crew of more than forty- two men and a boy used their guns with such accuracy upon the enemy that they ''slew divers of their men; so that we might see the blood run out at the scupper holes. ' ' Hakluyt gives the following account of their contents: ''These two rich prizes were laden with 1400 chests of quicksilver with the armes of Castile and Leon fastened upon them, and with a great quantity of bulles of in- dulgences. . . . The loss in money to the King of Spain from the capture of these bulles was (in hard cash) two millions and 72 thousand for living and dead persons for the provinces of Nova Hispania, lucatan, Guatimala, the Honduras, and the Phillipinas, taxed at two reals the piece. And more for eighteene thousand bulles taxed at foure reals, amounteth all to 107,700 pounds." CHAPTER III THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE WITH SOUTH AMERICA Trade between England and the Early Portuguese settlements in Brazil — Friendly relations at Santos — A burial incident — Liberal spirit dis- played by the clergy — John Whitall — The first English resident in San- tos — His letter to his friends in London — Matters of business and mar- riage — Instructions concerning the first consignment of goods — How local difficulties of pronunciation were overcome — Arrival of the Min- ion with merchandise, and a present for Whitall — Edward Fenton's voyage — He is accompanied by John Drake, a young cousin of Sir Francis — Tidings of a great Spanish fleet in the Straits of Magellan alter the plans of the expedition — Richard Carter, an Englishman, found on board a captured ship — Fenton sails to Santos — He is visited by the inhabitants of the port, including Whitall — Entertainments and negotiations — Appearance on the scene of three Spanish vessels, who en- gage Fenton's squadron — Victory of the English — Fenton's irresolution — Suspicions concerning him — End of the English peaceful relations with Brazil, now under Spanish rule — Fate of John Drake — Curious circumstances concerning a man of his name in an auto-da-f6 of 1650 — Robert Withrington's expedition — English and Irish on board the cap- tured ships — Some curious circumstances of the voyage — Trading ven- tures — Edward Cotton's instructions to his shipmaster — Disastrous voy- age of the Delight — Sufferings in the Straits of Magellan and on the Brazilian coast — A tragic home-coming — Thomas Cavendish — His voy- age round the world — Aspect of the ruined Spanish settlement in the Straits of Magellan — Cavendish's methods compared with those of Drake — His second voyage — Mismanagement of the attack on Santos — A town empty of booty — Misfortunes of the expedition — Death of Cav- endish — Adventures of the Desire — Privations of the crew — An able captain — Sufferings in the Magellan Straits — Disease, death, and hos- tile attack on the Brazilian coast — Result of the decay of many thou- sands of dried penguins — How the Desire was brought to the coast of Ireland — James Lancaster — How his previous residence in Portugal as- sisted him in his voyage to Brazil — His squadron joins company with that of Captain Venner — Capture of Recife and Olinda — Lancaster ob- tains the assistance of Dutch and French vessels — Methods by which he avoided a discussion with the Portuguese — Conclusion of a successful voyage — Sir Walter Raleigh — His navigation of the Orinoco — The legend of El Dorado — Effects of the landscape and of the Spaniard Berreo's theories upon a poetic imagination — Raleigh's impressions 46 THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 47 given in his oAvn words — Some questions of credulity and practical fact — Captains Amyas Preston, George Summers, Keymis, Berrie, and Leigh — Robert Harcourt's settlement — Raleigh's last voyage — He falls a victim to his sovereign's feeble policy. UNTIL in 1580 the Portuguese Empire fell under the domination of Spain, the ancient friendship in Europe between the English and Portuguese gave to the English navigators the comparative freedom of the Brazilian seas. About 1540 a considerable trade sprang up between Southampton and Brazil, and — as we have already seen — in 1542 an Englishman of the name of Pudsey is said actually to have constructed a fort — and, presumably, to have founded a trading post — in the neighborhood of Bahia. Just before the temporary extinction of the Portuguese rule the relations between the English and their old allies appear to have been particularly cordial. This was most of all evident at Santos in the south of the great colony, where, on the news of a probable attack by the French on the port, the English traders who found themselves there at the time hastened to lend their cannon to the local authorities for the purpose of defense. Indeed, we have one picture of this period which shines out, a little dimly, like a star, solitary and threatened, in the path of black and sullen clouds. The thing arose from the kindly but unorthodox procedure of the Santos clergy. The English traders and sailors had apparently become accustomed to worship at the Santos church, and, on the death of one of them, he was actually buried in that Roman Catholic building. When the news of this reached the ears of the high clerical dignitaries of the colony, they, scandalized, sent peremptory orders that no heretic, living or dead, was to be allowed to enter the sacred edifice. The priests of Santos, having no choice, bowed their heads in submission. But when they gave the message to the English they soft- ened its harshness by every means in their power, and 48 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA begged the visitors to believe in their own chagrin and to think as well of them as they could. One of the chief — and probably the first — of these Eng- lish traders in Santos was John Whithall who sent home a most interesting letter, written on the 26th of June, 1578. He begins by explaining that he had intended proceeding to Europe, but : ''It is in this countrey offered mee to marry, and to take my choice of three or f oure, so that I am about three dayes agoe consorted with an Italian gentleman to marry with his daughter within these foure days.'* There are people known as matchmakers, but it was John Whithall who was made by this match ! In a mer- cenary outburst which is largely redeemed by its frank- ness he confides to his friend the worldly gains which he is about to obtain from his prospective father-in-law. He does not say whether these come within the category of additional advantages to the marriage or in that of com- pensations, since not one syllable is devoted to the ap- pearance or character of the lady ! But the catalogue of what he is about to receive is detailed, including a sugar factory "that doth make every yeare a thousand roves of sugar, ' ' and the management of another such establish- ment in addition. ''This my marriage," chuckles John Whithall, "will be worth to mee two thousand duckets, little more or lesse." He is, at all events, an honest and open rejoicer, although he has still to prove his merits as a husband. He ends up this first portion of his letter in a burst of thankfulness : "I give my living Lord thanks for placing me in such honour and plentifulness of all things." Undoubtedly his joy was at its height just then, and John Whithall must have dreamed many golden dreams as he strolled by the banks of his broad river, where the purple and white flowering trees rose at the back of the mangroves. We may wonder what became of him when a few years OLD FORT AT MOUTH OF SANTOS EI\ i;k, URA/II Tllii SAMUS KUER IN BRAZIL THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 49 later the spot was overwhelmed by the arrogant and bigoted Spanish soldiers and priests ! Fortunately for his peace of mind, he foresaw noth- ing of that. He was wholly taken up with his own promising plans: **My father-in-law and I shal (God willing) make a good quantitie of sugar every yeere, which sugar we intend to ship for London from hence- forth, if we can get such a trustie and good friend as you to deale with us in this matter." All that glittered before Whithall as he wrote his very long letter to his friend Richard Staper was a golden commercial future. Even at that moment his acute trader's brain had grasped an opportunity. Would his friend send him out a ship — a vessel of some sixty or seventy tons? This argosy, you see, which was to sail from Europe to Brazil, was not to be much larger than a modern fishing smack! — laden with ''these parcels of commodities or wares, as followeth." Now these wares are just of the nature that a new colony might be expected to desire. They included cloths, gowns, hollands, fustians, silks, flannels, cottons, frieze, shirts, hats, doublets, girdles, knives, Venice glasses, axes, soap, nails and fishhooks. Also there was to be wine from the Canaries, and ''sixe dozen of Cor- dovan skinnes of these colours, to wit, orenge, tawnie, yellow, red, and very fine black." John Whithall then points out that : "To cause a ship to come hither with such commodities as would serve this countrey, would come to great gaines," more especially if the proceeds be invested in a cargo of the local sugar to freight the vessel back. It may, of course, be merely a coincidence that this advice should have been tendered just as the fortunate John Whithall was on the eve of acquiring a sugar factory! But in any case he reveals himself a shrewd fellow. "This voyage is as good as any Peru voyage," promises John Whithall, and he was probably right. 50 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Then he makes an offer, and it will be seen that the size of the suggested ship has swollen just a little in the course of his long letter: *'If you and Master Osborne will deale here, I will deale with you before any other, because of our old friendly friendship in time past" — perhaps it is to his credit that he shows himself far more sentimentally inclined towards past comrades than towards future wives. ''If you have any stomake thereto, in the name of God, do you espie out a fine barke of seventie or eightie tunnes, and send her hither with a Portugal pilot to this port of S. Vincent in Brazil, bordering upon the borders of Peru. ' ' Finally Whithall strikes a light on the difficulties of pronunciation which his name has involved, and on the triumphant compromise which has been effected : "Here in this countrey in stead of John Whitehall they have called me John Leitoan ; so that they have used this name so long time, that at this present there is no rem- edie, but it must remaine so. When you write unto me, let the superscription be unto John Leitoan." In whatever manner it may have been pronounced, John Whithall 's name was clearly sound and respected for commercial purposes, for in response to his appeal the Minion, laden with the specified goods, set sail from London, sighted the mountains guarding the northern bank of the Santos River, swung round into the stream, and came to an anchor near the palm-covered hill on the top of which stood Santos church. She bore a letter to Whithall from his merchant friends of London, explain- ing that the great credit they attach to his promises has caused them "to joyne ourselves in company together, and to be at great charges purposely to send this good ship the Minion of London, not onely with such marchan- dizes as you wrote for, but also with as many other things as we thought might any wayes pleasure you, or profit the country." Toward the end of the long letter comes the news of THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 51 a little personal present to Whithall himself: ''And in the meane time for a token of our good willes toward you, we have sent you a fieldbed of walnut tree, with the canopy, valens, curtaines, and gilt knobs." That the Minion was cordially received — not only by John Whithall, but by the officials and all the people — we know, and it is probable enough that the "deales" fully justified John Whithall's appeal. But this was the end of those friendly relations — or, if you prefer it, the death of the first promise of dawn, which the Spanish conquest of Portugal was to bring to nothing. Edward Fenton's expedition to South America cannot be ranked as one of the triumphs of the early mariners. Its original destination was China; but it achieved neither that object, nor anything else of importance, chiefly owing to bad leadership and to differences be- tween the various commanders. Fenton's fleet consisted of the Leicester, of four hun- dred tons ; the Bonaventure, three hundred tons ; the Elizabeth, fifty tons, and the Francis, a bark of forty tons, the property of Sir Francis Drake, and commanded by his young cousin John Drake. This latter was a most promising lad of some twenty years of age, who, as we have already seen, had accompanied his illustrious rela- tive on his voyage round the world. It was the boy John Drake, as a matter of fact, who had won the gold chain offered by Sir Francis as a prize to him who should first sight the treasure ship Cacafuego. The services of John Drake, as well as the boatswain Thomas Blackaller and the shipmaster Thomas Gult, were lent by Sir Francis Drake to Fenton, as that mortal of hesitating tendencies does not appear to have had any practical knowledge of the sea. After a visit to the west coast of Africa it was de- termined to set sail for Brazil, "and so to appoint our course from time to time, if wee lost companie, to stay 52 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA fifteene dayes in the River of Plate, and from thence to go for the streights, and there to ride, and water, and trimrae our ships." When off the South American coast, however, the ex- pedition captured a Spanish vessel, from which they gleaned some disturbing intelligence. A powerful Span- ish fleet, of twenty-three ships and 3,500 men under Diego Flores de Valdez, it appeared, had sailed down to the Straits of Magellan, and was lying there in wait for any squadron which might attempt the passage. On board of the captured vessel, it may be remarked, were a number of friars, and an Englishman, named Richard Carter, who for the last twelve years had been dwelling at the town of Asuncion on the banks of the Paraguay River, a thousand miles from the coast. When the other prisoners were released. Carter, as well as a certain Juan Pinto who knew the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, were retained, doubtless on account of their knowledge of the local topography. On receiving the news of the hostile occupation of the Magellan Straits, Fenton had declared that he would pass through them in spite of the Spanish fleet. Presently his resolution wavered, and he summoned a council of war of his captains. How ill-assorted these latter were may be judged from the fact that 'Hheir opinions were as divers as their names ; and as much differed, as before this time they were wont usually to doe : onely they all agreed in this one point, that it was impossible for us to passe the streights without seeing, and incountring with the ships." From subsequent events we may feel positive that John Drake was not one of those who advocated the timorous counsel which in the end prevailed. After the captains had supped in company Fenton announced to them that he had temporarily abandoned the plan of passing through the straits. The question now was merely THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 53 whether they should revictual on the banks of the Rio de la Plata or at the Brazilian port of Santos. This was soon settled. The Spanish prisoners had ad- mitted that food existed on the banks of the great river, but they had added that there was no wine available there. This was certainly true, as the Indian-harried settlement of Buenos Aires, founded for the second time scarcely two years before, was still in the throes of want and hard- ship. As at that time the importance of wine in the pro- vision list of a vessel was scarcely second in importance to that of solid food, this condition of affairs did not appeal to Fenton, who sailed along the coast until he opened up that spot in the forest-covered mountains, in the midst of which spread the alluvial valley of the San- tos River. So Diego Flores de Valdez' great fleet waited in vain in the Straits of Magellan, and the history of the suffering and disasters incurred in the attempt to form defensive settlements in those bleak and remote channels is one of the most tragic that the Spanish colonies have to show. Soon after Fenton 's vessels had dropped anchor in the stream at a point some distance below the town, the com- mander was visited by Giuseppe Doria, WhithalPs wealthy and respected father-in-law, and some others. There was a good deal of doubt ashore, it appeared, con- cerning Fenton 's intentions. The efforts on the part of the seamen to dissipate this were sufficient, as is testi- fied to by Captain Luke Ward, of the Bonaventure: *' After many speeches and requests a banket was made them, and the generall in his pinnesse with his musicke, and trumpets; and I in my skiffe with trumpets, drum and fife, and tabor and pipe, accompanied them a mile up the river : at going off, we saluted them with a volley of three great pieces out of each ship." In these days we may have lacked elbow room, creature comforts, and ventilation; but we had it within us to 54 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA make a brave show when the time for ceremony ar- rived ! This visit was productive of friendly sentiments. On the next day Whithall himself came on board. For all the enthusiastic shrewdness of his trading instincts, he does not seem to have hesitated for a single moment when the call of loyalty clashed with his pecuniary interests. Whithall came now with a word of warning. The shadow of the Spanish Empire lay over the spot, and its influence had already been working. The Portuguese were restless and uneasy. In proof of the probability that their natural instincts of hospitality would give way to the harsh demands of Spain, they had sent away their women folk, and were hurriedly fortifying the town. Why not, he urged, sail up and anchor before the town, and thus take the delicate situation more directly under control ? Then Whithall took his departure over the side, and was doubtless paddled away in one of those dug-out canoes such as still survive in the river. Very shortly afterwards Doria came floating down the stream again, accompanied by a Portuguese. They brought further pacific messages, but advised the postponement of any important steps until the governor had spoken with Mas- ter Fenton, which he would do in a few days. Fenton thanked his visitors, begged them to partake of his hospitality, and then, while they were busied in dining, he mounted to the deck to discuss the situation with his officers. Fenton — arguing that a wealthy mer- chant in hand was worth a dozen governors in the bush — was inclined to detain his guests indefinitely in the light of hostages. But, as usual, he was loth to do anything — even the wrong thing ! — without discussion and hesi- tation. His second-in-command. Ward, deprecated anything of the kind. He reminded Fenton that their instructions forbade violence except in self-defense, and pointed out THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 55 the irretrievable damage that such a procedure would cause to the budding trade which the Minion had opened up with Santos. This pacific counsel prevailed, and the outcome of it was that, instead of detention, the visitors received some fine black cloth, and — in order that social distinctions might be preserved — the same quantity for the governor, but this in scarlet and murrey! But the days of peaceful trading had gone by. Southey — not quite fairly, I think, — charges the fault of their disappearance to Drake rather than to the grim and im- mutable policy of Spain. He says : ''But the evil which Ward anticipated from hostile pro- ceedings had already been produced by Drake ; our nation was hated, and by all the Spaniards in America, English- men were considered as pirates." However this may have been, there was no uncertainty about the masts and yards of three Spanish ships, which one day pricked up plainly above the low trees of the alluvial valley, separated from the English vessels by only a few windings of the tortuous river. The Spanish squadron came on to the attack, and, as a brilliant moon was shining, a night action ensued in the river, in the course of which one of the Spanish ves- sels sank to the muddy bottom of the stream. In the end the squadron to which it had belonged, defeated, made its way with difficulty up the river. Fenton did not trouble himself about pursuit. He shook the water of 'the river from his sterns, and sailed homewards, having achieved very little beyond a certain loss of repu- tation. Decidedly the victor of this river fight, he appears to have behaved with the most exemplary humanity, and to have contented himself with vigorously repelling the as- sault on him. Iberian historians themselves freely admit that Fenton might have inflicted much more severe dam- age on the Spaniards, had he been so minded. Lopez Vaz, a Portuguese, gives the following account: 56 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA **The Englishmen easily put them to the worst, and sunke one of them, and might have sunke another, if the Englishmen would: but they minded not the destruction of any man: for that is the greatest vertue that can be in a man, that when hee may doe hurt, yet he will not doe it. So the Englishmen .... went backe for England, without doing of any harme in the countrey." Such generous praise from an opponent would read still more pleasantly were Fenton's motives perfectly clear. But the reason of many of this leader's actions is shrouded in mystery. Undoubtedly his procedure was often half-hearted, and in more than one quarter he was suspected of carrying on negotiations with the Spanish ambassador in London. This action, although insignificant in itself, was a mo- mentous one, since it signaled the termination of the English peaceful relations with Brazil. The whole of South America was now under Spanish domination, and throughout the entire length of its coasts the English might know well enough that not a port existed that would not throw a round shot or two — even were the cannon old and rusted — at any vessel flying the St. George's Cross which should chance to come within range. The free intercourse between the English and the Port- uguese was not destined to be renewed until some two centuries and a quarter later, when a British fleet es- corted a Portuguese regent and his court to their new capital of Rio de Janeiro. For when in 1640 the Portu- guese flung off the Spanish yoke, the Government of Brazil continued to be tainted with methods which, though less harsh, savored of the Spanish model, and the advent of the foreigner was hindered as much as possible. One tragic episode, however, has yet to be related con- cerning Fenton's expedition. Young John Drake, mind- ful no doubt of his great kinsman's deeds, had no -mind to abandon the voyage to the South Seas. So he sepa- THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 57 rated his forty-ton cockleshell from Fenton's squadron, and sailed it gallantly on to the south, he and his crew of seventeen men and a boy ! Alas ! off the River Plate the Francis struck a rock, and was wrecked, and after conflicts with the Indians and captivity, John Drake and two companions found themselves at Buenos Aires. They were kindly received, and would probably have been sent back to their own country, had not a former prisoner of Francis Drake's appeared on the scene and recognized the admiral's young cousin. John Drake was taken to Lima, after a long stay at Asuncion on the way. He appears eventually to have adopted the Roman Catholic faith and to have married; but he was never permitted to leave the neighborhood of Lima. It is supposed that John Drake and his two companions were the sole survivors of the unfortunate Francis; but it is possible that there remained some who did not suc- ceed in escaping from the hands of the Indians. Hakluyt, for one, was led to believe this, for he remarks : ''Upon this comming of the Englishmen, there were prepared 50 horsemen to goe over the river to seeke the rest of the Englishmen, and also certaine Spaniards that were among the savage people, but I am not certaine, whether they went forward or not. ' ' Zelia Nuttall in her very valuable work for the Hakluyt Society, "New Light on Drake," has an interesting note in connection with John Drake: ''In the official description of the auto-da-fe held in December, 1650, in the Church of Santo Domingo at Cartagena, the capital of the Spanish Main, the name of John Drake is given as that of one of the penitents. He had been denounced to the Dominican fathers because 'being a Lutheran, he frequented the Holy Sacraments.' After performing public penance in the auto-da-fe, he was 'absolved with a caution' and admitted to reconciliation with the Church of Rome. In 1650 John Drake, the 58 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA cousin of Francis Drake, would have been an octogenar- ian, a fact which might explain the otherwise unaccount- able leniency of the sentence imposed for so grave a sacrilege .... Whatever the truth may be, it is a fact which cannot but awaken deep interest, that sixty-five years after Drake's cousin figured in an auto-da-fe at Lima, a Lutheran namesake of his was living on the Spanish Main, the scene of many an English raid, whither ships sailed regularly from Lima, transporting the gold and silver destined for Spain. There, if anywhere in America, at that time, there was a remote chance of liber- ation or escape and this may account for the fact that in 1652 'an English tailor, named Anthony' also lived at Cartagena." After Fenton's return an expedition set out for the South Seas by way of the Brazils, no longer bearing an olive branch at the main. The squadron, financed by the Earl of Cumberland, was commanded by Robert With- rington, and was accompanied by two privateers, one of which had been fitted out by Raleigh. Setting out in 1586, when well to the south of the line, Withrington stood in toward the shore, and where the blue of the Southern Pacific was becoming tinged with the thick yellow flood of the River Plate he captured two small Portuguese vessels. Curiously enough, the first of these ships was com- manded by a certain Abraham Cocke, who had originally been one of the members of the Minion's crew. This tends to show that the last spark of international genial- ity had not yet been stamped out by the Spaniards, and, morever, reveals the remarkable manner in which the threads of each of these English expeditions happened to be picked up by the next. In the second of the captured vessels were three or four friars, an Irishman among them, and, if only the date corresponded more closely, one would have made certain that this could have been no other than the Jesuit THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 59 Father Fields, whose adventures when captured by English '^pirates" are described in a later chapter. Cocke assured his compatriots that, if they would turn their bows northwards, they could raid Bahia with suc- cess. Withrington took his advice, but obtained no booty to speak of at that tropical port, in spite of much fierce fighting the town itself being strenuously guarded by great numbers of the Jesuit Mission Indians, who had been hastily summoned for that purpose. It IS worthy of remark that on this voyage a landing party at Seal Island (probably Lobos Island) found there the arms of Portugal engraved on a rock. These, it was imagined, had been placed there by the order of Martin Alonso de Souza. This last voyage makes no mention of John Whithall, and it is possible that the intercourse between him and his fellow countrymen was broken off after it. If he remained there, no doubt his descendants inhabit the neighborhood at the present day, and if any people of the name of Leitoan or Leitoa exist there now, they may congratulate themselves on a distinctly interesting ancestry ! It is not a little curious to find that in the actual heyday of the raids of the great English navigators there were other sailors who were occupied in commonplace trading with the colonists. Yet this is clear enough from the instructions given by Master Edward Cotton of South- ampton to the commander of a ship of his freighted in 1590 for Brazil and the Kiver Plate. Needless to say, the traffic had to be carried on very quietly, and the palms of the Spanish officials well smoothed with gold. Among the commodities required for the return trip were ''amber, sugar, green ginger, cotton-wool, and some quantity of the peppers of the country there. Also for parats and monkies, and the beast called serrabosa." The crew, morever, were to drag for oysters, and the 60 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA master was to keep a sharp lookout for the seeds and kernels of strange plants, ''also to doe your best en- deavour to try for the best ore or golde, silver, or other rich mettals whatsoever." Unfortunately for the high hopes of Edward Cotton, his vessel was cast away on the shore of Guinea, only one man out of the ship's company returning to tell the tale. In 1589, the Bristol ship Delight set out from Plymouth on a voyage to the Magellan Straits and the Southern Chilean Province of Arauco, which caused her name to appear most grimly ironical. For the first part of the journey she was accompanied by two other vessels, the Wild Man and the White Lion, as well as by two small pinnaces. But in the neighborhood of Cape Blanco on the Barbary coast she lost sight of her consorts, and did not get into touch with them again. The Delight stood on for the South American coast, and eventually reached the Magellan Straits in safety, although by the time she had made the mountainous and wooded inlets, disease had carried off sixteen persons out of their complement of ninety one. The voyage of the Delight deserves to be better known. It provides unsurpassable material for an epic of mis- fortune. Having waited in the vain hope of being joined by the remaining vessels of the expedition, she proceeded to Penguin Island and her crew captured and salted a number of penguins, ''which must be eaten with speed, for wee found them to be of no long continuance." In the course of this work of provisioning a serious accident occurred; for their boat was blown away in a sudden gale, and was never seen again. This catastrophe cost them the lives of fifteen men, and left them without a boat. However, a substitute was improvised out of the wood of the men's chests, and the Delight made her way along the Straits as far as Port Famine. Here, near the ruins of the Spanish settlement which it had been THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 61 attempted to found in 1582, they met with, and succored, a solitary Spaniard, the only one remaining at the spot out of the original four hundred, who was leading a her- mit and precarious existence. About this time, attracted by the signals of some In- dians on shore, the Delight's new boat was sent to the beach. No sooner had the men landed than they w^ere set on by the treacherous natives, and out of a crew of nine only two returned alive to their ship. To cut short a long story of disaster, a six weeks' sojourn in these fatal straits cost the lives of thirty-eight men, whether from casualties or disease. Nothing remained but for the Delight to attempt to make her way home as best she could. No grain of good fortune relieved the gloom of the return voyage. Once, an eighty-ton Portuguese vessel was sighted, from which, it was hoped, some food might be obtained. But the Portuguese master ran his ship ashore, and there, for want of a proper boat, the Delight had to leave her ! Infested by disease, the stricken vessel staggered on to the north, and when foul weather at length drove her mournful ribs on to the rocks of Normandy only six of her crew remained alive ! When we come to Cavendish we arrive at one of the few of the most prominent early navigators who was not a Devonian. Thomas Cavendish was a fairly wild Suf- folk lad, of good family and easy circumstances. Or- phaned when a minor, he took the first opportunity of squandering his patrimony with that impetuousity which characterized his actions throughout his life. In 1585 a voyage with Sir Eichard Greenville to Vir- ginia gave him his taste for the sea. On his return he employed the remains of his fortune to equip a small fleet of three vessels. This he took to Sierra Leone in 1586, whence he sailed to South America. When off the coast of Brazil he endeavored to get into communication with John Whithall of Santos, but failed. After this. 62 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA he proceeded to the south, and passed through the Magel- lan Straits. Here they saw the ruins of the settlement which the Spaniards had endeavored to establish there: *'the citie had foure Fortes, and every Fort had in it one cast piece, which pieces were buryed in the ground, the carriages were standing in their places unburied: we digged for them and had them all." The inhabitants, attacked by starvation and Indians, had ''dyed like dogges in their houses, and in their clothes, wherein we found them still at our coming, untill that in the ende the towne being wonderfully taynted with the smell and the savour of the dead people, the rest which remained alive were driven .... to forsake the towne." Such was a portion of the tragedy of Port Famine. After this Cavendish sailed up the Pacific coast, then, drawing away to the westward, he sailed home in the track of Drake, being the second Englishman to circum- navigate the world. England and Spain being at this period openly at war, Cavendish had at least the advantage of carrying on his vastly extensive plundering with a completely easy mind. His spoil was immense, one captured vessel alone being found to be laden with the equivalent of £49,000 in gold. But, for all that he was a bold and daring mariner, in some respects Cavendish fell far from the standard set by Drake. Drake, it is true, had once ducked an obsti- nate prisoner, a sufficiently mild chastisement, but Caven- dish did not hesitate at actual torture, relying on the thumbscrew to break the silence of more than one Span- ish captive. His bravery was of the kind which his fel- low leaders of the age rightly claimed for the English; but his methods were such as — with far less reason — have been held, in the British mind, for centuries as the special characteristics of the Spaniard ! Surely something of his spirit struts out in these words of his, trumpeting his first voyage : "In which voyage I have either discovered or brought THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 63 certaine intelligence of all the rich places of the world that were ever knowen or discovered by any Christian. I navigated alongst the coast of Chili, Pern, and Nueva Espana, where I made great spoiles: I burnt and sunke nineteen sailes of ships small and great. All the villages and townes that ever I landed at I burnt and spoiled." Cavendish seems to have been determined that his re- turn from so successful a voyage should lose nothing in the way of crude splendor. So, when his bows at length clove their way into English waters, they were, it is said, gilt and shining; his sails were of variously colored damask, and his topmasts were covered with cloth-of-gold. As a finishing touch — probably not with- out its own humor — his grim sea-dogs are said to have lounged against this gorgeous back-ground, themselves resplendent in the bravest of silks. Cavendish's second voyage is chiefly remarkable for the unusual amount of attention paid to the coast of Brazil. In 1591 two of his ships surprised the town of Santos, and captured practically the entire population who happened to be at mass. This in itself was some- thing of a haul, since wealthy settlers were often worth their weight in silver for a ransom. But Cocke, Caven- dish's second in command, who had charge of the affair, found the good cheer of Santos too much for his astuteness. While he feasted and drank, the inhabitants packed up their valuables very stealthily, and, laden with these, slipped away into the forest, making their way toward the highlands of the interior. So that when, rather more than a week later. Cavendish arrived at Santos, he found Cocke — who doubtless re- ceived him sheepishly — safely in possession of Santos — but Santos without its inhabitants, valuables, or pro- visions. In their anger, the sailors took a clay image of St. Catherine from a small chapel, and flung it into the river. Later, it was recovered by a dragnet — either by accident or design — and was found to be completely 64. BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA covered with those little oyster-shells such as are to be seen on the sea-walls of Santos to-day. These were suf- fered to remain, and by its immersion the image became vested vnth a double sanctity. After this the disgusted crews burned the neighboring village of Sao Vicente, and made off to the south to navigate the Magellan Straits. But the good fortune which had attended Cav- endish on his first voyage failed him now. His fleet was driven and scattered by the overwhelming storms of ' the bleak southern latitudes. Doubtless soured by these misfortunes, Cavendish appears to have fallen foul of his officers and crew, who, however, remained loyal to him. Once more Cavendish's storm-battered ship, alone on the waters now, sailed with a sick and starving crew to the mouth of the Santos River. But misfortune clung like a hungry shark to the weather-beaten quarter of Cavendish's vessel. Of twenty-five men, landed at a dis- tance of some three leagues from Santos in order to obtain provisions, not a soul returned to the vessel. They were attacked by a band of Indians who on the previous occasion had shown themselves friendly, and all but two were slain. The unfortunate survivors were escorted into Santos by the Indians, who triumphantly waved in the air the twenty-three severed heads of the prisoners' slain comrades. Cavendish left the place, and, cruising along the coast, was soon joined by the Roebuck, one of the vessels of his squadron which had lived through the southern storms. They sailed northwards in company, raiding where they could, until they came to Espiritu Santo. Here they determined on a more important landing expedition. The bar, however, of the small river which ran by the place presented some problems. Moved by a fatal inspiration, one of Cavendish's Portuguese prison- ers volunteered to pilot the vessels in. Cavendish, doubting the possibility of this, sent a boat's crew to THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 65 sound. They pulled back, to report an insufficient depth of water to permit the passage of the bar. The unfortunate Portuguese protested that, whatever soundings they made it, he had safely taken in vessels of a hundred tons. But his protestations fell on deaf ears. Cavendish hanged him forthwith, having first cyni- cally explained to the poor wretch that he deserved hang- ing in either case — whether for piloting his country's enemies, or for attempting to wreck an English vessel ! But this was one of the last outbursts of Cavendish's peculiarly grim species of humor. A boat-expedition, sent up the river, was, notwithstanding much individual gallantry, forced to return after having suffered very hea\^ loss. Much of the fault of this Cavendish at- tributed to the master of the Roebuck, whom he dubbed a most cowardly villain. Then he set sail for England, realizing that the expedition had failed in all things, a circumstance which undoubtedly contributed to his end a little later. For, like his greater fellow na^dgato^s, Drake and Hawkins, Cavendish died in the tropics with the oak timbers of his vessel beneath him. In connection with this expedition occurred a voyage which, from the point of view of tragedy, may well com- pare with that of the Delight. After Cavendish's fleet had left the Straits of Magellan, and was beating its way up through the stormy latitudes toward Brazil, the Desire lost company with the other vessels. After a time her captain, John Davis, decided to return to the Straits of Magellan. The Desire even attained the length of entering the Pacific, but was beaten back by weather to the grim shelter of the land waters. In the course of a desperate and precarious existence here, a portion of the crew became suspicious of the captain's motives, and planned to murder him — a silver bullet had already been prepared that would leave no doubt about his end ! But that fine sailor, Captain Davis, learning of this in time, convinced the malcontents of his 66 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA sincerity, and read them some well-earned lectures on their conduct in addition. This episode affords merely one more proof that if ever there was a spot designed to bring to a head an incipient mutinous spirit, it was these very Magellan Straits. The more one reads of their history, the clearer it becomes that they were the earthly hell of sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century mariners! In the first instance the unfortunate men of the Desire had been obliged to subsist largely on mussels ; but after- wards their diet improved : ''All the time that wee were in this place, we fared passing well with egs, Penguins, young seales, young Guiles, besides other birds .... we found an herbe called Scurvygrasse, which we fried with egs, using traine oyle in stead of butter. This herbe did so purge ye blood, that it tooke away all kind of swellings, of which many died, and restored us to perfect health of body." With this more favorable outlook, died away the in- cipient growlings of a mutiny to which the sufferings of the men had inclined to drive them. In these circumstances it was decided to return, and to make for Brazil. It was with a woefully diminished crew that the weatherbeaten Desire drove her nose dog- gedly into the waters of the Atlantic again. In her hold were fourteen thousand dried penguins, the fruit of in- finite toil and labor in the bleak straits. Thus provisioned, the ship's company of the Desire may well have thought that they had left most of their troubles behind them, however shaken might be the hull of their vessel and however rotten its sails. But when they passed from the chilly southern latitudes to the brilliant glow of the subtropics the taste of penguin, eked out by nothing beyond a few precious spoonfuls of oil, meal, and pease, became more and more difficult to bear, more especially now that the allowance of water was short. THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 67 When off the Brazilian Island of Placentia, matters had become desperate. The Desire was brought to an anchor, while a party was sent ashore to collect cassava roots, near an apparently deserted settlement. This work they performed for several days, when, on the night of the fifth of February, ''many of our men in the ship dreamed of murther and slaughter: in the morning they reported their dreams, one saying to another; this night I dreamt, that thou wert slaine; another answered, and I dreamed, that thou wert slaine: and this was general through the ship." Treating this phenomenon w^ith some respect, the cap- tain commanded those who w^ere about to proceed on shore to arm themselves well, and to keep a sharp watch. Nevertheless, the tropical languor of the after-dinner hour on shore proved too much for the caution of the men, and they were sleeping in the shade of the palms and the brilliant flowers, when they were surprised by a force of Portuguese and Indians, and of fifteen men all but two were slain. The Desire's boat was pulled in hot haste to the spot, but, save for the two survivors, they found their comrades already dead, and "laide naked on a ranke one by another, with their faces upward, and a crosse set by them." The Englishmen had not leisure to do any more than take in this melancholy sight; for two large pinnaces, crowded with armed men, were approaching, and it was high time for the mauled and maltreated Desire to leave this unhealthy neighborhood. AVhen her tattered and soiled sails were spread to the joyously mocking and brilliant airs only twenty-seven gaunt men remained to work the vessel. As they drew near the Equator some welcome showers renewed the water in their cask. But this was nothing but an ironical caress of the merciless fortune which obsessed the poor vessel. The equatorialsun and the malignant spirits of the slain penguins entered into a gruesome treaty to deal 68 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the most dreadful blow of all. Wliat happened is best told in the homely words of the sufferers themselves. "After we came neere unto the sun, our dried Penguins began to corrupt, and there bred in them a most lothsome and ugly worme of an inch long. This worme did so mightily increase, and devoure our victuals, that there was in reason no hope how we should avoide famine, but be devoured of these wicked creatures: there was nothing that they did not devour, only yron excepted: our clothes, boots, shooes, hats, shirts, stockings: and for the ship they did so eat the timbers, as that we greatly feared they would undoe us, by gnawing through the ship's side .... the more we laboured to kill them, the more they increased; so that at the last we could not sleepe for them, but they would eate our flesh, and bite like Mosquotos." Presently these unfortunate beings fell into a disease which, beginning in the ankles, caused their w^hole bodies to swell in a monstrous fashion. Undoubtedly it was a nightmare of a voyage, this! No wonder that "divers grew raging mad, and some died in most lothsome and furious paine." Through it all the captain's spirit seems to have remained undaunted, and of the five who, at the end of the voyage, were able to move about the deck, he and a boy were the only two who remained in health. Beyond these were eleven prostrate invalids, all that re- mained out of the original ship 's company of seventy-six men. Even when within sight of home the survivors were destined to experience more sordidness — this time in human nature: "Thus as lost wanderers upon the sea, the 11 of June 1593, it pleased God that we arrived at Bear-haven in Ireland, and there ran the ship on shore : where the Irish men helped us to take in our sails, and to more our ship for floating: which slender paines of theirs cost the cap- taine some ten pounds before he could have the ship in THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 69 safetie. Thus without victuals, sails, men, or any furni- ture God only guided us into Ireland. ' ' A few days later this staunch captain and some of his men landed at Padstow in Cornwall, "and in this manner our small remnant by God's only Mercie were preserved, and restored to our country, to whom be all honour and glory world without end." A ringing sentence, which calls for an amen from across the centuries ! In James Lancaster, described as a gentleman of Lon- don, we have a type of man entirely different to that of his navigating predecessors. For one thing, Lan- caster's education had been cosmopolitan by compari- son. ''He had by his own account been brought up among the Portuguese, lived among them as a gentle- man, served with them as a soldier, and dwelt among them as a merchant," says Southey and, adds, as one whose residence in Portugal had imbued him with friendly feelings toward that kindly folk: ''There was therefore what may be called moral treason in bearing arms against a people with whom he had so long been domesticated." Although it is impossible to judge of the rights and wrongs of these circumstances at this length of time, it seems possible enough that Southey 's complaint was not without some foundation. Undoubtedly Lancaster was a many-sided man. His education had been unusually liberal for that period. In addition to his notable quali- ties as a navigator and a resolute leader of men, he was worldy wise, an able linguist, a shrewd business man, and, morever, endowed with a remarkable mental agil- ity. It has always seemed to me — although it is sufficiently probable that some quite simple circumstances of which I am ignorant may account for his name and his pres- ence in the Peninsula — that, in view of the close con- nection of the Lancastrian dynasty with Portugal, the origin of this Lancaster might prove interesting. On 70 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the other hand, mere coincidence of nomenclature — although in this instance very long-armed, considering the few English in Portugal — may well deprive his an- cestry of any mystic glamour. Lancaster may be said to have specialized in attacks on Brazil! The motive of this, naturally, was his long acquaintance with the Portuguese people and language, two circumstances which stood him in good stead. Lancaster set out on his principal voyage in 1594 with three ships — of which the largest was some two hundred and forty tons and the smallest sixty — victualed by alder- men and citizens of London. His fleet was manned by two hundred and seventy-five men and boys. His des- tination was Eecife, the sister port of Olinda, both of which are now popularly known as Pernambuco. An eloquent testimony to Lancaster's foresight, thorough methods, and cosmopolitan relations was his procuring from Dieppe before he started two Frenchmen conversant with the language of the Indians in the neighborhood of Eecife ! On the southward voyage Lancaster had an opportu- nity of displaying his resolution; for trouble with the mast of one of his ships caused a separation of his squad- ron, to the discouragement of many of the men, who de- sired to abandon the enterprise. But Lancaster kept a firm hand over his crew, and was rewarded by the coming together again of his three vessels off the sandy north- west African coast in the neighborhood of Cape Blanco. Master Barker, Lancaster's second in command, had already busied himself among the Spanish and Portu- guese shipping, and from a prisoner from one of the many captured vessels he had learned that a richly laden car- rack from India had been wrecked off the northern Bra- zilian coast, and that all her cargo had been taken to Eecife. This, fitting in so admirably with the objects of the expedition, must have seemed the work of a special prov- ' THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 71 idence. Greatly encouraged by the news, the squadron, accompanied now by five of the prizes, set sail for the southwest. Presently it fell in with a squadron of four privateers commanded by Captain Venner. An agree- ment was arrived at with these, and Lancaster found his fleet strengthened by two ships, a pinnace, and a Biscayan prize. As to the division of the spoils to come, Lancaster was to have three shares and Venner the fourth — a proportion that may have been just enough, but that it was in any case eloquent of the comparative intellectual force of the pair. After this the combined squadrons made for Recife, and arrived off that port in the darkness of night. When the sun rose out of the warm ocean it showed the mari- ners all that they had expected to see — the low forest- covered hills, the green stretches of the sugar-cane fields, the groves of cocoanut palms, the lowly houses of the town, and the sheltering coral-reef that extended itself in front. But there was more than this. Just where the end of the coral reef made the limit of the natural harbor three large Dutch ships lay at anchor. The sight was as unwelcome as it was unexpected, since there was noth- ing to show what attitude the Dutch would adopt. Lan- caster therefore made all preparations to assail the town and the Dutch as well. His answer to a somewhat super- fluous question sent out by the governor as to what the English fleet desired, was perfectly direct. Lancaster explained in so many words that it was for the goods of the carrack he had come, and the goods of the carrack he must have. Then he sent his boats' crew ashore to the attack. To his infinite relief he found that the Dutch vessels had warped themselves out of the way, thus displaying peace- able intentions. The assault on the fort itself was merely one out of a thousand such instances. It was captured with a rush, and the twin towns with their booty and the 72 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA rich cargo of the carrack fell into the hands of Lan- caster. ' ' The day of our arrival, ' ' says the narrator of this in a cynical note, ''was their Good Friday, when by custom they usually whipp themselves; but God sent us now for a general scourge to them all, whereby that labour among them might be well spared. ' ' It was only when this victory was won that the English leader showed the full scope of his enterprising spirit. Here was more rich plunder than could be carried in his own ships ; and there were the three great Dutch vessels — early heralds of the future Dutch invasion of Northern Brazil — whose crews could not well help chafing with envy at the scene that was being enacted before their eyes! Lancaster dropped his raider's part, and became a tactful merchant. He chartered the Dutch ships on liberal terms, with the result that the men in these were soon working with enthusiasm at the loading of the ves- sels — which, of course, was all to the benefit of Lancas- ter and his expedition. But even now these international episodes were not yet at an end. Two or three days afterwards three ships and two pinnaces rose their sails over the edge of the blue ocean. They were French privateers, the captain of one of which, Jean Noyer, had rendered Lancaster a service in the West Indies the previous year. Thus cordiality was established from the start, and as a result of Lancaster's generous terms the French soon found themselves allied to the expedition just as the Dutch were. Of the four nations thus flung into contact, the Portu- guese alone nourished a cause for grievance! First of all they endeavored to treat with Lancaster. But Lan- caster, when he heard that the envoys were coming, ''hung downe his head for a small season; and when he had muzed awhile, he answered, 'I must go aboard of the Flemings upon business that importeth me'." Then he THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 73 fied from his ship as though the evil one himself were after him. He had himself rowed across to one of the Dutch ships, and there he sought complete seclusion. He refused to exchange a single word with the Portu- guese, vowdng that he knew them too well to run any such risk! ^'When they cannot prevail with the sword," said he, **then they deal with their deceivable tongues, for faith and truth they have none." He must have been honest in his convictions, for he swore that he would hang the first Portuguese who at- tempted a parley — a wholesome precaution, which instils a doubt as to whether his former relations with the Port- uguese had been quite so cordial as Southey imagined! When the wings of the doves of peace definitely failed them the Portuguese sent off fireships instead; but the careful watch and skilful work of the sailors rendered them harmless, and attempts to cut the ship' cables were foiled by the efficient crews. Moreover, when they at- tempted to erect some entrenchments near the town these were captured by the privateers, and some carts were taken which proved of the greatest assistance in loading the ships with the spoils of the port! The next attempt on the part of the Portuguese was to construct a battery on the seashore with the object of raking the hostile fleet with their shot. A landing party destroyed the work, although in the course of too reck- less a pursuit of the townsmen Captain Barker, Captain Cotton, two of the French captains, and thirty-five men were slain. After this the fleet, having occupied the port for thirty-one days, decided that it would make for home. "That evening," says the chronicler, "they weighed anchor and sailed out, eleven ships in company, all richly laden, and all reached their ports safely." Save for the final contretemps, the expedition had pro- ceeded without a hitch. And as for this last, there were doubtless some among the mariners sufficiently callous 74 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA to console themselves with the reflection that it happened during the last day's stay in South America, and with calculations that set off the advantages of a division of booty among fewer hands against the loss of human lives. It was, indeed, as was jubilantly remarked, "a well- governed and prosperous voyage. ' ' Its conclusion, more- over, set the seal on Lancaster's shrewdness and capacity for leaving well enough alone — qualities quite as un- usual in a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century privateer as in a modern actor. For it was the last he undertook. When in 1595 Sir Walter Raleigh sailed his five ships up the stream of the Orinoco, he was already a personage of distinction, a great navigator, a tried statesman, a poet, and a close friend of Spenser — no small honor in itself — a writer of stirring prose, a brilliant courtier, and the petted favorite of his queen. But of all these things it was as a poet that Ealeigh went sailing up the Orinoco. He was no longer young, it is true ; it was forty-three years since he had been born in the Devon manor house near Budleigh. In his own words, it was in the winter of his life, and with a body blasted with misfortune that he undertook these travels. Yet, he says, ''I would not doubt but for one yeere more to hold fast my soule in my teeth, till it were performed." He had navigated, fought on the sea, discovered, and colonized — all this as a practical man and as an able sea- man. Now, for the moment, he had thrown that frame of mind aside. He had been listening to rumors and tales of fantastic things — that might yet be true ! The tales had caught themselves up in his poet's mind, and had set it aflame. He had heard the elusive and shadowy accounts of the Kingdom of El Dorado, the Gilded One, and the romance of his spirit had built dreams on these misty foundations, until he could possess himself no longer, but had to yield to the call of the placid Orinoco. So far as El Dorado was concerned, Raleigh's evil gen- THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 75 ius was Don Antonio de Berreo, the Spanish governor of Guiana whom he had captured, principally in order to teach him that it was not profitable to invite English seamen ashore to hunt, and then to capture them in the face of his pledge, as he had in the previous year! Manoa was Berreo 's particular hobby. His love for gold and diamonds seems to have been as great as his callous- ness toward the Indians, among whom he was unpopular, as any person would be who — as was his occasional habit — dropped burning bacon upon naked aboriginal flesh ! It was through this Manoa that Berreo had his revenge, whether it was intended or not. Raleigh's pages are eloquent on the point. Very soon it was "Berreo told me this," ''Berreo told me that," — and all the tales were of gold, in dust, and lumps, and plates; and of great diamonds that shone under waterfalls and elsewhere! So Raleigh saw visions while Berreo talked — Berreo who was now "very valiant and liberall, and a gentleman of great assuredness, and of a great heart." Perhaps, on nearer acquaintance, Berreo possessed all this — but I much misdoubt that he had the brain of a fox, too. Raleigh was sailing now to put these stories and these dreams to the test. The sight of the Orinoco itself was not of the kind which would dispel any illusion. The dense and mysterious forests whose green waves rolled down to the edge of the stream, the occasional sweeping aside of the verdure to admit the tributary streams with their splashing waterfalls — this in itself made a suffi- ciently romantic setting for the poet's mind. But when the gorgeous scarlet, blue, and yellow of the macaws flashed across the green, and the almost equally brilliant toucans bore their gigantic beaks from point to point, while the metallic fire of the humming-birds shone out among the feathers of other winged creatures of every conceivable hue; when, again, the brilliance of vast but- terflies floated above the log-like forms of the dozing alligators, and the distant campanero bird, unseen in its 76 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA snowy whiteness, tolled out its notes that so perfectly resembled a convent bell, and, finally, when at night the great demoniacal wings of the vampire bats flitted by, and the fireflies lit up water and leaf — here were scenes and sounds such as made the vision of El Dorado draw nearer and take new life! The curious fascination of the country is admitted by Raleigh himself in his description of an excursion toward some great waterfalls : ''For mine owne part I was well perswaded from thence to have returned, being a very ill footeman, but the rest were all so desirous to goe neere the saide strange thunder of waters, as they drew me on by little and little, ill wee came into the next valley where we might better discerne the same. I never saw a more beautifull coun- trey, nor more lively prospects, hills so raised here and there over the valleys, the river winding into divers branches, the playnes adjoyning without bush or stubble, all faire greene grasse, the ground of hard sand easie to march on, either for horse or foote, the deere crossing in every path, the birdes towards the evening singing on every tree with a thousand severall tunes, cranes and herons of white, crimson, and carnation pearching in the rivers side, the aire fresh with a gentle Easterly winde, and every stone that we stouped to takeup, promised either golde or silver by his complexion. ' ' It is true that the tale of El Dorado was fantastic enough, even for a poet floating on such shining and magic water as these. As he went on, Raleigh picked up more and more fragments from both Indians and white adventurers. The white stone palace on an island in a lake, the guardian lions chained by massive fetters of gold, the great golden sun upon the silver altar, the Dorado, or Gilded Monarch himself, whose body was first anointed and then blo^vn upon with gold dust every morn- ing until he was clothed from head to foot in the glitering metal of which he held such great store — to what ex- THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 77 tent Raleigh in his own heart was credulous remains un- solved to this day. Certainly a man of his mental ca- pacity can scarcely have swallowed the childish fairy tale of the sands of gold and pebbles of diamonds which fringed the lake. He may have considered that, on the principle that there is no smoke without fire, in Manoa there was no fable without a solid foundation of gold somewhere or other. That he used a story, of which he himself was entirely incredulous, as a lever toward the colonization of the Guianas is a fairly popular theory. But surely it is more probable and natural that Raleigh really did credit the existence — although not necessarily in the least as described in the legend — of great stores of gold in Guiana. Is it necessary to go afield to search for a more powerful magnet than this? Raleigh's fervid imagination was a double-edged possession — first a bril- liant servant, afterwards a mortal enemy ! Raleigh sailed home, his head still filled with the glamour of these enchanted rivers, and we may now take a hasty survey of one or two notable captains w^ho as- sisted in the exploration of Guiana, and the northeast of the continent. One of the most prominent of these was Captain Amyas Preston, who set out for those lati- tudes in 1595, accompanied by Captain George Summers. The year after (1596) Captain Keymis set out and thor- oughly explored the coast of Guiana, Captain Berrie con- tinuing these explorations in 1597. In this year, too. Captain Leigh explored the Guiana rivers in a bark, the John, of London. An attempt to found a definite settle- ment was made by Captain Leigh in 1607; but sickness and the wreck of a relief ship caused the survivors of the original company of forty-six to abandon the attempt. In 1609, however, Robert Harcourt essayed the venture on a more ambitious scale, and in 1613 he obtained from King James I a patent for all the country between the rivers Amazon and Essequibo. All this time Raleigh had been suffering from those 78 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA overwhelming blows of injustice and ill-fortune which are too familiar to even the least historically curious to be dilated on here. Stripped of his honors and offices, he had been flung into the Tower of London by a king with an untrue heart, a watery spine, and a windy head. Raleigh had been released in a half-hearted fashion. It was greed alone that opened his prison doors, for he was set free only in order that he might make solid the gold of his Eldorado and bring it home to doubting, but half-hopeful, James. So, here he was, sailing down toward the blue South- ern waters again, graciously permitted by his king to attempt to add to the latter 's wealth. It must have been with mixed feelings that Raleigh undertook the venture. Years before, when taunted with a want of good faith in his enterprise, he had said: "For mine owne part, I am not so much in love with these long voyages, as to devise, therby to cozen my selfe, to line hard, to fare worse, to be subjected to perils, to diseases, to ill savors, to be parched and withered, and withall to sustaine the care and labour of such an enterprize, except the same had more comfort, than the fetching of Marcasite in Guiana, or buying of gold oare in Barbary." This is a mere plain picture of the marine hardships of those days. But to the troubles of this last voyage were added those of a despairing and embittered spirit. The story of no fleet is sadder than that of the poorly manned squadron with which he set out. Of the failing of his plans, of his own illness, of the death of his son in action, of his bitter outburst of reproach against Keymis that galled that gallant sailor to suicide — there is surely no necessity to repeat the details of these fa- mous tragedies. Far better for him had Raleigh — like Cavendish and his fellow Devonians, Drake and Hawkins — died at sea. He sailed into Plymouth on the 21st of June, 1618, a THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH TRADE 79 broken-hearted, solitary, and doomed man. Three months later he stood on the scaffold, and felt the edge of the ax he did not fear, since it was, as he explained in the broad and soft Devon speech that he had never lost, *'a sharp and fair medicine to cure him of all his diseases." It was a triumph for Gondomar, the cynical Spanish ambassador who had ceaselessly intrigiied and worked against him, as well he might, being an enemy. But James and his creatures had not that excuse. So much for Raleigh, and for the rest of the navigators of that period. Only a fraction of the number of their names and voyages has been given here. But these may serve to recall some faint breaths of the atmosphere of one of England's greatest ages. CHAPTER IV THE BUCANEEKS Origin of the Bucaneers — Hostilities between the cattle hunters of His- paniola and the Spaniards — Reprisals taken by the "Boucaniers" — Dignity of the "Brethren of the Coast" — John Esquemeling on this sub- ject — A remarkable community — Its socialistic laws — A comparison in this respect with Mission settlements of Paraguay — ^The laws of the bucaneers — Wild and savage pomp combined with careful business ar- rangements — Meticulous rules of partnership and insurance — "No prey, no pay!" — Respective results of a profitless and successful cruise — Scenes in the bucaneers' town — Feats of the "Brethren of the Coast" — Reasons for their success — Bravery of the Spaniards — Instances of predatory strategy and daring — Viscount Bury on the bucaneers — Their life and circumstances ashore — Food, costume, and customs — How men became bucaneers — Friendship between the Brethren of the Coast and the Indians — The Island of Juan Fernandez — A haven to the sea-rovers — A thieves' kitchen to the Spaniards — Ofiicial order for the extinction of the island goats — The step from a bucaneers' establishment to a Brit- ish colony — British sections of the bucaneers — Lewis Scot — John Davis — The chronicles of Basil Ringrose — Drastic rules of life adopted by some of the crews — The celebration of divine service — Prohibition of gambling and profanity — An instance of Captain Sharpe's merciful tend- encies — Occasional amenities between the bucaneers and Spaniards — Some notes from Ringrose's diary — Pregnant passages — Some prominent captains — Coxon, Sawkins, Sharpe, Watling, Lewis Scot, John Davis, Teach, Kidd, Cowley, Wafer — Dampier's youth — How he joined the Brethren of the Coast — A bucaneer merely by chance — His connection with the castaways of the Island of Juan Fernandez — Sir Henry Morgan — His treacherous and greedy character — A medley of the jackal and the lion — The last of the genuine bucaneers — Captains Woodes Rogers and Stephen Courtney — A voyage that was only partly of the bucaneer character — The expedition is cordially received by the inhabitants of a small Brazilian town — Some amazing toasts — The finding of Alexander Selkirk — Captain Rogers' abstemious preparations for attack — The voyage of Captains Clipperton and Shelvock. WE now arrive at one of the wildest and most stormy of all South American periods, that of the bucaneers. There is no need to enter at any length here into the origin, history, or social causes 80 THE BUCANEERS 81 of these grim amphibious beings who at the height of their power pursued three principal callings: the tend- ing of their own plantations, the hunting of ownerless wild cattle, and the capture of Spanish ships, towns, gold, and goods. It is natural to suppose that the behavior of this ut- terly reckless and cosmopolitan set of men would have been wild enough in the most favorable circumstances. The effect, therefore, of the repressive and irritating policy of Spain on these desperate characters may be imagined. Without a doubt Spain brought most of her freebooter troubles on herself. The first men who on the Hispaniolan prairies smoked their meat over the Boucane, or woodfire, wondering by day at the gorgeous butterflies and at night marveling at the green-white flame of the passing fireflies, were hunters pure and simple — hunters, moreover, of the wild cattle whose enormous herds had only come into existence since the Spanish conquistadores themselves had depopulated the island and laid it waste. The Boucaniers, as a matter of fact, never entirely abandoned this first occupation of theirs, and even at the height of their later power they would continue their chase after the hides and meat, until the diminishing herds of cattle forced them to pay a less-divided attention to the profitable '* pickings'* af- forded by their fellow men. With these newcomers, the Boucaniers, the Spanish officials did not find the matter so easy. The hunters, as well as the smugglers of all nationalities, were well able to look after themselves. It is true that on many occa- sions they were attacked by the Spaniards. More than once their settlements were surprised by these, and their houses burned, and the blood of women and children sprinkled over the charred embers and the tobacco leaves of the young plantations. Among such treacherous at- tacks were some on the budding regular British colonies — deeds at which Oliver Cromwell growled with righteous 82 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA fierceness, and with difficulty was restrained from flying at the throat of the Spanish Empire. But, so far as revenge was concerned, there was no need. The blood of the massacred welded together new and fiercer communities. Moreover, the fact that they faced death, torture, or the most terrible form of life- long labor in the mines added a further zest and spice even to the bucaneers' racy recklessness. The ''Breth- ren of the Coast" were only too willing, not only to fight their own battles, but to adapt themselves to the most merciless methods of warfare. In the end the Spaniards found themselves worsted at the inhuman game of reprisals, and most bitterly did they atone for their early barbarities. The instruments of revenge which their deeds forged against them may not have been highly tempered, but they served! The name of Morgan alone is synonymous with blood and tears for hundreds of leagues along the Spanish Main. In the eyes of many the scale on which the bucaneers conducted their operations raised these from the status of mere plunderings to the dignity and pomp of actual warfare — since after all the chief moral distinction be- tween the two seems to lie in the point of numbers! This, at all events, was the view taken by the seventeenth- century translator of John Esquemeling's bucaneer reminiscences. In his enthusiasm he claims that this work, in itself vastly interesting: ''informs us (with huge novelty) of as great and bold attempts in point of military conduct and valor as ever were performed by mankind; without excepting here either Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or the rest of the Nine Worthies of Fame." Now here is a wholehearted apologist of the bucaneers. *'Walk up!" he cries, standing on the step of his prom- isingly reddened booth. "Walk up, my peaceful ama- teurs of vicarious slaughterings! Presently I will pull the curtain back and show you rapine and bloody gold on THE BUCANEERS 83 a scale such as you never dreamed of! If you don't find the thing as wholesale as an American beef-trust you shall have your money back, on my word as a bucaneer's translator!" Decidedly at the height of their power the bucaneers made up one of the most extraordinary communities that the world has ever seen. At this period the South American atmosphere would seem to have been peculiarly ripe in socialistic experiments. At the same time that the socialist republic of the Jesuits flourished in Para- guay, the bucaneer island settlements in the Caribbean Sea began to adopt the policy of sharing all things, in- cluding plunder, in common. It is true that nothing could have differed more widely than the actual existence of these two peoples. Where the white-shirted Indian converts went out in a chaunting procession to till the fields, the bucaneers, their garments dyed the approved scarlet by means of the blood of cattle, sailed out over the bright blue swell to sink and burn in search of plun- der, and those who resisted were made to feel the force of the armory of cutlasses, knives, and pistols stuck in each freebooter's belt. And, if they landed, woe to the town that heard the tramp of the advancing brethren, each ship's company under some fanciful flag designed by its captain, the homely bunting occasionally adorned with the mocking gaiety of fluttering ribbons ! But it must not be imagined that such expeditions were conducted on the mere rollicking and licentious lines of pillage, riot, and murder. Though they usually abounded in all three, the bucaneers' voyages were only undertaken after the most careful, exact, and businesslike prepara- tions. It is curious to reflect that that grim but pic- turesque object, a bucaneers' ship under a full press of sail, with the Brethren of the Coast in their caps, buskins, and blood-hued garments disposed about the deck, re- sembled in its ethics nothing so much as a modern limited liability company, with its articles of association meticu- 84 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA lously drawn out, with its officers and surgeon as direc- tors, and with its captain as chairman ! Yet it was so. Afloat, the association of the men who went partners ashore in tobacco-planting and cooking was carried to further lengths. Not a single bucaneer vessel, provisioned with pork and salt turtle, pulled her anchor up through the warm and shining w^aters of Jamaica or Tortuga, but had the respective shares of profit of the ships' company accurately arranged, as well as the salaries of the captain, the surgeon, and the car- penter — the paid servants of the crew, who ate and lived with the rest, and shared all else alike. Then there was the insurance against the accidents of the cruise, and the risks of round-shot, bullet, and cutlass. So many pieces-of-eight for a right arm shot off, so many dollars for a pierced eye, and so on throughout the entire cate- gory of maimed members. There was just one if on which the entire basis of pay, profit, and insurance rested. ''No prey, no pay," was the immutable law of the Brethren of the Coast. A profitless cruise meant empty pockets and hunger for all, from captain to cabin-boy, and probably a lapse into a period of slavery into which a debtor was forced by his creditor ashore in order to discharge his liability. So these rovers on the tropical seas took particular pains that no cruise should be fruit- less, and saw to it that no consideration for hfe or limb should stand in the way. Among themselves there was no mercy extended to a breaker of the fraternity's laws. Marooned on a bare yellow strand surrounded by the mocking blue sea, they died of thirst and their bones grew bleached among the shining shells — objects seen by very few beyond the gulls, the flying-fish, and the now incurious sharks. The reverse of this picture heaves with the wildest and most bizarre life. On their own mountainous and wooded island of Tortuga some hints of the bucaneer celebrations of a successful cruise have been given by THE BUCANEERS 85 Esquemeling — that rare being who combined the merits of a freebooter and a historian, and who published a book in Amsterdam in 1678. When a ship, emptied of powder and shot, pork and turtle, but filled with gems and pieces of eight, sailed into the rocky and verdurous harbor of Tortuga, there would ensue wild scenes as the shouting men came ashore, and swaggered past the palms and flowers to the drinking-booths and gambling dens. Perhaps a mining-camp in the mid-nineteenth century would have supplied the nearest parallel. Thus we find a sturdy desperado ruffling it in the middle of the street by the side of a cask of wine, forcing every passer-by to drink with him at the pistol's mouth. We get a glimpse of another, too, running amuck up and down the street, slashing indiscriminately at those of his own profession, well able to look after themselves, and at the terrified crowd of peaceful, parasitical, and fat-pursed traders. But it was doubtless the bucaneers who paid for their fling in the long run. The trader had a very simple revenge for all such risks. He put up the price of powder, bullets, and brandy! Had five-pound notes existed, doubtless the bucaneers would have eaten them in sandwiches as did the later antipodean miners. As it was, they preferred the gam- bling road to a penniless condition. Then, hungry, moody, and fierce, they would demand a new ship and a new venture. They were short and busy days, those of affluence. The tastes of the rovers saw to it that they had not long ashore. How was it, it may well be asked, that all this plunder was won with comparative ease, and that a few men in dug-out canoes were able to capture great Spanish galleons'? The most natural assumption would be that of an extraordinary want of resolution among the Span- iards. But this was not so. What of the three hundred and fourteen men of the Spanish garrison of Chagres who fought on until only thirty men remained on their 86 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA feet, and of these thirty, twenty were wounded? No lack of courage there, surely! Eingrose and others, more- over, bear witness to the shambles into which many a galleon's decks were turned before its crew would sur- render. And, as Esquemeling's translator demands, in justice to the Spaniards : ''Were not 600 killed upon the spot at Panama, 500 at Gibraltar, almost as many more at Puerto del Principe, all dying with their arms in their hands and facing bravely the enemy. . . .1" No, the success of their enterprises is to be attributed to the extraordinary initiative and daring of the buca- neers, employed against a brave enemy, and to that ex- traordinary combination of cunning and complete reck- lessness which made a hardened Brother of the Coast the match of half-a-dozen ordinary men. What, for in- stance, can exceed the callous ingenuity of the rovers, who, their shot failing them on a land attack, pulled to pieces a great organ in a neighboring church, and blazed away its pipes from their cannon's mouths at the amazed and discomfited enemy ! From a strategical point of view these haunts of the bucaneers were admirably situated. Across the narrow neck of Panama still ran the "gold road," astride of which Drake in his o\^ti time had planted himself, and which still groaned beneath the weight of the riches trans- ferred from the Pacific coast. Moreover, much of the treasure had stuck en route. Such towns as Panama and the City of Cartagena to the east were well worthy of more than one sacking, as many a sea-rover could have told you with grim complacency. Viscount Bury in his ''Exodus of the Western Na- tions" has most ably described the type and ambitions of the later recruits of the "Brethren of the Coast": "It became kno^vn to lawless vagabonds, the scum of great European cities, that twice a year, there passed among the islands of the tropical seas a procession of THE BUCANEERS 87 stately galleons, deep with the weight of bars of gold and silver, and bales of costly merchandize, and pearls, and gems. It was but natural that men, feeling habitu- ally the sharp pinch of misery, should turn with fierce de- sire to the adventurous life that presented such allure- ments ; that they should contrast the squalor and hunger in which they passed their days with the brilliant career of the bold 'Brethren of the Coast'; that they should long to replace famine and sordid rags with the laced coat and unlimited licence of the bucaneer; that they should dream of the riches that might reward the lucky adventurer, who should enjoy but for one hour the plun- der of a royal galley, or thrust his arms elbow-deep into a sackful of pearls from Margarita." It was such men as these, completely reckless, who sailed down by hook or by crook through the steady breezes of the Trades, landed at Tortuga or Jamaica, learned to curse the mosquitos, to live on pork, pigeons and strange birds, turtle, land crabs and curious fish, bananas, mangoes, and wondrous fruits — and without a doubt only accustomed themselves to the new fare after much indigestion and many torturings of their interiors, for which the new and almost incredible superabundance of tobacco only compensated in part. Then they would fraternize with the easy-going crowd of daredevils they found there, and swilling brandy in the soft shade of the palms, would make overtures to the company of a stout ship fitting out for a cruise. Then, having made his first raiding voyage, learning to drink the crudely ceremonious toasts on board to the accompaniment of the roaring cannon, and possibly having fleshed his cut- lass, the new Brother of the Coast would find his pocket weighed down with unaccustomed pieces of eight, and would buy an Indian woman ''at the price of a knife, or any old ax, wood-bill or hatchet," as Esquemeling has it. If he were wise, he would observe the same good faith as did his companions toward the Indians of the mainland 88 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA and the islands, and would do nothing to destroy the time- honored alliance and intimacy between the Brethren of the Coast and the infinitely useful native hunters, fishers, guides, and gleaners of information. Failure in this would have been a serious matter for a budding bucaneer, for this friendship of the Indians was keenly valued by the sea-roving community. Sometimes, but much more rarely, an ambitious cruise would lead the bucaneer into the Pacific. There, for a certainty, his ship would rendezvous, provision and water at the Island of Juan Fernandez. Surely throughout all the oceans of the world there was never so minute an isle of such moment as that of Juan Fernandez. In the eyes of the average person its chief claim to fame is that it once harbored the lonely Alexander Selkirk. But, not- withstanding the extent to which it has been prosed and sung, that event is in reality a very minor one in the his- tory of the place. The true significance of the Island of San Juan lay in the fact that it stood as a refuge, not alone for a single castaway but for every vessel of non-Spanish nationality which had beaten and buffeted its way from Atlantic to Pacific. It was a place of shelter by the way on whose grassy stretches the tired and scurvy-stricken crews of a corsair or royal ship could cast themselves down in the shade of the trees, and breathe in restful peace while recuperating in preparation for their raids on the Pacific coast. To the bucaneer, the slopes and trees and grasses of Juan Fernandez stood out from the ocean as a godsend : in the eyes of the Spaniards the place loomed darkly as a thieves' kitchen. They grudged the great wealth of fish which frequented its coast, and the edible plants with which its soil abounded. And they had reason; for it was by such fresh food that the spent and invalided hostile sailors regained a condition of health that was peculiarly unwelcome to the Spaniard! The numerous herds of THE BUCANEERS 89 goats, moreover, which flourished in the island found favor neither with the viceroy sitting in his palace at Lima, nor with the governor of Chile stationed in his more modest habitation. Let there be no more goats on Juan Fernandez ! was the official command, and packs of hounds were ferried across to the island to swallow the nuisance and to forestall the hostile sailors. Even then, a large proportion of these irritating goats succeeded in eluding the hounds, and in preserving their unpatriotic carcasses for the benefit of heretic enemies. A bitter pill, this, for the Spanish authorities, for undoubtedly steril- ity and lifelessness in Juan Fernandez would have meant the preservation of many sacked cities on the Pacific coast. In what may be termed their home waters of the Carib- bean Sea the deeds of many of these Brethren of the Coast were destined to play a larger part in history than they themselves suspected. It was not such a very long step from a bucaneers' establishment to a British colony. So much was discovered by the bucaneers themselves on more than one occasion, when quite suddenly the pres- ence of a royal governor put an end to their free and easy councils. It was in a sense a compliment to them- selves that their Government had taken them, and their lands, seriously. But it is not to be wondered at that these red-garmented gentlemen sulked for a while when they found themselves cold-shouldered. They were con- cerned chiefly with their pockets, and decidedly such part as they played in the building up of so magnificent a structure as that of the British Empire was not pre- meditated. We are concerned here with the British section alone of the cosmopolitan army of bucaneers, and must pass over the wild doings of such of their comrades as Bartholomew Portugues, Rock Brasiliano, and Frangois Lolonois. At the same time one may pause to remark that this species of nomenclature is eloquent enough in 90 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA itself. Where the personal name is sunk beneath a na- tional or territorial substitute, it may be taken for granted — as in one or two small, floating, and reckless communities to-day — that the motive for this is not in the least concerned with pride of repute or achievement ! So far as their deeds are concerned, the doings of these British bucaneers — like those of their comrades of other nationalities — very rapidly become monotonous to re- late. They soon began to vary the capturing of ships by the sacking of coast towns, Lewis Scot setting an ex- ample in this respect by his storm of Campeachy — an ex- ample that was followed with success by John Davis and the rest of the Brotherhood. The record, indeed, is monotonous in its mere wild- ness. Chases at sea, cutting-out expeditions, boarding- parties, attacks on lordly galleons frequently carried out in mere dug-out canoes, river expeditions in little na- tive craft ; battles, burnings, and plunderings ashore ; the stripping of the dead, the taking of prisoners, and their occasional execution, the excesses and riots which fol- lowed a victory — it is on these points that the changes of the tale must be rung over and over again. Yet even the most reckless and dissolute of all these ships' companies was not altogether inhuman. The chronicles of Basil Eingrose — the second historian of the true genus bucaneer, who eventually met his death at the hands of the Spaniards on the occasion of a shore raid in 1688 — showed that the ordering spirit of humanity had allowed no such departure from its laws. It would, of course, be the simplest matter to picture the life of the British bucaneers as a continuous pande- monium of oaths, blows, drunken orgies, and general debauchery. Of all these there was a ruddy and plentiful harvest; but there was a good deal beyond. The exist- ence of these strange folk was sufficiently complex. On some vessels, for instance, divine service was celebrated each Sunday, and it is possible enough that these services THE BUCANEERS 91 were undertaken with some dim but genuine fervor, for mere respectability and outward appearance were of less than no account in the community! How much it com- forted a dying Spaniard to know that a service of prayer had preceded a surprise attack on his vessel is far more doubtful. One or two bucaneer crews actually went further, and their articles forbade profanity and gam- bling — of course merely until a more fitting opportunity arose ashore, since the regulation was clearly one of expediency rather than morality. There appear, moreover, to have been fairly frequent protests against actions of cruelty in cold blood, and Ringrose himself relates that on one occasion the notable bucaneer, Captain Sharpe, when his pleadings for the life of an old captain were of no avail, took water and washed his hands, vowing that he, for one, would be in- nocent of the man's blood, Ringrose himself seems to have been inclined to mercy, for he relates with indignant warmth how having saved the lives of some Spanish prisoners from the hands of their hated enemies, the Mosquito Indians, his men would have given them back to their would-be murderers as soon as his back was turned. He succeeded in saving them for the second time, and his reward came when, having been himself shortly afterwards captured by the Spaniards, one of the men whom he had rescued chanced to be on the spot. Then ensued a scene of the kind which one does not usually associate with the relations between bucaneer and Spaniard. For the Spanish captain, hav- ing heard the story, embraced Ringrose, and feasted him and his companions. Then he gave them back their canoe, and bade them *'Go in God's name, saying withal, he wished us as fortunate as we were generous." Although this was a sufficiently astonishing incident, the optimist in human nature will read with some com- fort that it was not alone of its kind. On another occa- sion on that very same voyage some bucaneer prisoners 92 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA were "very civilly entertained" at Africa on the Pacific coast, ''but more especially by the women." Indeed, to show the amazing and versatile fashion in which a bucaneer's day might be altered, it will suffice to cull a final extract from Ringrose. The manner in which the affairs of goats, duels, mutinies, drunkenness, and revelry are mixed up is surely eloquently and incom- parably casual! Here is the notable fragment: ''August 12th, in the morning, we came to an anchor at the aforesaid isle {that of Plate). We sent our boat ashore with men, as we had done formerly, to kill goats, but we found them to be extremely shy and fugitive, compared w^ith what they were the last year. Here it was that our quartermaster, James Chappel, and myself fought a duel together on shore. In the evening of this day, our slaves agreed among themselves, and plotted to cut us all in pieces, not giving quarter to any, when we should be buried in sleep. They conceived this night af- forded them the fittest opportunity, by reason that we were all in drink." The discovery of the plot, its prevention, and the shoot- ing of a slave, occupy three or four more lines. The end of the paragraph discloses everything apparently straightened out again, every one "being very merry all the while with the wine and brandy we had taken in the prize." Truly, an efficient bucaneer's life was a breath- less one! This extraordinary terseness of Eingrose's diary fre- quently causes its reader to wonder not a little as to what really lay at the back of these simple little sentences. "James Chappel and myself fought a duel together on shore!" And here is another, relating to a captured ship: "In this vessel I saw the most beautiful woman that I ever saw in the South Sea." Put the two to- gether, compare them, and I think that you may safely drop a tear to the memory of the most beautiful woman in the South Sea ! THE BUCANEERS 93 I have no intention here of attemping to enter into the lives and deeds of all the British bucaneers. The preg- nant paragraph just quoted must suffice to demonstrate the impossibility of this. Their passages across the Isthmus of Panama from one ocean to another, their em- barcations in frail canoes, mosquito flotillas that become metamorphosed into fleets of galleons as the boarding parties became busy and the prizes grew — these inci- dents in themselves suffice for numerous bulky volumes. Of the men themselves, too, enough has already been written to send them down through all the ages to pos- terity clearly painted in all the wild and glaring detail of their lives. Their names conjure up some grim specters of the past, and some really gallant deeds as well. Captains Coxon, Sawkins, Sharp, Watling, Lewis Scot, John Davis, Teach, Kidd, Sharp, Cowley, Wafer — each of these Brethren of the Coast has hacked his own niche in history, and is memorable for what he took rather than for what he gave ! The name of Dampier, however, gives one pause, for, like many more of the tribe than casual history records, it was a curious combination of circumstances and sheer fatality rather than temperament and natural inclination which drove him to join the Brotherhood. A Devon farmer's son, he approached the life of the bucaneer by the respectable path of a Jamaica plantation manager's post, and, curiously enough (though some pessimist might retort that it was naturally enough), it was only after his marriage that he began to tread the same decks as the bucaneers. Dampier soon proved himself a fine naviga- tor, circumnavigating the world among his other feats, and the advantages of his education enabled him to record liis adventures in a much more distinguished fashion than that of the remaining British bucaneer chroniclers. Sharp, Cowley, Ringrose, and Wafer. It was Dampier 's fate to be closely connected with the castaways of the Island of Juan Fernandez, for it was 94 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA his vessel which — weighing anchor in a hurry on the ap- pearance of three Spanish men-of-war — accidentally left behind the friendly Mosquito Indian known as William, the first hermit of Juan Fernandez. It was on a much later voyage, too, in 1708, that the vessel in which Dam- pier sailed took up from the island the much more famous Alexander Selkirk. As for Dampier himself, he died in obscurity. He was in reality a very notable man, a skilled navigator, and a bucaneer by the merest chance. It was different with the redoubtable Sir Henry Mor- gan, the admiral of the bucaneers, and the most notorious of all their number. Morgan, whose headquarters were Jamaica, was heart and soul a Brother of the Coast — save that he lacked just that one virtue which even the most dissolute of the company was wont to boast, loyalty to his fellows. Perhaps Morgan founded his actions as a bucaneer on the basis of his early experience in the West Indies. The fact that on his first landing at Barbados he was treacherously sold as a slave cannot have softened his natural instincts ! For all that, his success was phe- nomenal, and culminated — having first remorselessly blown up a castleful of Spaniards — in his storming of Panama, when a wailing eddy of nuns and priests were driven forward remorselessly as the front rank of his two thousand desperadoes. As to the sack of Panama, no other plundering in the world has exceeded it in the wildness and terror of its debauch. When it was all done, moreover, the greedy and treacherous Morgan left more than weeping women and the corpses of men be- hind him. He w^as followed by the curses of his allies, whom with his usual cool and calculating daring, he had left in the lurch. For in his ship, as it dipped away from sight down below the horizon, were many tens of thou- sand of pieces of eight, and a great hoard of gold and silver ornaments that should have been theirs. Undoubtedly in Morgan's character the jackal added a very shrill howl to the lion's roar. What, for instance, THE BUCANEERS 95 could be a more eloquent study in consummate meanness than the pains he took to seek out the bodies of his drowned comrades as they floated on the sea — not in order to give the corpses decent burial, but to despoil them of their rings and richer clothes. But Morgan had the fortunate knack of floating on the surface of involved affairs. He escaped the vengeance of his wronged comrades, and continued to escape it when, a knighted governor of Jamaica, he cynically hounded down in the name of the law those very men by the side of whom he had once fought, slain, and plundered, and with whom he had sworn eternal comradeship. Decidedly Morgan appeared as the loudest squawk in the swan song of the bucaneers, for at the close of the seventeenth century when a Bourbon came to the throne of Spain the true Brethren of the Coast passed away, and were succeeded by lesser and indiscriminate pirates, whose methods by comparison were vulgar and parochial. We may close this chapter with some details of one or two voyages which, although they recall the bucaneer flavor up to a certain point, were, officially, of an author- ized and privateering nature. Captain Woodes Eogers set sail from Bristol on the 1st of August, 1708, in command of a thirty-gun ship, the Duke. Dampier sailed with him as one of his officers, and he was accompanied by the twenty-six gun ship, the Duchess, commanded by Captain Stephen Courtney. The expedition held a commission from Prince George of Denmark, Lord High Admiral of England, to cruise in the South Seas against the Spaniards and French. Having captured a prize or two, the vessels put in at Rio de Janeiro, casting anchor near a village some leagues from the capital. Here the fact that some French privateers were in the neighborhood caused an unusually warm welcome to be extended to the British seamen by the Portuguese, doubtless largely owing to the hope of added protection thus brought them. 96 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Indeed — apart from the routine of chasing vessels, which after a time grows monotonous to relate — one of the notable circumstances of this voyage was the lengths to which the cordiality between the Portuguese and the British was carried — though this did not prevent one or two of the usual attempts at inveigling British seamen on shore — in order that, as deserters, their labor might be available for the mines ! The record of one day alone at the little town of Angre de Eeyes suffices to take away the breath of one familiar with the usual ceremonious and stilted intercourse such as characterized the relations between Iberian governors and British sailors. This was the 27th of October, when the governor, most unreservedly friendly, sent word to know if the British would lend their ** music" to head a procession in honor of the Virgin Mary. By all means ! replied the seamen. And so behold the procession set- ting out through the very modest streets of Angre de Eeyes, banners waving, candles flaming, incense smoking — and, at the head of all, the "music" of the British vessels, which consisted of a hautboy and two trumpets, the blowers of which — owing to the too generous local offers of liquor — were just a little the worse for wear. But they appear to have maintained decorum, no doubt largely owing to the presence in the procession of Cap- tain Rogers, Captain Courtney, and the other officers of the Duke and Duchess, each of whom carried a wax taper. But by far the most amazing thing was yet to happen. The procession at an end, the British officers, having been feasted, returned to their ships in a hospitable mood, and then invited the chief men of the place to come aboard and be entertained in their turn. Presently, when the liquor had got well under way, the Portuguese toasted the pope, to whom the sailors drank with jovial enthusi- asm. Then Rogers, declaiming in his turn, gave first the health of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and then, THE BUCANEERS 97 in order that no one should be forgotten, called on his guests to drink to William Penn, the Quaker. And to both of these the Portuguese drank deep ! What a day ! Whether Rogers, following the time-honored customs of the bucaneers, had these toasts saluted by salvoes of artillery I know not. They may have been considered sufficiently startling without any such addition. It w^as on this voyage that Rogers discovered Alex- ander Selkirk after his four years' and four months' lonely residence, and that super-castaway was made mate of the Duke on the spot. The remainder of the log is made up of the usual chases and captures on the Pacific, and of a lengthy, patient, and cat-like lying in wait for the Manila galleon. When one appeared (that proved worth two million dollars to the crews) it is only with mixed feelings that one may read of Rogers' preparations for the attack. Having no spir- ituous liquor on board, he caused a great kettleful of chocolate to be made for the men ! Could anything have been less rollicking — less appropriate to the latitude and period ! Then he called his crew to prayers, and success- fully engaged the galleon. In 1719, Captain Clipperton, w^ho had served under Dampier, set sail for the South Seas with his two vessels, one, the Success commanded by himself, the second, the Speedwell, in charge of Captain Shelvock, formerly of the royal navy. Less than a week after they had left Plymouth a severe gale separated the two vessels, which did not meet again until chance happened to bring them together in the Pacific Ocean. The misfortune was felt the more keenly by the Success, since, as ill-luck had it, the Speed- well carried the entire stock ot liquor for the two ships. The Success appears to have attempted nothing in the Atlantic, arriving at Juan Fernandez vexed by scurvy and beaten by storms. Here they stocked their larder with a great number of the goats with which the island 98 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA abounded, but on the other hand they left behind them two seamen who, desiring to play at Alexander Selkirk in company, had deserted. After this comes the usual record of prizes, and on account of a stay at Cocos Is- land, in order that the crew should have an opportunity of recovering from the sickness attending a long cruise. Off the coast of Mexico, Clipperton chased a ship which, when overhauled, proved to be the Jesu Maria, com- manded by Captain Shelvock, and manned by forty of the survivors of the Speedwell's crew. Here was a dra- matic meeting. The Speedwell, it appeared, had been wrecked on the Island of Juan Fernandez, and with her timbers a smaller vessel had been built, by means of which they had captured their present prize. The Island of Juan Fernandez had seen many queer things, but probably nothing stranger than the boat which set out from its shores, holding forty persons, crowded together, four live hogs, one cask of beef, and over two thousand smoked conger-eels, on the odorous bundles of which the men, for want of room, were forced to lie ! It soon became evident to Clipperton that Shelvock and his crew were no longer inclined to sail in company with him, nor to share the considerable booty they had amassed. So the Success sailed away to China, leaving Shelvock to his own devices. The latter, after some further cruising, followed in the track of the Success to the west. PAET II THE BRITISH IN COLONIAL SOUTH AMERICA CHAPTER V EARLY BRITISH ADVENTURERS IN SPANISH AMERICA Reasons for the slender English records during the colonial period of the continent — Influence of the Inquisition — The Spaniard in his ofEcial and in his private capacity — Questions of faith — Englishmen who sailed to Paraguay in 1534 with Pedro de Mendoza's expedition — The town of "Londrez" — Cause of the nomenclature — The Chilean census of 1788 — A late proof of the phenomenal dearth of foreigners — Conditions which obtained in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — Influence of the Spanish occupation of Brazil — Method of receiving strangers in that colony — Inhospitality to foreigners general throughout South America until the independence of the continent — Early English Jesuits in South America — The kidnapped London boy, John Martin, develops into Joao d' Almeida, a noted Brazilian saint — His enthusiastic scourgings of the flesh — Veneration in which he was held — Father Tliomas Fields — A famous Irish Jesuit — Captured by an English bucaneer — Alleged fate of the most violent of the captors — Father Field's work in Paraguay — Sacred ceremonies at sea — English vessels engaged in the slave trade — Privileges granted to these — South America as a refuge for the social outcast — Irish settlers — Their popularity in the continent — Special con- cessions granted them — Their success as pastoralists — Method of part- nership with the South Americans — Ambrose O'Higgins — The greatest British figure in South America — Circumstances of his youth — Arrival in South America — As a humble immigrant he takes up a minor com- mercial career — His success as an itinerant trader — The road from that situation to the viceregal throne — O'Higgins, when middle-aged, enters the Spanish colonial service — His work among the Araucanian Indians — Various governorships held — Increasing velocity of his upward career — His liberal policy as captain-general of Chile — Ambrose O'Higgins becomes Viceroy of Peru — His achievements while holding this high office — Death of O'Higgins — His career compared with that of his son Bernardo. THE records of the English during the early colonial period of South America are naturally very slender. So far as Spanish America was concerned, this could scarcely have been otherwise. We have already seen that the political and religious aim of 101 102 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the Spanish Empire was the complete seclusion of its colonies. When not even every province of Las Espanas, the Spains themselves, was given free access to the South American colonies, it may be imagined what diffi- culties lay in the path of the foreigner — and, above all, the heretic — who had a longing to taste of the vast riches in which the Southern shores were reputed to abound. The marvel, therefore, is not that those English expedi- tions which harried the shores of Spanish South Amer- ica should have met with so few of their own fellow coun- trymen, but rather that they should have been brought into contact with so many. In centers such as Lima and other places where the Inquisition was powerful and in- quisitors numerous there is no doubt that unrepentant '* heretics" were burned or otherwise put out of the way by the annihilating laws of the auto-da-fe. But Span- ish South America was wide, and the dread even of the Inquisition did not succeed in obtruding itself the entire length of the Pacific, to say nothing of the Atlantic coast. There were many kindly Spaniards, official and other, who shrugged their shoulders, and winked at the growing intimacy between the South American colonists and a stranded mariner or two. Nevertheless, such cases were rare enough, and such of their countrymen, as the Northern seamen met with on their expeditions were nearly always of the Roman Cath- olic faith. These seemed to come to the surface of the spray of events with considerable frequency. They were met with both on shore and in command of Spanish ves- sels, and such meetings were by no means always of a friendly character. Indeed, there are instances of English Roman Catholics in the service of Spain accompanying some of the earliest of the expeditions to South America. One is said to have accompanied Pizarro's force, and three — John Rutter of London, Nicholas Coleman of Hampton, and Richard Liman of Plymouth — sailed with Pedro de Mendoza in EARLY BRITISH ADVENTURERS 103 1534 to the mouth of the River Plate, thence to Paraguay, where they appear to have settled down. Out of the mists of the early Spanish colonization of the interior of the continent the aftermath of a sudden explosion of cordiality still remains. In the Province of Catamarca, which now belongs to the Argentine Re- public, is a small village boasting the name of ''Londres." This is the result of one of the farthest-flung eddies which the marriage of Mary of England to Philip II of Spain set in being. The nomenclature must have been the work of a tactful local governor. Nevertheless, considering the extreme remoteness of Catamarca from Spain, it is quite possible that, by the time the news of the marriage arrived and the name had been given, the hope of na- tional alliance, and the cause of cordiality, had already vanished. To what extent foreigners had been kept out of the Spanish South American dominions may be gathered from a census taken in Chile in 1788. Out of four hun- dred thousand inhabitants only seventy-nine were given in as foreigners. Of these, representing thirteen na- tionalities, there were only three who were not Roman Catholics. It is likely enough that this list was not a complete one. It stands to reason that many complacent local officials would not care to have it on record that they were harboring too liberal a number of these strangers who were so unpopular with the highest authorities. And juggling with figures was so simple a matter under the Spanish Empire that it had become almost a hobby on the part of nearly every official, however straitlaced he might have been in other respects ! Even so, it may be taken for granted that the number of strangers in Chile and elsewhere at that period were extraordinarily limited. If this state of affairs obtained at so late a date as the end of the eighteenth century, it may be imagined how 104 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA much more severe were the conditions which applied in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In what might be termed the mid-colonial period of South America, when, Portugal having freed herself in Europe from the yoke of Spain, the great colony of Brazil reverted to the mother country, it might well have been expected that an alteration of policy would occur in this portion of the continent. But this was not so. The germ of the Span- ish colonial theory had eaten too deeply into the con- temporary Portuguese mind to be lightly eradicated. Thus when the affairs of Brazil came again to be ad- ministered by the Portuguese, the foreigner who spread his sails in anxious haste to make the ports of the new Brazil met with an abrupt shock of disillusion. If the authorities were in a complacent mood, his ship might be allowed to anchor in one of the harbors and a certain amount of very guarded intercourse might be permitted. But all trips from the ship to the shore were rigidly dis- couraged, and this policy was applied even to those old national friends, the British. No party of foreigners, in fact, was allowed to land unless under the close and in- cessant supervision of an armed guard — a most unsatis- factory method of drinking in first impressions of a strange country! It was not, indeed, until the Spanish colonies became republics, and Brazil a monarchy, that was brought about the removal of the barriers that had been set up in the face of the foreigner. Even for some decades after the independence of the continent had been achieved, the old theory of the exclusion of the foreigner persisted in one or two remote regions, notably in Paraguay. The actual starting-point of the careers of the Eng- lishmen in the mainland of South America is, of course, somewhat vague and difficult to determine. We have al- ready referred to those who accompanied Pizarro and Pedro de Mendoza. They doubtless played their part manfully, but not in a fashion that left a permanent rec- EARLY BRITISH ADVENTURERS 105 ord behind them. The earliest of the English who achieved this were Jesuits. It is known that there were several English priests at Cordoba, among them being Thomas Falconer and Thomas Brown. At least one saint of the early Brazilian Church — or of the company of Jesuits in Brazil — can claim English birth. It ap- pears that one of the most conscientious self-scourgers and wrestlers with the devil among the Jesuits in Brazil, was actually born in London in the reign of Queen Eliza- beth. This was the friar Joao d 'Almeida, whose original name was John Martin, and who is said to have been kid- napped by a Portuguese merchant when he was ten years of age. Seven years after this he was taken out to Brazil, and entered the company of Jesuits, his superior being the famous Father Anchieta. The great repute for sanctity of which Joao d 'Almeida soon became possessed was not lightly won. It is diffi- cult to conceive a soul that could have been a deeper enemy of its imprisoning flesh. Indeed, the only worldly possessions in which he took the least pride were the in- struments with which he was accustomed to chastise that despised flesh of his. These made up an elaborate col- lection. There was every possible variety of scourge, from whipcord to wire ; there were hair shirts, and many varieties of the most satisfactorily painful wire cilices; there were sharp pebbles and hard grains of maize such as would promote the most comfortable of shoes from their state of ease to perdition, and then there were the nat- ural and welcome allies of the spirit in the shape of mos- quitos, fleas, and similar cordial assistants in the cam- paign against the cursed matter. And all this is to say nothing of the fastings carried out with so bitter a de- termination that the fainting body stumbled while the spirit soared! Notwithstanding their mutual hatred, the spirit and body of this remarkable man clung together for no less than eighty-two years. At least let us say this of him, 106 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA that, though his particular methods of attaining to a righteous state were medieval and crude, they had the merits of an undoubted sincerity and of the fullest faith. It is easier to smile at the methods of Friar Joao d 'Al- meida than to test them ! The friar was not without honor in his own community. The veneration with which he was regarded increased steadily during his lifetime, until it had attained to a pitch that, at the time of his last and fatal illness, con- vulsed Rio de Janeiro and all the surrounding country with grief, and every possible object that could be treas- ured as a relic of the saintly man was carefully pre- served. A far more generally known Jesuit priest of British birth was Father Thomas Fields — or Tomas Filds, as the Spanish chroniclers record the name. This was an Irish Jesuit, one of the foremost in strenuous endeavor of a most notable company, who sailed out from Europe in 1587 in order to assist in the great mission work which had been begun among the Indians of Paraguay. According to the Jesuit writers. Fathers Charlevoix and Del Techo, the vessel in which this small company of Jesuits was sailing to South America was captured by an English bucaneer when off the mouth of the river Plate. It is said that the fathers were brutally treated by the crew of the vessel which captured them, and it is possible enough that they did suffer considerably at the hands of some rough sea-dogs. At the same time, the most orthodox of modern Jesuits will scarcely deny that these two old historians have strained both their minds and pens just a little in their enthusiastic haste to point a moral! It appears that, not content with maltreating the per- sons of their captives, the bucaneers took to scattering some treasured relics that the missionaries bore with them. This was more than the Jesuit fathers could suf- fer, and a struggle was brought about by their endeavors EARLY BRITISH ADVENTURERS 107 to save the relics. Enraged, the bucaneers flung Father Ortega, one of the Jesuits, overboard, and he was only rescued after some hesitation. But then fell the venge- ance which preserved the missionaries from further ill- treatment. With an extraordinary rapidity the chief blasphemer developed a malignant boil in his leg. So rapidly did the growth spread that, although his com- panions amputated his leg, it was not in time, and the miserable man died in great agony within twenty-four hours. In the end Father Fields and his companions arrived safely in Paraguay, and the labors of Fields among the Indians — his interminable wanderings through forest, swamp, and lagoon in search of fresh converts to bap- tize — are set down among the most prominent of those in- tensely interesting records which deal with the work of the Jesuit missions. In the eighteenth century there were undoubtedly many more British friars, already domiciled in Spain or Portu- gal, who sailed in Iberian vessels to South America. But very few of these left records behind them. Now and again a corner of the veil is lifted, and we are given a glimpse of the stately departure of the fleet and of the galleons, of the ceremonies, rites, and feastings, and of the occasional passage in a cock-boat across the shining blue waters from one vessel to another. We learn, too, from English passengers how, on the day dedicated to Saint Ignatius, voyaging Jesuits would celebrate a great feast, and would march in procession about a ship hung with white linen and flags, whose masts were decorated with the Jesuit arms and with pictures of Saint Ignatius, while the cannon roared their salutes, and at night the rigging glowed with lanterns, and flashed and banged with fireworks. Having dealt with this considerable number of saintly figures, we may now pay some passing attention to a few sinners — not that the slave traders of the eighteenth 108 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA century were considered a whit more sinful than folk who dealt in objects other than human. In the eighteenth century, as in Richard Hawkins' day, a shipload of black labor-instruments was always wel- come. British vessels obtained special privileges when engaged in this trade, and their owners possessed slave establishments of their own in Buenos Aires, where the original building to house slaves was constructed in 1702 by an English company that had secured a monopoly for the importation of Negroes. In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht provided some notable concessions to the English. In addition to the privilege of trading at the famous fairs of Portobello (at which the goods, with the exception of the large amounts smuggled, were bought to supply the whole of Latin America) they were conceded the right of slave-dealing in the whole of Spanish America. Some years later, when war broke out between Eng- land and Spain, Zavala, the governor of Buenos Aires, seized the English slave-trading station, which was rees- tablished at the end of a short war. During this period many English vessels visited the port of Colonia for smuggling purposes. The slave-trading concession was subsequently with- drawn, but was renewed again in 1784 and in 1791, when ships that brought slaves were permitted to load the prod- uce of the country for their return voyage. This latter somewhat startling innovation caused much tribulation to the Spanish merchants, who had until then enjoyed the monopoly of these shipments, and when an English vessel was loading with hides we find them protesting vigor- ously against the ''fatal consequences which must ensue to the national commerce"! Small wonder that the safety-valve of smuggling flourished ! The concession was subsequently added of carrying away the produce of the country in the vessels that had brought slaves. This privilege was resented by the more reactionary of the officials, who endeavored to put a stop to it toward the end EARLY BRITISH ADVENTURERS 109 of the eighteenth century, an attempt that had little effect beyond increasing the smuggling traffic, which had from the beginning acted as the safety-valve of South Amer- ican commerce. In addition to the reputable British who found them- selves in the South American Iberian colonies at this period, there were a certain number of shadier specimens of that nationality who had taken refuge in some parts of the Southern continent. Decidedly no shelter could be more certain than that of the South American soil for the spendthrift or criminal of a certain standing and of sufficient means to make his way thither. Having changed his religion, he would be received with open arms by people, whose views, whatever else they might have been, were at all events sincere and enthusi- astic. Then, having learned to suck up Yerba Mate in- stead of sipping his dish of China tea, and to drink red Spanish wine instead of his claret, yellow Jerez, or purple port, he would accustom himself to the life of the new continent, and become as dead as drying bones to the old. In Spanish America the most welcome of all the set- tlers who arrived from overseas during the last few de- cades of the colonial period were the Irish. Their skill in curing meat had brought them considerable reputation among the colonials. This and the fact that their re- ligion was Roman Catholic caused them to receive spe- cial privileges, and they had established themselves in considerable numbers in Argentina before the War of Liberation. It may be remarked here that an Irish Lieutenant- Colonel in the Spanish service, Don Carlos Morphi, was governor of Paraguay in 1766. He is said to have been of considerable assistance to the Jesuits in the trials at- tending their expulsion. Later, the Irish took up the occupation of shepherds, and — seeing that their foreign birth caused them to be 110 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA immune from the military duties to which the others were liable — their services were in great request. A species of partnership was usually entered into between the Irish- man and the South American. The former would bring into play his labor and his shepherd's knowledge; the latter would provide the livestock and the land. By this arrangement was laid the foundation of many a South-American — as well as an Irish-South-American — fortune that has to be counted in millions of pounds sterling to-day. Infinitely the most salient figure among the Britons of colonial South America is that of Ambrose O'Higgins, the bare-footed youngster of the county Meath tenant farmer, who rose to be viceroy of Peru. The most clearly O'Higgins 's career is regarded, the more astonishing it appears. The mounting force of such men as — leaving the medievals and ancients out of the question for want of space! — Clive, Napoleon, and Garfield is sufficiently bewildering to contemplate. But the difficulties in the path of these were as molehills compared with the moun- tains that O'Higgins had to surmount. Of these. Napoleon's career is that which, for one rea- son only, most nearly approaches that of the ponderous viceroy whose boyhood was spent in running errands at Dangan Castle. But, although the Corsican in his early youth was not over-familiar with the language of his future empire, he was born, and his deeds were achieved, in the midst of his fellow subjects of France. O'Higgins lacked even this commonplace advantage. It is true that he had an ecclesiastical uncle in Spain who possessed a certain amount of influence — sufficient at all events to offer the young nephew who had come out to him from Ireland, seemingly without a vocation for the priesthood, the opportunity of proceeding to the Spanish South American colonies as a peddler. Conceive, if you can, the gap between the foreign and friendless young hawker, landing on the strange alluvial EARLY BRITISH ADVENTURERS 111 flats of Buenos Aires, and the Viceroy of Peru — the holder of an office coveted by every one of those grandees of Spain who were privileged to remain with heads cov- ered in the presence of the Emperor himself — a post which had scarcely ever been held by the most eminent even of the Spanish colonials, and which required the proudest of quarterings as well as a European reputation for statesmanship ! For in no capital were the formali- ties of family and the privileges of blood more rigidly in- sisted on than in the severe and unbending court of Spain. Yet the man who struggled across the Andes to Chile and Peru, and set up his humble stall in the shade of the cathedral at Lima, bridged this mighty gap, and won his way to the throne of the most important vice-royalty in the world. The main features of Ambrose O'Higgins's life in Spanish South America are well enough known. Wan- dering over the immense tracts of country from Vene- zuela in the north downwards to Central Chile, in order to dispose of his wares, it was this strenuous and itin- erant life which gave him that wide topographical knowl- edge which was to serve him so well in his later official existence. O'Higgins prospered in his commercial life, and, hav- ing made sufficient money for his needs, he offered his services to the Chilean Government for the surveying of roads and engineering work in the Andes and in the South. It speaks well for the broadmindedness of the Chilean colonial authorities that they accepted his offer. They had no cause to regret this, and both traveling men and beasts rapidly found cause to congratulate them- selves on O'Higgins 's work. It is an extraordinary ex- ample of the workings of fate that at this early period of his official career O'Higgins, serving the royal inter- est, caused those much-needed shelter huts to be erected in the Andes passes — refuges which some fifty years later, after the Chilean defeat of Ramcagua, assisted his 112 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA republican son and his followers to make their escape from the pursuing royal forces ! Shortly after this O'Higgins obtained a commission in the Spanish Eoyal Engineers, and from that point his promotion was assured and rapid. A point to be noticed in O'Higgins' remarkable life is that he was no less than forty years of age when he en- tered the Spanish colonial service. Middle-aged, he had already retired from one career, and, according to the ordinary ethics of life, there was no reason why he should not have sat down in peace for the rest of his life in the shade of his poplar and orange trees, surrounded by his vineyards and roses, and the countless flowers and fruits of the beautiful Chilean valleys. But O'Higgins never seems to have contemplated any such retirement. He had other views. His mercantile career had led him to the point at which a young Spaniard enjoying reasonable influence might enter the Govern- ment with all his ambitions and ideals shining before him at their highest and freshest. O'Higgins flung away the cares and details of his past, and entered the arena, handicapped by some twenty years. It would be an un- derstatement to say that he caught up with the others hand over fist: from that moment his career was mete- oric ! Advancing from rank to rank, he first defeated the fiery Araucanian Indians, and then won the deep esteem of those untamable warriors. In 1777 he obtained his colonelcy, and shortly after he was made brigadier-gen- eral. Among his achievements at this period was the founding of the town of Balenar, a name which he gave to it in honor of his Irish birthplace, Ballinary. He him- self retained close and affectionate connection with this name throughout; for when he was created a count he chose the style of Balenar for his title. The astounding velocity of 'Higgins 's upward career was now increased. Reaching the rank of major-general EARLY BRITISH ADVENTURERS 113 in 1788, he was created Marquis of Osorno, and became Captain-General of Chile in 1792, while in 1794 he re- ceived a further military step to the grade of lieutenant- general. O'Higgins was now Governor of Chile, and his great abilities began to find their full scope. His most notable work was in connection with administrative reform, the abolition of slavery, the founding of towns, the construc- tion of roads and harbors, and other progressive meas- ures of the kind. Occasionally O'Higgins 's liberal policy was startling in its effects, and brought him into conflict with his su- perior, the mighty Viceroy of Peru. But 'Higgins per- sisted in his views, and boldly argued with the King of Spain himself, until the latter, yielding to the sound com- monsense of 'Higgins 's point of view, ended by accord- ing him his warm support. The crowning acknowledgment of the great Irishman's services occurred in 1796, when Ambrose O'Higgins was made Viceroy of Peru. This post — the most coveted and exalted beneath those of actual royalty throughout the world — he held with great honor until his death in 1801 at the age of eighty-one. There is a portrait in existence of Ambrose O'Higgins, when Governor of Chile, that seems to me to reveal most admirably the physiognomy of the greatest British subject who ever set foot on South American soil. The countenance is essentially Hi- bernian : the jaw is massive ; the mouth is firm, and the eyes and the expression of the face are characteristically benevolent. There are probably more varied lessons to be learned from the career of Ambrose O'Higgins than from those of the majority of great men. For one thing, it would seem to prove that the wiser springs of human nature are not necessarily tainted to their depths by a mistaken form of government. The errors of the Spanish colonial policy are patent, and none attempt to deny that the 114 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA general Spanish administration of the period was cor- rupt to a degree. Yet it was the officials brought up in so unsatisfactory a school who freely recognized Am- brose O'Higgins's merits, and who assisted the man with- out court influence to that exalted place where he could best display his talents. This honest appreciation, more- over, extended from the lower ranks to the highest. The King of Spain himself had corresponded with, argued with, and praised his brilliant viceroy. But he had never set eyes on him, nor listened to the brogue-tinged Span- ish of the chief dignitary of his South American do- minions. O'Higgins' case was that of sheer talent tri- umphant. Judging from the general conception of Span- ish colonial rule, it may have been an anomaly. In any case it affords a warning against the dangerous vice of over-generalization ! I have referred to Ambrose 'Higgins as the greatest British subject who ever set foot on South American soil, and this distinction is freely admitted on all hands. But I would go beyond this. To my mind the name of 'Higgins is one of the greatest which has ever shone out of the entire history of South America. It is true that it first appears there a generation or so before such compelling patronymics as Bolivar, San Martin, and those others which the stress of the War of Independence raised high above the masses of the populace. But the name of 'Higgins has something which these others lack. It is, in fact, unique. It has a double luster ; because it was borne by two generations with an almost equal brilliancy. It is seldom that a genius such as Am- brose 'Higgins the father, the greatest viceroy of roy- alist Spanish America, bears a man such as Bernardo 'Higgins the son, first chief of the New Republic which sprang up from the ashes of his dead father's govern- ment. In South American opinion the son usually ranks as the greater of the pair. I think that the chief reason for EARLY BRITISH ADVENTURERS 115 this is that Don Bernardo stands for the triumph of the republican principles. But for this very natural wave of sentiment, I think that the verdict would be reversed. It is true that Bernardo 'Higgins did not begin where his father left off. On the contrary, the illegitimate and somewhat neglected son of the powerful viceroy was left to carve out for himself the most important step in his career — a fact which makes the double luster all the more brilliant. But at all events he had his father's great name at his back, and his manhood's career was begun among kindred people whose customs and language were his. His father had enjoyed no such advantages as these. From the point of view of crucial politics, Bernardo 'Higgins may have played the more important part; but from the point of view of actual achievement it seems to me that the palm must go to the father — to Ambrose 'Higgins, who governed a country a dozen times larger than the island where he had been born a peasant's child ! CHAPTER VI SOME EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES TO SOUTH AMERICA Commodore Anson's Voyage — Aims of the expedition — Composition of the squadron — Patients of Chelsea hospital deemed an efficient force of ma- rines by the authorities — Official response to protests — Scene at the embarkation of the unfortunate invalid veterans — The force strength- ened by recruits — The squadron sets sail on the 18th of September, 1740 — Narrowly misses falling in with a Spanish fleet off the island of Madeira — Subsequent calamities which befel Admiral Pizarro's vessels — Anson's vessels arrive at Santa Catharina, in Brazil — Conduct of the Portuguese governor — His greed and hostility — Anson, proceeding to the south, arrives at the harbor of San Julian — Foul weather separates the squadron — Shipwreck of the Wager — Subsequent adventures of the lost vessel's officers and crew — Fate of the mutineers — The Centurion with a diminished and enfeebled crew arrives at the island of Juan Fernandez — The ravages of scurvy — Within the next two months arrive at long intervals the Tryall, Gloucester, and Anna Pink, all similarly afflicted — Appalling death roll of the squadron — Rest and recuperation at Juan de Fernandez — Species of fish obtained — Anson plants vege- tables and fruits — The island dogs — Agents introduced by the Spaniards for the destruction of the goats — Survivors of these latter — The Cen- turion, Gloucester, and Tryall set sail with little more than a third of their original crews — The squadron begins its aggressions on the Pacific coast — Chivalry displayed by Anson toward his prisoners — How this was appreciated by the Spaniards of both sexes — Incidents at the cap- ture of Paita — ^Seamen's humor — Various prizes — After securing much booty Anson lies in wait for the Manila galleon — Abandonment and burning of the now imsea worthy Gloucester — The Centurion after pro- longed cruising captures the Manila galleon, and immense treasure — She returns home after a cruise of nearly four years — A tale of Captain Campbell, one of Anson's officers — Commodore Byron's voyage in the Dolphin, accompanied by the Tamar — Intercourse with the Patagonian Indians — Some native ideas of generosity — Embarrassing demonstra- tions of friendship — Captain Wallis's voyage in the Dolphin, accom- panied by the Sicallow — An incident at Madeira — Description of the In- dians within the Straits of Magellan — Discovery of Pitcairn's Island — Captain Cook's voyage in the Endeavour — Some incidents on the South American coast — Spanish curiosity concerning his discoveries in the Pacific Ocean — Length to which the seclusion of the Spanish colonies 116 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 117 was carried — An instance affecting a United States whaler — Capture of the missionary ship Duff — Mutiny of the convicts of the Lady Shore — Missionaries and convicts meet at Montevideo — The convicts' advances rejected — Services subsequently rendered by these to the British sol- diers of the river Plate expeditionary force — The cruise of H.M.S. Cornuallis. IN the year 1740 there were circumstances connected with the manning and equipment of a British fleet when commissioning for a long cruise that might well try the patience of the most reasonable commander. This Commodore Anson found out to his cost when pre- paring to beard the power of Spain in her South Amer- ican colonies. The task before him was to sail round South America, and, after harrying the Pacific coast, to attack Panama, which fortress, it was planned, should be approached at the same time from the Atlantic by a second, and power- ful, British expedition which was to land at the isthmus and advance along Sir Henry Morgan's road, thus re- peating history in a more respectable fashion ! As related by Richard Walter, the chaplain of the Cen- turion, the squadron consisted of five men of war, a sloop of war, and two victualing ships. They were the Centurion of sixty guns, four hundred men, George Anson, commander; the Gloucester of fifty guns, three hundred men, Richard Norris, commander; the Severn of fifty guns, three hundred men, the Honor- able Edward Legg, commander ; the Pearl of forty guns, two hundred and fifty men, Matthew Mitchell, com- mander; the Wager of twenty-eight guns, one hundred and sixty men, Dandy Kidd, commander ; and the Try all sloop of eight guns, one hundred men, the Honorable John Murray, commander: the two victualers were Pinks, the largest of about four hundred, and the other of about two hundred tons burthen. After this Mr. Walter lets loose a round shot of satire, which the circumstances amply justified. ''Besides the complement of men borne by the above-mentioned ships 118 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA as their crews," he adds, 'Hhere were embarked on board the squadron about four hundred and seventy invalids and marines under the denomination of land-forces. . . ." These "invalids and marines," as a matter of fact, had comprised as bitter a pill as it was possible for poor un- desirable humanity to provide for the chastening of a naval commander's spirit. Instead of a smart regiment of foot and three independent companies of a hundred men each such as had been promised for the expedition by the authorities, these latter in the end satisfied their consciences by collecting five hundred out-patients of Chelsea hospital — men who, from their age, wounds, or other infirmities, were incapable of serving further in marching regiments! Anson was aghast at the idea of having this physical refuse of humanity shot upon his ships, and his protest received the support of Sir Charles Wager. But the latter received a stunning broadside of crass officialdom! "He was told, that persons, who were supposed to be better judges of soldiers than he or Mr. Anson, thought them the properest men that could be employed on this occasion." The description of these "properest" men is sufficient to take one's breath away, even after this lapse of nearly two centuries: "But, instead of five hundred, there came on board no more than two hundred and fifty-nine: for all those who had limbs and strength to walk out of Portsmouth deserted, leaving behind them only such as were literally invalids, most of them being sixty years of age, and some of them upwards of seventy. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive a more moving scene than the embarcation of these unhappy veterans. ..." One can picture Anson, surveying from his quarter- deck the pitiful sexagenarian stream, whose weak and palsied limbs were intended by the admiralty judges of "properest" men to make some shift at hearty and rollicking movements! One can imagine, too, the start- EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 119 ing eyes and fallen jaw of Colonel Cracherode, who had come aboard to take up direct command of this army of unsound Methusalehs! At the last moment two hundred and ten of the rawest recruits were sent to the squadron to take the place of the enterprising invalids who had sufficient strenglh to drag their deserting limbs away. None of these recruits had yet learned to fire a musket, but they had at least the strength to hold a firearm to their shoulder, which seemed beyond the physical power of many of the first batch! Thus manned, on the 18th of September, 1740, Anson's squadron weighed anchor from St. Helens in the Solent, stood past the tree-covered shore of Bembridge, and tided it down the Channel, joining company for a time with a convoy of one hundred and fifty merchant vessels and their escort of six warships. Presently this great fleet bore off to the west, leaving Anson's ships to make for their first port of call, Madeira. Anson's voyage differs from almost every other ex- pedition of the kind, before or since, in that not only were the Spaniards well acquainted with its objects and destination, but they had actually fitted out a squadron of superior strength, and had sent it to lie in Anson's path. So that even when the British fleet was halting at one of its earliest calls in the Bay of Funchal the Span- ish admiral Pizarro with six ships, mounting three hun- dred and four guns, and manned by two thousand seven hundred men, was cruising in the quite near neighbor- hood. Many calamities were destined to befall both fleets be- fore they entered a home port again. Of the Spanish vessels only the flagship, the Asia, was ever destined to return to Europe, and that only after the most dreadful sufferings imaginable on the part of the crew: ''When by the storms they met with off Cape Horn, their con- tinuance at sea was prolonged a month or more beyond their expectation, they were reduced to such infinite dis- 120 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA tress, that rats, when they could be caught, were sold for four dollars a-piece ; and a sailor, who died on board, had his death concealed for some days by his brother, who, during the time, lay in the same hammock with the corpse, only to receive the dead man's allowance of pro- visions." After this it is not surprising to learn that when the Spanish vessels, abandoning at length the attempt to round the Horn, put back into the river Plate they were manned by less than half of their original crews. Curiously enough, with the exception of the little Pearl, which once ran within gunshot of the Spanish squadron having mistaken it for her own, the two fleets did not once set eyes on each other. The British vessels pro- ceeded steadily on their course, Pizarro hovering about, and perhaps awaiting a more favorable opportunity in the Pacific Ocean — an opportunity which never came. So, seeing that to Anson's squadron the Spanish vessels never materialized themselves from out of the occasional vague wonderings as to their whereabouts, we may have done with them for the present, and follow the British sailors. Having taken in a brave store of the golden, full- bodied Madeira wine, Anson proceeded uneventfully to the southwest, and made his landfall on Sunday, the 21st December at the Island of Santa Catherina in the south of Brazil. Here the squadron had some reason to expect a friendly reception, if only on account of the excellent relations which prevailed between Great Britain and Portugal. But Santa Catharina proved disappointing in almost every respect. In the first place, being midsummer south of the line, the spot abounded with venomous **muscatos" and equally noxious sandflies. Moreover, the governor of the place, Don Jose Sylva de Pazz, as Mr. Walter terms him, was small improvement on his insects. This personage, indeed, must have been of an extraordi- EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 121 narily uncivil nature. He placed sentinels everywhere to see that the inhabitants of the place did not trade with the British except at ridiculous and prohibitively high rates. This governor of Santa Catharina, as a matter of fact, did not content himself with mere arrogance and in- civility. Being intimately connected in the smuggling trade with the governor of the neighboring Spanish ter- ritory to the south, he took care to send an express to the river Plate, warning the Spanish authorities of the arrival of the British fleet, together with a full descrip- tion of its numbers and condition! It was, in conse- quence, with no regret that the squadron sailed from Santa Catharina on the 18th of January. Mr. Walter has a note on this point : *'The Island of St. Catherine's has been usually recom- mended by former writers, and on their faith we put in there . . . but the treatment we met with, and the small store of refreshments we could procure there, are suffi- cient reasons to render all ships for the future cautious how they trust themselves in the government of Don Jose Sylva de Paz.'* Sailing to the south, the squadron almost immediately fell in with bad weather, an unusual summer phenomenon in those latitudes. It was an ominous introduction, this, to the stormy realms of the Horn itself, but the sailors, knowing nothing of what was before them, sailed on cheerily enough to the Bay of San Julian, the final haven which all Pacific-bound navigators sought before plung- ing into the gray waters of the low latitudes. After this the logs of the squadron record a most ter- rible glut of misfortune. Sailing southward, past the entrance to the Magellan Straits, and onwards between the grim rocky shore of Staten Island and the mainland, they had as big a sailful of gales as the staunchest ship could stand, and, all but overwhelmed by the giant seas, were driven to the south and to the east far out of their 122 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA course. Off Cape Noir the Severn, the Pearl, and the Wager, terribly storm-battered, parted company with the squadron. The Severn and the Pearl succeeded in rounding the Horn again and in sailing back to the Brazils, but the Wager left her bones in Latitude 47.S. on the bleak Chilean coast. The adventures of the Wager's crew are sufficiently noteworthy in themselves. The mutiny of a number of the men afforded a grim introduction to what was to follow. This culminated in the shooting by the captain of a midshipman named Cozens, a rebellious ''sea-law- yer" — it may be as well to explain that a midshipman in those days was frequently a mature personage, who had nothing in common with the smart youngsters turned out from Dartmouth to-day. In the meantime the mutineers, who formed by far the larger section of the party, were busied in lengthen- ing the long-boat and preparing it for sea. When this was all but ready the shooting of Cozens gave them the pretext for placing the captain under a guard, vowing that they would take him home with them to England to be tried for murder. This was merely a subterfuge to prevent their commander interfering with their plans, and just before they set out they released him. On the thirteenth of October, five months after the shipwreck, the long-boat, rigged as a schooner, and tow- ing the cutter, took its departure. The complement of both boats was nearly eighty, so that they were crammed and loaded to the gunwale with men. As they stood to the south the mutineers had at least the remorseful decency to salute with three cheers the few officers and men who remained on the beach. Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the whole af- fair is that this long-boat did actually succeed in passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and, safely navigating the waters that had wrecked so many tall ships, sailed EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 123 safely to Rio Grande in Brazil. But when that bat- tered little boat, three and a half months after it had started, drove its nose at length through the sunny waters on to the Brazilian shore, out of its eighty men only thirty gaunt beings sat within its water-worn planks! The captain of the lost Wager and those that remained with him took the barge and the yawl, and set out to the northward along the Chilean coast, in exactly the op- posite direction to that taken by the long-boat. After innumerable disappointments and hardships the officers became separated from their men, and there were left on a desolate shore Captain Cheap, Mr. Hamilton (lieuten- ant of Marines), the Honorable Mr. Byron and Mr. Camp- bell, both midshipmen, and Mr. Eliot, the surgeon. By the help of Indian guides they eventually reached the Spanish settlements, but only after innumerable further adventures and hardships. After a year's detention in Santiago de Chile four of their number were permitted to return to England. The remaining officer was Mr. Campbell, who *^ having changed his religion, whilst at St. Jago, chose to go back to Buenos Aires with Pizarro and his officers, with w^hom he went afterwards to Spain on board the Asia; but hav- ing there failed in his endeavors to procure a commis- sion from the Court of Spain, he returned to England, and attempted to get reinstated in the British Navy. But in this endeavor the versatile midshipman met with no success. We may now return to the main British squadron it- self, or, rather, to that portion of it which remained com- paratively intact. As a matter of fact, the sufferings of the crews of those ships which kept the sea were very little less than those of the wrecked sailors. The Island of Juan Fernandez — that rendezvous of the mariners of all ages — had been chosen as the rally- ing point, and the condition in which the vessels struggled 124 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA to its anchorage was remarkable and most pitiable. Scurvy had broken out among all the crews with the most terrible results. The first to arrive was the Centurion. How labori- ously and lamely this ship came to her anchorage on the 9th of June may be imagined, seeing that she had a skele- ton of a crew that could muster no more than six fore- most men capable of duty in a watch! Since leaving the Solent she had buried two hundred and ninety-two, leaving a remainder of two hundred and fourteen. Two hundred of the dead men had succumbed to the spotted plague of the scurvy, and scarcely a man remained on board who was entirely free from the disease! Three days afterwards the Tryall sloop came stagger- ing in. She was sailed by a crew of five, the only be- ings on board who had strength to stand on their legs, and these were Captain Saunders, his lieutenant, and three of the men. Out of her small complement the Tryall had buried forty-two, of which thirty-four had fallen to the scurvy. On the 21st of June a ship was seen on the horizon to leeward of the island, with no sail spread but her courses and main-topsail. It was the unfortunate Gloucester, so faint that her spark of life was almost gone ! Assistance in men and provisions were sent out to her from the island, but, owing to the weather, and her tragic condi- tion which let her drift almost where she would, it was the 23rd of July before she limped to her anchorage ! The unfortunate Gloucester had only eighty-two men left alive, a quarter of her original complement! The victualing ship, the Anna Pink, did not arrive un- til the middle of August, but, owing doubtless to the na- ture of her cargo, she appears to have come in fairly good condition. The death roll of the first three ships was not yet at an end, for many of the men died after they had got ashore, and as for the decrepit marines from Chelsea %, ^m AMBROSK O IlI(;(;iNS EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 125 Hospital — it was practically a case of a clean sheet with them — a wash out! There was just one further calamity which the Brit- ish squadron escaped, by a matter of hours only. They suspected nothing of this at the time, although the quan- tity of broken jars, fishbones, and ashes which the men found on their first landing gave them some reason to wonder. As they subsequently found out, an intact Span- ish squadron from Callao had been waiting at the island, and scarcely had their topsails sunk below the horizon when the worn and helpless Centurion came in sight of the land. But very soon the benfits of the fresh provisions found on the island became apparent. There were the seals, at first "not much admired, though they afterwards grew into more repute. ' ' There were also the fish, which, says Mr. Walter, furnished delicious repasts, among them cod of a prodigious size: *'We caught also cavallies, gropers, large breams, maids, silver fish, congers of a peculiar kind, and, above all, a black fish, which we most esteemed, called by some a Chimney-sweeper. ' ' Then there was the ''sea-cra-fish," as Mr. Walter terms it, very rightly claiming for the island specimens that they were probably the most perfect of their kind in the world : ' ' They generally weighed eight or nine pounds a-piece, were of a most excellent taste, and lay in such abundance near the water's edge, that the boat-hooks often struck into them, in pulling the boats to and from the shore." Among his many admirable and thoughful acts, Anson played the Good Samaritan on the Island of Juan Fernandez. He sprinkled its fertile earth with the seed of carrots, lettuces, and other vegetables, and planted a great number of apricot, plum, and peach stones. These, of course, were for the benefit more especially of any British sailors who might find themselves dependent on the hospitality of the uninhabited island. But they U6 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA served for all, as was evidenced by some Spanish prison- ers who were brought to England some years later. These desired to be presented to Anson in order to thank him for his great courtesy toward some relatives of theirs whom he had formerly held as prisoners. In the course of the conversation they told Anson that, before its cap- ture, their ship had touched at Juan Fernandez, and asked him if it were not he who was responsible for the groves of peach and apricot trees which now embellished the island. The crews of the squadron found that the goats in which the island formerly abounded had been largely reduced by the dogs introduced by the Spaniards in or- der to destroy a source of provision so convenient to the bucaneers and to the later hostile vessels. Richard Walter has a most interesting statement concerning Alexander Selkirk's custom of marking the ears of those goats he did not want, and letting them go free. He says : ''This was about thirty-two years before our arrival at that Island. Now it happened that the first goat that was killed by our people, at their landing, had his ears slit; whence we concluded, that he had doubtless been formerly under the power of Selkirk. This was, indeed, an animal of a most venerable aspect, dignified with an exceeding majestic beard, and with many other symptoms of antiquity. During our stay on the Island, we met with others marked in the same manner; all the males being distinguished by an exuberance of beard, and every other characteristic of extreme age." Surely to do justice to the full romance of this story of the island goats the joint pens of Robert Louis Steven- son and Defoe would be needed ! In September, the spring of the southern latitudes, the squadron was once again ready for sea. The Anna Pink had been broken up, and her crew had been distributed among the Centurion, Gloucester, and Tryall. Neverthe- less, instead of the nine hundred and sixty-one men which EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 127 had manned these vessels on their departure from the Solent, they had to be content now with the three hundred and thirty-five survivors. Even so, rested, refreshed, and refitted, the squadron set out in high spirits — spirits which were not lowered when they almost immediately began to fall in with Spanish vessels and to take rich prizes, laden with silver and valuable merchandise. Indeed, Anson's cruise off the Pacific coast of South America recalls a voyage of Drake or of one of the early bucaneers, save that all the harsher incidents of the latter were softened and retrieved by the most excellent chiv- alry and courtesy of the British commander. It is pleas- ant to think that these qualities were appreciated to the full by the Spaniards, and that very nearly a century afterwards Anson's name was still held in honor along the Pacific coast! The difference in the attitude of his numerous prison- ers on their capture and on their release was almost hu- morously striking. Ladies, taken from a commandeered ship, boarded the Centurion in deep anguish fearful of all that was most brutal and bad at the hands of this raiding heretic ! But when they found themselves in un- disturbed possession of their own apartments on board, and that their sex and susceptibilities were held in com- plete reverence throughout, they took courage, and in the end asserted their will to no small purpose. For when the time came for them to go they refused point- blank to stir until they had been given an opportunity of thanking this very gallant sailor ! And, as every one of the male prisoners found himself under similar obli- gations, the White Ensign, though an enemy 's flag, won a prodigious amount of honor along the coasts of Chile and Peru. With reference to the capture of Paita, Captain Hall, writing from that place in 1821 remarks: ''Lord An- son's proceedings, we were surprised to find, are still traditionally known at Payta and it furnishes a curious 128 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA instance of the effect of manners on the opinion of man- kind, to observe that the kindness with which the saga- cious officer invariably treated his Spanish prisoners, is, at the distance of eighty years, better known, and more dwelt upon by the inhabitants of Payta, than the capture and destruction of the town." It is impossible to follow in detail this voyage of An- son's. As I have said, it may, from the practical point of view, be regarded as one of the early privateer's cruises — bowdlerized! There were ships captured and new prizes manned. There was the landing at Paita in Peru, already referred to, and the sacking and burning of that town under the nose of the hostile forces as- sembled just to the rear of it, who were ' ' furnished with trumpets, drums, and standards," and who ''paraded about the hill with great ostentation, sounding their mili- tary music, and practising every art to intimidate us. ' ' But the sailors ashore refused to be intimidated by any- thing of the kind. In a rollicking fit they were adorning themselves with all the glittering and foppish clothes, and all the laced hats, they could lay their hands on, being vastly amused at each other's appearance. After a time the performance developed into a sort of pantomime: ''Those, who came latest into the fashion, not finding men's cloaths sufficient to equip themselves, were obliged to take up with women's gowns and petticoats, which (provided there was finery enough) they made no scruple of putting on, and blending with their own greasy dress. So that when a party of them, thus ridiculously metamor- phosed, first appeared before Mr. Brett, he was extremely surprised at the grotesque sight, and could not immedi- ately be satisfied that they were his own people." This must have been a sight worth seeing, with its background of burning houses, the hostile troops of horse- men hovering in the mid-distance, and the mighty peaks of the Andes to fill in the horizon. There were other circumstances of the voyage which EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 129 produced a more varied species of humor. For instance, when a launch cruising by the shore was overhauled and boarded, its occupants protested that they were but wretched poverty-stricken folk, carrying some cotton in jars. Yet, when discovered, these impoverished people were dining unreasonably well off pigeon pie on silver dishes. This in itself seemed a little out of place, and a closer investigation of the cotton revealed doubloons and dollars to the extent of nearly £12,000 secreted within it! By this time Anson had learned of the tragic failure of the expedition on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama — an undertaking that had promised every suc- cess, until the death of Admiral Vernon threw everything into a confusion which his successors tried in vain to re- duce to order. Anson had learned, too, how fifteen thou- sand splendid British troops had perished on the coast, some in the course of an attack on Carthagena, but the majority from fever and dysentery. There were no Brit- ish troops remaining now on the Isthmus, and that part of Anson's program fell away. One of the chief objects of the British squadron was now the great Manila galleon, which they knew was at sea, bound for the Mexican port of Acapulco. This Manila galleon was the kind of craft worthy to haunt the imagination of Drake himself. This was the vessel which carried the merchandise and coin to and fro be- tween the rich Spanish colonies of Mexico and the Philip- pines. The squadron cruised off Acapulco, every eye on board straining for a sight of the great lumbering galleon. Hopes and fears rose and fell from February onwards. Once, for a peculiarly anxious period, the squadron had to leave its station to water at Chequetan. At length, despairing of the galleon, the British squadron sailed away to the west on the 6th of May, lamenting not a little that the loss of those military efforts which had been put 130 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA out of their power by the storm and the scurvy, should not have been compensated for in some degree by the blow to Spain such as the capture of the Manila galleon would have produced. On the voyage to the west the Gloucester became unsea- worthy, and, her crew having been transferred to the Centurion, she was set on fire and destroyed. Her loss was a blow to the expedition, and, scurvy breaking out again, for a time the prospect became as melancholy as it had appeared before the island of Juan de Fernandez was sighted. Fortunately the sailors found relief at the island of Tinian, one of the Ladrones, where many more adven- tures were met with than can be related here. From Tinian the Centurion, alone now, sailed to the Portuguese city of Macao at the entrance of the Canton River. Here the Centurion refitted completely, remaining until the following year, in April of which Anson set out again on a final attempt to intercept the Manila galleon. On the 20th of June, those on the Centurion still cruis- ing the South Sea, saw a sail rising up over the horizon to the southeast. It was the Manila galleon! She was a formidable antagonist since she carried five hundred and fifty men and thirty-six guns. But the Centurion's de- pleted crew knew their business, and after an hour and a half's engagement the Nuestra Senora de Covadonga, having sixty-seven dead and eighty-four wounded, struck her colors. On board of the prize were found 1,313,843 pieces of eight, and 35,682 ounces of virgin silver. After this the staunch Centurion sailed home, and safely dropped her *'hook" at Spithead on the 15th of June after a cruise of three years and nine months. In connection with this famous voyage of Anson's it may be remarked that a fine old sailor, Vice-Admiral Campbell, who died in 1790, served in the Centurion as a midshipman throughout the cruise. When a captain, EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 131 Campbell served with Sir Edward Hawke in the impor- tant action which ended in the defeat of the Marquis de Conflans in 1759. Having greatly distinguished himself in the battle he was sent home to bear the news of the victory. Lord Anson drove his old comrade to the palace, and the following conversation, as related by John Marshall, will show that Campbell, notwithstanding his high connections, was possessed of a Spartan simplic- ity of manner. '^ Captain Campbell," exclaimed Anson, hugely de- lighted at the victory, ''the King will knight you, if you think proper." ''Troth, my Lord," said Campbell, "I ken nae use that will be to me.' "But your lady may like it," protested Anson. "Weel then," conceded Campbell, "his Majesty may knight her if he pleases." No wonder the Centurion performed the feats she did when so splendid a commander as Anson had at his back such sturdy officers as Campbell. Commodore Byron set out in 1764 in the Dolphin for the purpose of making discoveries in the South Seas. He was accompanied by the frigate Tamar, commanded by Captain Mouat. Having made the usual call at Madeira, the two vessels proceeded to Rio de Janeiro, where the Portuguese — following a custom to which they had now become thoroughly addicted — enticed fourteen of the sailors away, and succeeded in kidnapping five of them. After this the vessels stood down toward the Magellan Straits, encountering a terrific storm, before which hun- dreds of birds fled, "shrieking through dreadful appre- hension," as a chronicler has it, and which laid the Dolphin on her beam end for a time. Just before the ships entered the Straits of Magellan some five hundred Indians were perceived gathered on the shore, and Commodore Byron underwent a sign con- ference with a friendly and gigantic chief of some seven 132 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA feet in height, having one eye boldly painted about in black, while the other was quaintly ornamented with a corresponding circle in white. The Chief's variegated face, as well as the equally bizarre countenances of all the rest, soon lit up with delight at some judicious gifts of beads and ribbons. After this the two vessels entered the Magellan Straits, and it is just possible — though by no means probable ! — that the news of their civility had preceded them, for, an officer on landing in one of the channels was offered a dog by one of these Southern In- dian braves and a few months' old infant by an equally generous squaw! There is no doubt that the very friendly disposition of the officers and men had its occasional disadvantages! At a subsequent landing, for instance, they fell in with some very amiable, but quite primitive, Indians, whose most admired food was rotting whale's blubber. Never- theless, they showed themselves extraordinarily grateful for the gift of some biscuit from the ships, and when four of them, inveigled on board the Dolphin, were made to listen to the strains of a violin played by one of the midshipmen their excitement knew no bounds. One of them — probably the most emotional of the four — deter- mined to make some suitable effort at repaying these mo- ments of joy. So he dived over the Dolphin's side, and re-appeared with a quantity of his very best red paint — with which he carefully and solicitously covered every bit of the musical midshipman's face! The beaming na- tive then approached Commodore Byron himself, who only escaped a similar compliment with the greatest diffi- culty and by means of considerable tact. Very shortly after this, Byron, having already achieved some good survey work, left the coast of South America, and sailed away to the west. In August, 1766, only a few months after Commoodore Byron had brought her safely back into English waters, the Dolphin, commanded this time by Captain Wallis, EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 133 again sailed for South American waters. On this occa- sion the Dolphin was accompanied by the sloop Swallow and the storeship Prince Frederick. Wallis, steering practically the same course as Byron's, touched at Madeira. At this pleasant port Captain Car- teret of the Swallow soon found that nine of his sailors were missing. His anxiety was relieved by a message from the British consul ashore, who begged him — as much for the modesty of the Madeirense ladies, it was to be presumed, as for the credit of the British navy ! — to send off a boat without delay in order to take off the nine adventurous souls who were seated, perfectly naked, on the large gray pebbles of the beach. According to their own confession, when once again on board, the sight of the mountains and vineyards of Madeira had been too much for them! As they argued before their relenting captain, they, having started on a long and perhaps fatal cruise, could scarcely be expected to forego their last opportunity of getting a really im- portant skinful of wine ! So, undressing, they had tied their money in handkerchiefs, and had swum ashore. No historian that I know of has attempted to describe the scene at the Madeira hostel when the nine, rollicking and nude, put in their appearance. Such waste of im- pressionist material approaches the criminal! Had any bystander possessed a tenth of the enthusiasm for local color such as the nine Swallows exhibited for the local wine, this artistic gap would never have yawned ! Continuing its cruise, the squadron fell in with the stal- wart and curiously painted Indians on the eastern ex- tremity of the Magellan Straits, and the crews of the vessels watched some guanaco hunts, the natives gallop- ing after these animals, and bringing them down by means of the bolas. The intercourse was again friendly, and the sailors, being greeted with shouts of ''English- men, come on shore," found that the Indians had by this time picked up various English words and phrases. 134 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Once within the Straits of Magellan, too, the squadron fell in with those same primitive Indians — or their very- near brethren — as had been encountered by Byron's men. On this occasion a little more was learned about these folk who "smelt as rank as a fox." If one of them, for instance, was given a fair-sized fish, he would kill it by a bite near the gills, and would instantly devour it. Once clear of the Straits, Captain Carteret accidentally parted company from the Dolphin and the Prince Freder- ick, and thus the many adventures which befell the two sections of the squadron in the South Seas were experi- enced separately. It should be remarked, however, that after leaving the coast of South America, the Swallow discovered Pit- cairn's Island — that home of so much future drama — so called from the name of the young officers who first set eyes on its land. The choice of the Swallow, by the way, for such an arduous voyage reflected small credit on the lords of the admiralty of the day. We have it on the authority of Lieutenant John Marshall, the editor of the Eoyal Naval Biography, that previous to this voyage she had been nearly twenty years out of commission. She had been slightly sheathed with wood to preserve her bottom from the worms, but, being nearly thirty years old, she was unfit for foreign service. But all the satisfaction that Captain Carteret could obtain from the authorities on this head previous to his departure was the assurance that *'the equipment of the sloop was fully equal to the service she had to perform." It was in 1768, about twenty-two years after Wallis's and Carteret's expeditions, that Captain Cook set out in the Endeavour, accompanied by Mr. Banks. So far as its dealings with South America were concerned, the voyage was notable chiefly for the hampering restrictions which were placed on the intercourse between the ship and the shore at Eio de Janeiro, and for the extraordinary hard- EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 135 ships endured by Banks and his companions on a land march in the snowbound southern extremity of the con- tinent. Seven years later Captain Cook again paid a brief visit to Tierra del Fuego. ^ These visits of the famous Captain Cook to the South Seas seriously disturbed the equanimity of the Spanish colonial authorities. They sent a ship in his wake to find out what he had achieved, and, the vessel being ably com- manded, they were enabled to conduct some valuable re- search work themselves — notwithstanding the fact that the actual and inquisitive object of the voyage was a far less lofty one! This will show how little the views of the grandees had altered since the days when Hakluyt had occasion to write: ** Whoever is conversant in reading the Por- tugall and Spanish writers of the East and West Indies, shall commonly finde that they account all other nations for pirats, rovers and theeves, which visite any heathen coast that they have once sayled by or looked on. ' ' A curious instance of the length to which colonial au- thorities carried the policy of the seclusion of the colo- nies was afforded by the discovery after the capture of Lima by the patriots of a state paper referring to the visit in the first years of the nineteenth century of a dis- tressed American ship from Boston to the Island of Juan Fernandez. The unfortunate vessel had been badly dam- aged by a storm, and had run short of water and fire- wood. It appeared that, carried away by a criminal access of hospitality, the governor of Juan Fernandez had permitted the distressed crew to repair damages, take in wood and water, and sail away! Here was a pretty kettle of fish ! And the Viceroy immediately thun- dered a message upon the erring governor, as he re- ported in the state paper : *'In my answer to the governor I expressed my dis- pleasure for the bad service which he had rendered to the King, in allowing the strange ship to leave the port, 136 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA instead of taking possession of both her and the crew. ... I expressed my surprise, that the governor of an island should not know that every strange vessel which anchors in these seas, without a licence from our Court, ought to be treated as an enemy, even though the nation to which she belonged should be an ally of Spain. . . . and I gave orders, that if the ship should appear again, she should immediately be seized and the crew impris- oned. . . . Finally, I desired a complete statement of the whole affair to be transmitted to his Majesty." The document speaks for itself. The only thing it does not leave quite clear is how many sleepless nights his Majesty suffered on account of this wicked Boston ship ! In any case it is sufficiently remarkable that a policy of this sort should have been able to continue as late as the opening of the nineteenth century. Before quitting this subject of ships we may refer to a somewhat remarkable meeting of saints and sinners which occurred at the very end of the eighteenth century in the pleasant town of Montevideo on the banks of the river Plate. The contracting parties were the missionar- ies from the missionary ship Duff and the convicts from the convict ship Lady Shore. It was by a curious coin- cidence that they should both have arrived at Mon- tevideo, since that place was not the destination of either company, the Duff being bound for the South Sea Islands, and the Lady SJiore for Botany Bay. The manner of the arrival of both, too, was sufficiently adventurous. The Duff was captured by French privateers off Mon- tevideo, and the unfortunate missionaries, after suffer- ing many hardships, were finally ejected with a total want of consideration on to the Montevidean shore. The convicts had reversed this process. They had done their own capturing, having first mutinied and killed a number of their guards, and had managed to bring the Lady Shore into Montevideo, at which port they disem- barked. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 137 It was a remarkable fate which brought these two sets of people together on the Uruguayan coast. Probably no two communities in the world could have diifered more widely. Never, claimed the superintendent of the ^uff, had missiolfaries set out under such special divine pro- tection as those of the Dujf, and never before had such a continuous volume of hymns risen up from the deck of a ship. In the dark and noisome cells of the Lady Shore there had been oaths and deep curses, and the blasphemies grew wilder and hoarser as the vessel staggered to a tempest, or glowed motionless in the stagnant tropics. What a heaven-sent opportunity for the missionaries ! I hope, and believe, that there are few members of the South American Missionary Society to-day who would not have leaped at it. Here were one hundred and nine- teen males and females in the direst spiritual need, cast up, as it were, at their very door. They should have felt like a husbandman, whose wheat had walked into his barn of its own miraculous accord ! But they did not. *' We denied them the privilege of visiting us," explains Gregory, one of the missionaries, ''which they were at first very forward to do; but Dr. Sumer and I, giving them information that they were prohibited from hold- ing any conversation with our females, we received some abrupt answers, and they departed." They were a very smug set of missionaries, these worthy men of the Duff, and for my own part I have little doubt but that their less sanctimonious friends at home must have afforded every facility and financial subsidy which would encourage them to continue their labor in the most remote South Sea Islands ! As to the convicts, there is ample evidence that some of the women among them gave themselves up with devotion to the tending of the wounded in the British expedition to the Rio de la Plata which occurred less than ten years afterwards, and thus earned the deep gratitude of the troops. 138 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA At this period the unceasing energies of the British navy made matters far more uncomfortable for the Span- iards from time to time on the Pacific coast than would appear from any general history. A very salient instance of this is afforded by the voyage of H.M.S. Cornwallis, which sailed from Madras for the west coast of South America on the 9th of February, 1807, and proceeded by way of New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, New Zealand, and Chatham Island- It is worth while culling somewhat extensive extracts from a journal kept on board, since they are unusually eventful, and instructive concerning the episodes of such a cruise. They are as follows : ''June 14th, at noon, stood towards Masafuero, but no appearance of any sealers on it. Captain Johnston re- solved to ascertain if it was in possession of the Span- iards, as had been reported at Port Jackson. At 5 p.m. the boat returned, having found only two American sealers, who had been on the island about nine months, and had seen but five sail during that time. ... at 6 p.m. made sail for Juan Fernandez, in expectation of meeting some of the enemy's cruisers. ' ' June 16. Stood into Cumberland bay, but not a vessel or even a boat to be seen. . . . "June 18th. While both officers and men were indulg- ing themselves in golden dreams, an incident occurred which threatened to involve the whole in one general de- struction. It seems that the gunner had deposited a quantity of blank musket-cartridges in his store-room, on the preceding day, after exercise, instead of returning them to the magazine . . . one of the crew, while fitting a flint, snapped his lock, when the whole exploded with a horrible crash. Several of the ship's company were killed, and many dreadfully burnt; the fore cockpit was set on fire, and the decks forced up ... in 20 min- utes, however, by great exertions, the ship was half water-logged, and by 9 p.m. the fire was totally extin- guished." EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH VOYAGES 139 After a fruitless visit to Valparaiso and Coquimbo we arrive at the entry : ''June 27tli, anchored in Guasco Bay, under American colors ; armed the boats, and sent them with a division of small-arm men, under Lieutenant Barber, to procure cat- tle from the inhabitants. . . . Finding by the report of Lieutenant Barber that water might be obtained ... we succeeded in obtaining 30 tons; but unfortunately lost a very promising young officer. Lieutenant Robson, who was drowned in the surf whilst attempting to swim a line ashore from the launch. ''July 2nd, the inhabitants having taken away two empty butts during the absence of the watering party, and Lieutenant Barber having informed Captain John- ston that a quantity of copper was deposited near the beach, and guarded by some horsemen, an armed party proceeded to seize it, by way of retaliation. Having brought off 31 pigs, weighing 6,000 lbs., and secured two Spanish soldiers, we weighed and made sail to the north- ward. "July 8th, a small vessel from Arica was captured by the jolly-boat near Iquique, an island on the coast of Peru. From her, and two brigs which we took about the same time, a few hogs and some refreshments were ob- tained, which proved of great service, as the officers and ship's company had been on two-thirds allowance of all species, except spirits, ever since our departure from Port Jackson." After this the Journal deals with a lengthy series of captures, one of which seems to have occurred on every third or fourth day. Among these was the Atlantic, of 300 tons, formerly an English whaler, but now armed as a Spanish government vessel — a capture, this, that was an act of retributive justice ! One of the last entries of importance on the South American coast is : "Aug. 15th, Captain Johnston wrote to the Governor of 140 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Guayaquil, informing him that he had liberated the 72 officers and men belonging to the prize gun-vessels, on their parole ; also allowed 340 subjects of Spain to go on shore at different times since his arrival in the South Seas, and requesting that the total number might be car- ried to the general account whenever an exchange of pris- oners should be agreed upon between the two nations. ' ' All of which demonstrates a comfortable and trusting method of waging war which redounds not a little to the credit of both sides ! From the hygienic point of view, too, there is no doubt that such a cruise was a vast improvement on the West Indian naval station, where, in those days fever and dis- ease was only too rife. It was Nelson himself, I believe, who, when a youngster, served in the Hinchinbrooke fri- gate off the Mosquito coast, and who, at the end of six weeks, made one of the twenty-seven officers and men, who alone survived out of a complement of two hundred and thirty-five ! CHAPTER Vn THE BRITISH EXPEDITION TO THE RIVER PLATE Plan of the expedition — Questions concerning the political situation in Spanish South America — Miranda's work in Europe — Some misconcep- tions on the part of the British — Previous plans for sending British forces to South America — The expedition to South Africa — Details of the voyage — After the capture of Cape Town, Admiral Sir Home Pop- ham sails on his own initiative for the river Plate — When off the mouth of the river, a schooner is captured bearing a Scotsman in the Spanish pilot service — Assistance given by Russel — His reward — A gal- lant feat of arms ends in the capture of Buenos Aires — Conduct of the Viceroy Sobremonte — Major Gillespie's account of the entry of the British army into Buenos Aires — Varieties of fellow-countrymen found there — The convicts of the Jane Shore — Improved material and moral standing of these — Strategies employed to conceal the weakness of the British garrison — Recapture of the city by the South American forces — Curious feature of the action — The capture of the Justinia by cavalry and boats — Admiral Stirling arrives in the river Plate with reinforce- ments — Capture of Montevideo — Landing of numerous British traders — The "Southern Cross Gazette" — General Whitelocke's army — The ad- vance on Buenos Aires — An utterly incompetent commander-in-chief — British troops sent to certain slaughter into the streets — Capitulation of the expedition — Political objects directly and indirectly attained by the invasion — A minor result in England of the undertaking — Some records of the prisoners of General Beresford's army who remained in South America — El Guapo Beresfor — An experience of the authors — The outcome of a day's shooting in Misiones. THERE can be no doubt whatever that a consider- able amount of misapprehension attended the despatch of the British expedition to the river Plate. It is a tragic commonplace of our wars that the services of the Intelligence Department have seldom kept pace with the deeds of the soldiers in the field. In 1805 it is certain that information had blundered concerning the attitude and ambitions of the colonists of Spanish South America. But on this occasion there was 141 142 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA more excuse than usual for a blunder of the kind. For years, the South American patriot, General Miranda, had been working with an unceasing ardor in London and Paris, imploring military assistance to fling off the bur- den of Spanish rule, and promising the enthusiastic co- operation of the South Americans. Undoubtedly here again the deep-rooted European ignorance of South American affairs played its part. Miranda was speaking for the North of the continent, for Central America, and for Mexico. He held no proxy from the Argentines and from the South. Much of the affair was concerned with mistaken ideas as to bunting ! The British proposed to offer the South Americans the Union Jack in the place of the yellow and red of Spain. But the South Americans, although anx- ious enough to fight by the side of the Union Jack, had other ideas. They had it in mind to toss up the old Span- ish flag and to let it explode in mid-air like a rocket, when it should send out quite new stars and brand-new patterns of colors, which should be the property of the South Americans alone. But even the South Americans them- selves were sufficiently vague as to the details of their future. It was only known in England that the discontent in the South was growing, and this was not the first occasion on which a proposal had been broached to send a British expedition to South America. In 1793 an expedition had actually come to a rendezvous at the island of Saint Hel- ena, but the enterprise was abandoned at the last moment. Addington is said to have had a scheme of the kind in mind in 1801, and in 1804 Pitt in conjunction with Lord Melville had actually provided a force, under Sir Home Popham, to sail with Miranda to the banks of the Orinoco River and to raise in South America the flag of revolt. The unfavorable military and naval situation which pre- vailed at the beginning of 1805 was alone responsible for the stoppage of the plan. BRITISH EXPEDITION TO RIVER PLATE 143 When Sir Home Popham, the organizer of the expedi- tion, set sail on the last day of August, 1805, with his fleet and with a convoy of fourteen Indiamen acting as transports for troops, his destination was the Cape of Good Hope. The South American scheme was fated not to develop until later in the day, and then in an irregular fashion ! On the way to South Africa, as was usual enough, the fleet called at San Salvador — now more generally known as Bahia — in Brazil. Here provisions were laid in, and a member of the expedition explains that ''the two serv- ices were furnished here with 66 pipes of sound port, at £24 each." But almost immediately there arose lament from sailors and marines and soldiers. The story of Anson's expedi- tion and of half-a-dozen others was repeated. The Portu- guese were determined to make hay so long as the sun shone on the British vessels in their bay. The prices of all things went soaring upwards at a most merciless pace. Even the pilot of the port, plunging headlong into the commercial fray, opened a grog shop, and before the fleet left he had made no less than live thousand dollars profit out of the extempore and shrewd venture ! A certain amount of trouble occurred too, on account of the villainous, and occasionally murderous, habits of the local boatmen, who have never enjoyed the best of reputations. The humorous side of the picture was in part supplied by the Brazilian soldiers, whose cartouche- boxes were found to contain maize instead of ammuni- tion ! Finally, to conclude with the events at Bahia, Dr. Emmerson, of the medical staff, an excellent musician, otfered to play the organ at one of the numerous churches. After some hesitation the offer was accepted, when Dr. Emmerson made the roof ring with "Britons, Strike Home!" "Britannia Rules the Waves!" and "God Save the King!" to the open astonishment and admiration of the Brazilians, it is said. 144 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA After this the British fleet sailed for Table Bay; and the troops took possession of Cape Town. It was from this point that the expedition set sail for the river Plate on the 14th of April, 1806. It is generally supposed that Sir Home Popham acted entirely on his own initiative in thus endeavoring to add to the laurels the force had already won. This is possi- ble enough, since in any case he was aware of Pitt's pre- vious intentions toward South America, and how they had been frustrated through no fault of the minister's. This may well have encouraged him to an attempt the success of which would have marked him as one of the great leaders of his age. However that may be, the fleet sailed from Table Bay, called at St. Helena, and at the beginning of June the vessels were creeping in cautiously toward the land, the blue of the ocean changing to yellow and brown as they entered the mouth of the mighty river. Near Montevideo was captured a schooner, which hap- pened to have on board one of the Royal Spanish pilots of the Rio de la Plata. The appearance and speech of this latter were entirely Spanish, and at first he pro- fessed to understand not a word of English; but per- sistent questioning elicited the fact that there was very little of the real Spaniard about him, and he admitted at length in his native tongue that he was a Scotsman of the name of Eussel, who had been residing in Buenos Aires for fifteen years. Eussel consented to give his services to the expedition, and he rendered valuable assistance. But I much fear that in after life he must have regretted the day he fell in with the British fleet. For after the departure of the British army of occupation from South America, Russel was imprisoned by the Spaniards for his share of the affair, and when he subsequently made his way to England in the hope of obtaining some recom- pense he found himself disappointed in his expectations. He left his native island again in a bitter frame of mind. ^-irta^)S!rU:airti BRITISH EXPEDITION TO RIVER PLATE 145 and doubtless drowned his grief in double quantities of those strong waters of which, it appears, he was too fond for his own good at the best of times. The details of this first expedition are simple, but sufficiently stirring. That a landing party of under seventeen hundred men, all told, should have attempted the conquest of a city of more than forty thousand in- habitants, surrounded, moreover, by thousands of active horsemen in the open country, is sufficiently surprising in itself. That it succeeded is a tribute to the daring of the soldiers and the fine qualities of those typical British sailors who, as the force approached the town in a deluge of winter rain, harnessed themselves to the guns, drag- ging them through the morasses, and themselves swim- ming across the swollen streams that impeded their prog- ress from time to time. It was a gallant feat in the face of gallant enemies, for, had the Viceroy Sobremonte chosen to undertake a spir- ited defense of the town, he would have found himself valiantly supported, as subsequent events proved. But Sobremonte, the Viceroy of Buenos Aires, the keystone of the defense, fled incontinently, and exhibited himself as a ludicrous and terrified figure that opened the eyes and minds of the South Americans for good and all! Un- doubtedly some bitter sentiment prevailed in Buenos Aires when the inhabitants watched the entry of the ludi- crously small force that had surprised the town. The Ar- gentine patriot Belgrano has recorded his chagrin as a spectator of this, and has also left behind him a striking testimonial to ''the brave and honourable Beresford, whose valour in this perilous enterprise I admire, and shall always admire." Major Gillespie, one of the officers of the expedition, has an interesting account of many meetings, on the army's entry into Buenos Aires, with countryfolk, w^hose presence they had not suspected : ' ' The night had not closed before we were accosted by 146 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA several of our countrymen, over whose individual his- tories there hung much obscurity. Some, we were told, had been supercargoes, or consignees, who had abused their trust, and had thus become everlasting exiles from their country and their friends, while others were com- posed of both sexes, who by a violation of our laws, had been banished from their protection, and whose crimes, in a part of them, had been still more deepened in their die, as perpetrators of murder. These were some of the convicts of the Jane SJiore, who had become citizens by their religion ; a most essential preliminary in this conti- nent, to personal safety and prosperity. As we could not, under our circumstances, discriminate their shades of guilt, I can only speak of them as a body of unfortunates ... all of that list, except one dissolute female, were settled in decent employs, and doing well, and all of them contended in their good offices to us. The partial serv- ices of a few towards our distressed soldiers while in prison will atone for many weighty sins. ' ' Compare these acknowledgments with the cold con- tempt poured on the convicts' advances by the mission- airies of the Duff! It is a curious story, that of the British occupation of Buenos Aires. The preservation of individual friend- ships between British and Argentines, the strategies em- ployed by the garrison to conceal the real weakness of their numbers, the gradual gathering and organization of the hostile forces outside the city, the passage of the Argentine army across the Eio de la Plata, the final as- sault and desperate defense which ended in the inevitable capitulation of General Beresford's little force — all these events formed part of a moving period. Argentine historians frankly admit that their General Liniers offered Beresford terms of surrender which w^ere not afterwards carried out to the full — owing, they claim, to the fact that Liniers offered more than lay in his power to concede. From his negotiations with this officer BRITISH EXPEDITION TO RIVER PLATE 147 Beresford bad reason to suppose that the British force would be permitted to return to England. But this was not complied witb, and be and bis men were interned. General Beresford and Colonel Pack, assisted by two Soutb Americans, and an American of tbe name of Wbite, subsequently escaped to Montevideo. Padilla, one of tbe two South Americans, afterwards assisted in the editing of the Spanish edition of tbe '^ Southern Cross," the pub- lication established by tbe British in Montevideo. It is, of course, impossible to enter here into the sep- arate events of the campaign, but one very curious inci- dent must be remarked in the action which resulted in the recapture of Buenos Aires by the Argentines. The Jus- tinia, a small 26-gun British vessel, had approached very near the shore in order to assist in the defense of the city. A sudden and extraordinary retreat of the tide — ^which is here largely at the mercy of the winds — left her high and dry. On this a cloud of South American cavalry galloped out over the mud, and captured her. It might well be supposed that a feat such as the board- ing of a vessel by cavalry was unique. But this is not so. There are at least two other instances of craft being attacked by cavalry in the Spanish colonies. The first occurred in 1799, not on the mainland, but on the north shore of the island of Puerto Rico. Some boats from the British warship Trent, sighting a Spanish felucca ashore, pulled in toward the land to capture her and to endeavor to get her afloat. As the Trent's barge drew quite near, a strong body of Spanish cavalry came pounding down to the shore, and formed up on the beach. Then, seeing that the British still persisted in the attempt, the barge was actually at- tacked by a swarm of troopers who rode straight into the sea, and behaved in what the sailors termed a very creditable manner, until the Trent's launch, coming up to the assistance of the barge, rounded an intervening point of land, and perceived what was afoot. The launch then 148 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA opened fire upon the Spanish cavalry with grape, canister, and musketry, when, as the chronicler has it, "they scampered off in the greatest confusion, many of the horses throwing their riders, to the great amusement of every Briton present." So this spirited and amphibious action appears to have ended in an appropriately jocular fashion! The second represents probably the most remarkable feat ever accomplished by cavalry against boats. This took place in the Northern campaign of the War of Lib- eration, and was witnessed by a number of British offi- cers in the patriot service. It happened that a flotilla of small Spanish gunboats was stationed on the Apure River, and was impeding an important march of Bolivar's men. One of the most famous of the Northern leaders, General Paez, brought three hundred of his lancers up to the bank, and spurred his horse into the water, bidding his men follow him. In a moment the three hundred were swimming toward the gunboats — literally gunboats, these, not the large craft which to-day steam under that name — ^flogging the water and shouting in order to scare away the Spanish allies in the shape of crocodiles. Spear in hand, the men made for the boats, and, leaping from their horses' backs over the gunwales, actually suc- ceeded in capturing them. All this, however, has taken us somewhat far afield from the British expedition to the river Plate. After Buenos Aires had been recaptured by the Argen- tines, and Beresford had been taken prisoner. Sir Home Popham remained on the spot, to blockade the mouth of the river, and to await the reinforcements which it was certain that the news of the capture of Buenos Aires would cause to be sent from England. This news had created no small stir in London. In- deed, the manner of its announcement was designed to cause a sensation. A million dollars, the booty taken from the Southern city, entered London in wagons, each BRITISH EXPEDITION TO RIVER PLATE 149 of which was drawn by six horses, profusely decorated for the occasion. The first of these wagons was covered with the royal standard of Spain, which had been cap- tured from the fort of Buenos Aires, and flaming banners proclaimed the treasure that was thus borne along in tri- umph. This rather dramatic display aroused all the political and commercial interest that could be desired. But it was not until after the catastrophe which ended in the capitulation of the British Army of Occupation that Ad- miral Stirling arrived off the river Plate to take charge of the naval operations. He was in command of a fleet which conveyed important British reinforcements, at the head of which was General Auchmuty. The news of the fall of Buenos Aires naturally threw the plans of this second expedition out of gear. Mon- tevideo was besieged, and after a courageous defense was stormed by the British. So prominent a part, be it said, did the sailors play in this siege, that the flag-ship, the Diadem, was frequently left with only thirty men on board! Then on the 10th of May, the frigate Thisbe brought out Lieutenant-General Wliitelocke to assume the post of commander-in-chief. Rather more than a month later powerful forces arrived from England, and with them came Admiral Murray to take over the command of the now formidable British fleet. Simultaneously with the forces of war arrived the mes- sengers of commerce. Convoyed by the frigates, mer- chants and clerks sailed out in shoals, bearing samples of bales and beers, cutlery and cloths. To the ten thousand or so of the inhabitants of Montevideo, and to the British army of occupation, was now added, exjDlains Mr. J. P. Robertson, who was present at the time, ''two thousand merchants, traders, adventurers; and a dubious crew which could scarcely pass muster, even under the latter designation." Establishing themselves at Montevideo, they began to prepare themselves for the commerce which 150 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA should follow the flag. In the meantime they occupied themselves as best they could. They wondered at the queer muddy tinge of the waters of the estuary; they read the "Southern Cross" the gazette, printed in Span- ish and English, that announced the liberal policy of the British to the South Americans ; then they formed them- selves into rather awkward volunteer squads and helped to garrison Montevideo while Whitelocke and his splendid army of eleven thousand picked men sailed up the broad stream to carry Buenos Aires by assault. The merchants, left behind at Montevideo, waited for the message which was to bid them follow in the track of the conquering army. It never came. In its place ar- rived tidings which were at first received with blank amazement and reasonable incredulity. The British army, after having been deprived of an opportunity of entering the city at the heels of the retreating enemy forces, had been sent with fixed bayonets into the streets of Buenos Aires, and, unflinchingly obeying the command to advance into the obvious death traps, had been shot down in heaps by the defenders from the roof-tops! A capitulation had followed, almost as disgraceful to White- locke as had been his conduct of the action ! Presently it became evident that this news was only too true, and that the merchants would have to pack up their goods — in preparation for a departure, not for Buenos Aires, but for Europe ! Soon enough the fleet returned, bearing thousands of ojfficers and men, wounded and whole, bitter and enraged, and, still at their head, the complacent and crass Whitelocke ! The sentiments which animated many of the South Americans after the capitulation may be gathered from the following extract from a British officer's diary: "As for myself, I had not been two hours in Buenos Aires, when I was visited by two young gentlemen, sons of Signior Terrada, whose kind hospitality I had expe- rienced before our departure into the interior, who in- BRITISH EXPEDITION TO RIVER PLATE 151 sisted on my accompanying them and making their house my home, while I remained, and they very considerately brought a domestic to bear my luggage, which they were surprised to find, was reduced to a hand parcel. The reception from that family was welcome and liberal, and I was happy to learn that the whole were safe and in health, although three of them had served in the various conflicts that had recently taken place, in defense of their city. The expressions of gratitude for British generos- ity were made by both parents upon my entering into the house, when they intimated that my conductors had been taken prisoners, by Sir Samuel Auchmuty on his storming the Eetiro, and that the treatment they had received while they were in that unfortunate situation was noble and humane. I can attest the tender delicacy shown by every member of their household, and I have reason to think that it was uniformly the same in every other, by none of them even hinting at the disastrous events which had so lately befallen our army, in which young soldiers might have been prone to exult, nor was a single topic proposed by them, but a few general enquiries concern- ing the past, the repetition of some stories, and the urg- ing of a disclosure, in what way they could provide for my personal comforts through the voyage to Europe, by money, cloathing, or necessaries. ' ' After this the remains of the unfortunate expedition sailed away northwards to the British Isles. In instances of individual gallantry and enterprise it had been as fruit- ful as any other. It left behind it the corpses of many brave men, and much beyond — a new spirit of confidence on the part of the colonials, an extraordinary absence of bitterness, and a few cannon shot in the tower of San Domingo church, which became an institution in them- selves, and which — when in course of time they fell out — were replaced by dummies of wood, carefully painted ! The expedition, moreover, had exhibited the sterling qualities of Generals Beresford, Auchmuty, Crauford, 152 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA and numerous other senior officers. But the force of all this courage and resource had been completely neutral- ized by the conduct of a commander-in-chief, whose sole claim to distinction appears to have been interest in high places, and whose subsequent ignominious dismissal from the army was itself considered by many as too light a sentence. Reverting to the political significance of this expedi- tion, it may be said to have been threefold, including : the desire to place the river Plate provinces under the British flag, that of assisting the South American colonials, and that of embarrassing the Spaniards. As the irony of fate would have it, although the British failed in the first, they succeeded — completely if indirectly — in the second and third. For it was the British invasion that, exposing the weakness of Spain and the powerful re- sources of the colonials, assisted materially in bringing about the revolution, and the independence of Spanish South America. The full moral effects of the expedition became clear a few years later, when the influence which General Crau- f ord had exercised over the enlightened Argentine patriot Belgrano bore fruit, and materialized as one of the fac- tors in the founding of the new nation. Bartolome Mitre has it that the British, "having sur- rendered, as prisoners conquered all hearts to their ideas, implanting in them the fertile germs of independence and liberty. ' ' Here is a note by Hadfield : ''The late Lord Holland, in his posthumous 'Memoirs of the Whig Party during My Time' . . . has a very singular chapter on the secret history of these expedi- tions. His lordship, who was a member of the Cabinet at the time, says that Whitelocke's was but one of a series of South American expeditions, and that it was originally destined for Valparaiso. It was fortunately 'detained by subsequent events in Buenos Aires, and the worst part BRITISH EXPEDITION TO RIVER PLATE 153 of our plan was thus concealed from the knowledge, and escaped the censure, of the public' Had the then Min- ister, Lord Grenville, remained in office, he would have sent against Mexico Sir Arthur Wellesley, who, in that case, might probably have never become Duke of Welling- ton." What tiny straws suffice to show which way blow the ironical winds of fate ! The ordinary student learns very little from the average history book concerning this dream of a wider dominion that was all but realized, yet at the time the idea appears to have sunk in deeply enough. As early as January 1, 1807, a little book of selected Spanish prose appeared, concerning which the editor remarks in the preface: **The numbers that will doubtless hasten to the Spanish Colonies in the hope of future fame, or of future wealth, will soon find it essentially neces- sary to have a previous knowledge of the language, man- ners, and customs, by which these Colonies are distin- guished. ' ' These were words of wisdom, and the precaution was admirable. But the editor had overlooked one contin- gency. By the time the second edition had appeared the colonies had ceased to be! Of those prisoners of General Beresford's army who remained in the Northern provinces of Argentina only the scantiest records are extant. But traces of them crop up now and then. Some ten years later, for instance, General Miller on his way through Santiago del Estero was a guest of the governor of that province, who as- sured him that he entertained a strong liking toward Eng- lishmen, adding that in his escort were two soldiers, once in the British army, who rode like Gauchos, but had a weakness for the bottle. On this occasion, too. Miller was besieged with inquir- ies concerning the later career of the general they termed the handsome Beresford — el guapo Beresfor — for whom they appear to have entertained the greatest esteem. 154 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA One and all were emphatic in their assertion that it was he who first taught them to be soldiers. Mr. J. P. Robertson, too, mentions having met in Para- guay with an old Scottish sergeant of Beresford's army, who had almost forgotten his own language, and at the same time had only acquired a smattering Spanish and Guarani! There are, moreover, numerous other in- stances of the kind. Even to this day some curious links with the past flash out now and again in the Northern provinces of Ar- gentina. I myself have been confronted with one or two in the most expected fashion. On one occasion, for in- stance, when shooting in the province of Missiones on the borders of Paraguay, I was accompanied by an elderly peon, who, for a Gaucho, possessed a remarkably philo- sophical turn of mind. I have commented on this peon in another place, but he is worthy of the repetition of a few lines here. Shoot- ing, he held, was all very well. Birds were good for the digestion, and they were provided for that purpose. But when the game was of another kind — ^when men shot their neighbors — it was a pity. He shook his head in grave reproach, for he was a remarkable peon. There had been too much of that in the past, he said. Now that the railway had come, it would be different. After this he branched off into some quite minor details of natural history, about which the average Gaucho very seldom troubles himself. I found out subsequently that his name was Stuart, a discovery that let in a flood of light on his personality, and that sent a picture of a remote red-coated ancestor to the mind. May it not savor of complacent pedantry if I quote here the sentiments which this unusual Gaucho inspired at the time ! *'It seemed to me, now that I knew it, that faint symp- toms of the origin had showed in the man's thoughts and natural bent. The love of nature for its own sake, the BRITISH EXPEDITION TO RIVER PLATE 155 curiosity as to causes and results, the welcoming of peace and order, the unusual sense of comradeship that his presence engendered — it seemed to me now that I could read in these some remnants of the instinct bequeathed by an ancestor of whom all physical traces had been lost. ''He has not a few counterparts throughout the land; their features grown as dusky as his, sunk into the ruck of humblest humanity, and knowing no other life but that of their fellows. Poor Stuart! Such is the ob- vious pitiful comment — possibly misapplied. There is no law in happiness, after all. His life may be at least as contented as that of his superiors — the equals of his ancestor. ' ' CHAPTER VIII BRITISH GUIANA AND THE FALKLAND ISLANDS The pioneers of Guiana — Sir Walter Raleigh's opinion of the country — His. suggestions for its colonization — Guiana from the modern point of view — Its agricultural and pastoral industries — Wars of the British, French, and Dutch — Complications of the struggle — Bush Negroes — Danger of these armed bands — Warfare between the blacks and the planters — Occasional triumph of the former — Further struggles of the European powers — War with the United States — The emancipation of slaves — Popular excitement attending this action — Humane but hasty procedure — Questions affecting the labor of the colony — Life in Guiana — Some naval records — An incident connected with a notorious duellist — The Falkland Islands — Early neglect — Attempts at colonization — Captain McBride's opinion of the islands in 1776 — A depressing de- scription — Occupation by a Buenos Aires garrison — The battle of the Falkland Islands — Sentimental importance now attaching to the colony. AS these pages are designed to show the work of the British in Iberian South America and not within the bounds of the British Empire, any be- yond a scanty reference to British Guiana and to the Falkland Islands would be out of place. The early days of Guiana are associated not only with the voyages of Sir Walter Raleigh, but also with the bold colonizing attempts in 1604 and 1609 respectively of Charles Leigh, Robert Harcourt, Roger North, and John Christmas. Indeed, the number of voyages which the English undertook to this northeastern shoulder of the continent in the early seventeenth century is not a little remarkable. Raleigh, filled with enthusiasm for Guiana, had boldly claimed for it that : * ' Those commanders and chief taines that shoot at honor and abundance, shall finde there more rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with 156 BRITISH GUIANA 157 golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasure, than either Cortez found in Mexico, or Pizarro in Peru: and the shining glory of this conquest will eclipse all those so farre extended beames of the Spanish nation." *'Her Majestic may in these enterprize," he suggests further, "employ all those souldiers and gentlemen that are younger brethren, and all Captaines and Chieftaines that want employment . . . after the first or second yeere I doubt not but to see in London a Contractation house of more receipt for Guiana, than there is now in Sivill for the AVest Indies." It soon became evident, however, that the hoards of wealth, which were reported to be glittering in such un- heard of quantities somewhere among the forests inland, were not to be lightly w^on : though the fable of El Dorado persisted for many generations. In the meantime, since a more practical foundation was necessary for settle- ments, a process occurred such as has often been brought about before and since. The brilliant hopes of diamonds and gold yielded to the more strenuous certainties of agri- culture — in this case sugar and tobacco. Companies and private persons took up plantations; cattle were introduced in fairly important numbers ; com- munications were more regularly opened up with the West Indies, and under Captain Marshall and some others considerable progress was made toward prosperity. In the meantime the disturbed state of England was responsible for the arrival in Guiana of many immigrants hailing from both the Cavalier and Roundhead ranks. In the latter half of the seventeenth century began that wearying and complicated series of wars by which in the end the fruits of so much labor was lost by British, French, and Dutch. It is impossible here even to attempt to go through the intricate lengths of the struggles which must have seemed interminable to the harassed colonists of those days. In the course of the conflicts England fought Holland, then 158 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the English and French fought Holland; after this the English and Dutch fought France, and after a consider- able time the French and the Dutch fought England ! This will give a broad outline of some of the chief ramifications of the wars which laid waste the Guiana plantations. In the intervals, when peace reigned be- tween the three nations, and when there might have been some hope of the agricultural restoration of the country, a new and serious danger arose in the roving bodies of bush Negroes. The number of African slaves who had succeeded in making their escape into the forests in the confusion attending the various invasions increased until their pressure became a grave threat. Armed bands of these Negroes took to lurking continually on the outskirts of the plantations, raiding, murdering, and burning when- ever the opportunity arose. As the attempts of these bush Negroes grew bolder, the domestic slaves would fre- quently revolt and join their wild ranks. To the terrible punishments meted out to them when captured the Ne- groes retaliated in their own gruesome fashion, and after a time a regular war broke out between the blacks and the planters, and on more than one occasion the latter, together with some regular soldiers, were driven to the coast before a stand could be made. On one occasion, indeed, in 1763, the neighboring Dutch colony of Berbice had to be entirely abandoned for a time, owing to the triumphant onsweep of the victorious Africans. In 1780, England was face to face in Guiana with the hostile powers of France, Holland, and Spain, but the end of many confused operations found the island power with more territory than she had possessed at the be- ginning. The war with the United States in 1812, how- ever, brought down a hornets' nest of American priva- teers on the coast. The emancipation of slaves, which occurred in 1834, was attended by much popular excitement, and the re- sentment of the plantation owners at the loss of the labor BRITISH GUIANA 159 on which they depended for the working of their fields seemed in one sense to be justified by the behavior of the blacks, who rose in insurrection, and were not put down until many wild scenes had been enacted. It was a great and humane work, the freeing of the Negro Guiana slaves. But it seems possible to hasten even toward good deeds at too great a pace. A more pro- longed process of emancipation than the four years al- lowed for the knocking off of the perfectly unjustifiable fetters would almost certainly in the end have benefited not only the financial standing of the plantations but the subsequent condition of the slaves. As it was, the feckless African flung up his industrial mission at the first opportunity, and the chaotic labor situation of the colony was only remedied by the intro- duction of workers from the East Indies, China, and, rather curiously, Madeira, from the humanity of which diminutive island some of the earliest of the Brazilian settlements had been formed. But these, let it be said, are by no means the only sources from which the labor of modern British Guiana is drawn, for its cosmopolitan population is now, in its own way, one of the most re- markable in the world. All that need be said about British Guiana in this place is that it stands apart from the rest of the continent as a British possession, and, for this reason, breathes out the atmosphere of the West Indies rather than that of the mainland. Those who visit Guiana may know at once that it is a British colony not only from the speech of the inhabi- tants, but from the type of buildings and the manner in which the streets of the towns are laid out. In such re- spects there is little doubt but that the Briton — notwith- standing that the hub of his empire is in the foggy North — understands from an old-standing and world- wide experience better than any other nation how to adapt his habits and homes to the tropics. 160 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA The old naval records concerning Guiana abound in incidents that savor of Marryat. The easy-going colo- nial existence evoked a conviviality that in turn gave birth to cocktails, and similar inventions upon which the tropical thirst might prey. All this was responsible for a certain hospitable recklessness which nothing but the modern god of Moderation has tended to diminish ! Although the more important circumstances of British Guiana do not enter into this book, we may deal with a chance incident which is not without interest. Life in the colony in the first years of the nineteenth century seems to have been unpleasantly enlivened by the pres- ence of a notorious duelist of the name of Blair, who, a dead shot, haunted that British possession as well as the West Indies, marking do^vn his victims and kill- ing his men. One of the incidents of this man's career is suggestive of the pages not only of Marryat but of Lever. It occurred when the officers of his Majesty's sloop-of- war Pheasant were dining ashore at the house of a Mr. Maxwell, a resident of Bridgetown. After dinner Blair unexpectedly put in an appearance. Without a doubt this sinister person had already worked out his plan, for al- most immediately he began to tell the British officers in a most insulting fashion of a French privateer then fitting out at Guadeloupe which, he asserted offensively, would drive any British sloop-of-war from the station ! For a time the British officers kept silence, out of respect for their mortified host. This did not fit in with Blair's pro- gram, and the professional duelist continued his aggres- sions, until Captain Robert Henderson told him, quite briefly, that, unless he ceased, he would throw him out of the window. On this Blair left abruptly, and in a few minutes arrived his invitation to come out and be shot. Henderson, as the challenged, had the choice of weapons. He chose pistols: distance, across a handker- chief, the antagonists to be foot to foot! When he and BRITISH GUIANA 161 his second arrived on the ground, it was, and remained, undarkened by the shadow of the bully ! The blow to Blair's prestige must have been consider- able. Had he lived in a work of fiction he would have sunk at one full swoop, and would have been put out of harm's way forever. Alas for the injustices of mere fact ! This was not so. Blair appears to have lost little time in learning to ruffle his feathers again, for he suc- ceeded in sending a bullet through many a better than he after that, his last victim being an officer of high rank at Demerara. The Falkland Islands are supposed to have been sighted by Davis in 1592 and more closely visited by Richard Hawkins in 1594. The name which the latter gave to them, Hawkins' Maidenland, was only in accordance with the spirit of the age which devoted itself to bringing bouquets of nomenclature to the virgin queen. But this effort of brave old Richard's savors of a more daring tenderness than the majority. The first regular British colony, founded in 1766, was ejected in 1770 by a powerful Spanish force after the exchange of a few cannon shot, sent to and fro for the sake of appearances rather than for anything else, since the British were in no position to offer an effective re- sistance. The following year, however, they were re- stored by Spain to England. There were some attempts to colonize the islands in 1774 and in 1776. In the latter year Captain McBride rendered a depressing account of them. He says : ''We found a mass of islands and broken lands, of which the soil was nothing but a bog, with no better pros- pect than that of barren mountains, beaten by storms al- most perpetual. Yet this is summer; and if the winds of winter hold their natural proportion, those who lie but two cables length from the shore, must pass weeks with- out any communication with it." As a matter of fact, this description was very far from 162 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA doing justice to the island, which, notwithstanding its rather desolate situation, has proved itself an admirable center for sheep-raising. In 1820 a Buenos Aires frigate visited the Falkland Islands. She was commanded by a Mr. Jewitt, whose title appears to have been *' Colonel of the Marine of the United Provinces of South America." He formally took possession of the islands in the name of the Patriot Government of Buenos Aires, and it is on this account that Argentina argues the irregularity of our tenure of the islands. There is no doubt, as a matter of fact, that the Buenos Aires Government did hold possession of these islands for a time, for when H.M. sloop Clio visited them in 1833 a garrison of twenty-five Buenos Aires troops were found at the spot, as well as some settlers, who retired in company with the garrison. Some time after this the group was given the dubious state of a penal settlement, but in 1852 this establishment was done away with, and soon afterwards the beginning of the present prosperity of the island began to set in. These islands, of course, have recently attained to a sentimental importance in history such as they never be- fore possessed; for it was the naval battle of the Falk- land Islands that avenged the destruction of Admiral Craddock's squadron and vindicated the supremacy of the white ensign, that was never more glorious than when it sank, unconquered beneath the waves of the Pacific. CHAPTER IX BRITISH FIGHTEES IN THE CAUSE OF SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE (i) Attitude of the British Government — Sympathy extended toward the South Americans — Visions of state — Docimient drawn up by tlie South Ameri- cans — ^Some striking clauses — Instances of Latin foresight — Alliances and the Panama Canal as viewed at the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury — Procedure of the United States and of Great Britain — Miranda and recruiting facilities — An Irish writer in the "Caracas Gazette" — The most notable British eye-witnesses of the war — Admiral Coch- rane, General Miller, Captain Basil Hall, and an anonymous chronicler — Social opportunities enjoyed by these — Bolivar and San Martin — Dif- fering circumstances of the Northern and Southern campaigns — War- like ethics of the tropics and of the temperate latitudes — Ferocity of the Northern campaign — Types of leaders — The British legion reproved for giving quarter — Merciless methods employed by the Spaniards — Eevenge of tlie South Americans — Sir George McGregor — Fine perform- ances of his volunteers — Colonel English recruits in England — Force raised by Major Beamish — Death of that officer — Arrival of General English with two thousand seasoned British troops — General Devereux obtains two thousand men in Ireland — Some notable officers — Effects of the climate and food on the newcomers — Beef or sugar-cane as ra- tions — Sickness and death in the ranks — Lamentable conditions of the corps — Creature and climatic pests — Early relations between the Brit- ish and South American troops — The British distinguish themselves in their first action — Removal of mutual misconceptions — Battle of Boy- aca — Prestige of the British legion — Attempted detention of General English's force at Trinidad — General Urdineta — Colonel Blossett's duel — Contemporary opinion of General English — General Devereux — His methods of recruiting — Composition of his force — Arrival of the corps in South America — Consequences of a reckless sale of commissions — General Devereux lands in South America — Humorous contemporary description of his arrival — Father O'Mullin — Incidents at the official reception — Devereux's character — His subsequent conduct — Story of the Irish legion — Conduct of the British and Irish legions at the battle of Carabobo — The two corps are united — Prowess of Captain Rush — Death of Captain Chamberlayne — Feat of an Irish officer — "Town 163 164 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Taker" — The secret treasure-chamber of Barcelona Cathedral — The jewels of St. Lawrence — Stories spread by the priests concerning the British — A tailed race of cannibals — British sailors in Bolivar's fleet — Admiral Brion — An eccentric naval commander-in-chief — His con- duct and uniform — Some British naval officers — Bolivar's relations with the British troops — Temperament and peculiarities of the Libera- tor — His activity and bravery — Abstemious habits — jNIrs. English — Episode at her ball — Privileges obtained by certain officers. EVEN before the actual outbreak of the War of In- dependence the sentiments of the British cabinet toward the South American patriots were plainly of the most friendly nature. Canning was deeply at- tached to their cause, and Pitt had more than once been on the eve of active intervention, although in 1806 Mr. Fox protested that the liberation of South America was not part of his government 's program. Notwithstanding this, the keenest interest was taken by the British in the doings of the patriots, both in Europe and in South America. Sympathy was extended in the most genuine fashion, although it must be admitted that some of the anticipations were by no means altogether disinterested. There were serious hopes, for instance, that the South Americans, once freed from the yoke of Spain, might turn to Great Britain, and incorporate them- selves in that liberal empire. It was a stupendous dream. Had something beyond half measures been taken to ma- terialize it — and the sending of an incapable commander in charge of a British force is surely a half measure — the history of the temperate portions of South America might have been different, although, as subsequent events have proved, it would not have run so natural and so Latin a course. But, so far as the entire continent was con- cerned, that is another story altogether, and here un- doubtedly the vision was very thin and dim. Captain Cochrane has an interesting reference to a document which was drawn up on the 22nd of December, 1797, by the representatives of South America. This contained various proposals, and was entrusted to the famous SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 165 South American, Miranda, to place before the British cabinet. This document was a striking instrument, and it clearly proves the intellect and ambitious foresight of those who combined to draw it up. One of its early clauses stipu- lated that Great Britain should render to the South Amer- icans a specified amount of military assistance toward the attainment of their independence in return for a payment of thirty millions sterling. Other clauses related to a commercial treaty between Great Britain and South America, a connection between the Bank of England and those of Lima and Mexico, and a project of alliance be- tween the United States and South America. But, in the light of the affairs of to-day, the most salient clauses concerned a defensive alliance between Great Britain, the United States of America, and South America, and the opening of the navigation between the Atlantic and Pa- cific oceans by cutting across the Isthmus of Panama, and the guarantee of its freedom of the British nation ! Surely this document needs no comment. They were very remarkable men, those Latin Americans who worked in the midst of a political chaos for the freedom of their continent, and whose genius is slowly revealing itself like true ears of corn now that the chaff of a century is blow- ing away ! The British Government must have been not a little im- pressed by this, for it would appear that in 1798 they made an actual offer to provide money and ships, pro- viding that the United States would provide ten thou- sand troops. The United States avoided a definite reply, and the matter, in consequence, fell through. There is no doubt that it was a not unusual vacillation in the first place, and an altered European political and militant situation in the second, that prevented the offi- cial participation of the English a few years later. On the other hand, every private encouragement was given. British ministers in London clapped the visiting South 166 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Americans on the back ; Miranda was given permission to recruit in Trinidad and Barbados, while in England muni- tions were made ready, and volunteers prepared them- selves for action. Curiously enough, too, an Irishman of the name of Burke wrote in 1811 a series of stirring articles in the *' Caracas Gazette," urging the establishment of a free constitution for Venezuela. These, one imagines, must have been translated from English into the Spanish tongue. In dealing with the British soldiers and sailors who fought on the patriot side on the actual outbreak of the war there can be no attempt to catalogue, still less to de- scribe, the infinitely numerous deeds and events in which they were concerned. The aim of these chapters is merely to show what type of men these were, with what types of men they were brought into contact, and to ex- hibit something of the tragedies and occasional quaint humors of the South American campaigns. The first cursory study of Admiral Cochrane 's life alone would demonstrate the impossibility of dealing with the historical side proper of these subjects in anything short of bulky volume form. If these notes, therefore, appear of an unduly fragmentary nature this must be their excuse. Of all those British who participated in, or witnessed and chronicled, the events of the revolutionary wars in the south of the continent, perhaps the most notable from the standpoint of their associations and breadth of view were Admiral Cochrane, General Miller, and Captain Basil Hall. Moreover, the experiences of each of the three form the natural complement of those of the other two. Admiral Cochrane, as commander-in-chief of the patriot Pacific fleet, represented the young South Amer- ican navy ; Miller held high command in the patriot land- forces, and Captain Basil Hall, as a most able and intelli- gent officer in charge of a British warship on the South SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 167 American coast, had, as a spectator, rare opportunities of which he took the fullest advantage. Among the most graphic chroniclers of the Northern campaign was the British ex-naval officer who anony- mously wrote his *' Recollections of a Service of three years in Venezuela and Colombia." This may appear as a somewhat arbitrary selection out of the multitude of British who distinguished themselves to a greater or lesser degree in the patriot cause. But very few of the other gallant men possessed, in addition to their knowledge of the war, the civil and social expe- rience in South America of those I have named. Each of these was brought into contact not only with nearly every leading figure of the young South American com- munities but with the generals of the decaying Spanish cause as well. Three of these, moreover, obtained a certain insight into the politer domestic life of the Pacific coast of that day, and each of the three knew the two greatest char- acters of the militant revolution — the gallant San Mar- tin, of the South, reserved and diffident almost to the point of shyness in the hours of his greatest victories; and the equally brave Bolivar, of the North, self-cen- tered and with brilliant virtues slightly tinged w^ith theatrical elements, who entered the liberated cities to the noise of cannon, the pealing of bells, and the blar- ings of brass instruments, and who rejoiced in such triumphal processions as that when his carriage was drawn by one of the fairest bevies of young girls imagin- able dressed in festal white. As a matter of fact, these distinctions in the tempera- ments of the two greatest South American leaders were eminently appropriate to their circumstances. Bolivar flamed out as the emotional child of the brilliant tropics. San Martin represented the restraint and comparative phlegm of the white race of the South. To lead the en- tire continent even of to-day, the cooperation of a Bolivar 168 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA and of a San Martin would be every bit as necessary as it was then. From the British point of view the campaign of the North differed widely in the manner of its conduct from that of the South. The British who fought under Bolivar amid the tropical plains, streams, mountains, and for- ests of Colombia and Venezuela either formed a separate corps of their own, or made up the entire complement of the ofScef s of an Indian regiment. In the South, on the other hand, under San Martin, the British who came out to play their part in the War of Independence took serv- ice in the ordinary way with such South American regi- ments as were already in being. In either case the volunteers had committed themselves to a sufficiently strenuous life. But, whereas in the South the British found themselves surrounded by men with whom they had from the start a great deal in common, and in the midst of pleasant conditions of nature to which they rapidly became accustomed, those others who fought in the neighborhood of the Equator found themselves in less fortunate case. Apart from the circumstances of climate and diet to which the British troops took a considerable time to ac- custom themselves, the ferocity with which the campaign was waged in the North had no parallel in the South. The Northern generals were of all sorts and conditions of men. There were one or two who possessed an intellect almost comparable with that of Bolivar ; though no other possessed his genius. There were brave and chivalrous, if completely unlettered, guerilla leaders such as Paez. But there were many others who rose like dusky foam to the top of a critical situation by mere brute force and an unscrupulous intrigue of which even the most ignorant can be capable. Moreover, since the ordinary Northern troops were almost entirely of Indian and Negro blood, with a mere sprinkling of white officers, the measures in retaliation for the atrocities initiated by the Spaniards u^'.^'^ % ^-^/■^...J'" GENER.\L SAN MARTIN SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 169 were only too thorough. On more than one occasion the British legion was officially reproved for not having par- ticipated in the slaughter that was decreed by the exigen- cies of a war of extermination to follow a victory. Certainly nothing could have raised the passions of the Northern people more effectually than the Spanish methods. That they were not the work of the better class Spanish regulars will be evident when the nature of these deeds is considered. From the earliest days of the war it had been agreed that no quarter should be offered or accepted on either side. The massacre of surrendered garrisons was, therefore, an aifair which was accepted as a matter of course. To what lengths this calculated policy was carried may be gathered from some sentences of an intercepted letter from General Morillo to the king of Spain : They refer to the royalist entry into Bogota : ''Every person, of either sex, who was capable of read- ing and writing, was put to death. By thus cutting off all who were in any way educated, I hoped to effectually arrest the spirit of revolution." But there were more terrible methods of repression practised even than these. British officers have testi- fied to the sight of South American women whose ears and noses had been cut off ; others had lost their eyes or their tongues, while others again had had the soles of their feet pared off. It is needless to dig deeper into this catalogue of horrors. The South Americans had their revenge, and in one place alone a pile of over seven thousand dried Spanish skulls bore witness to this ! It seems clear, nevertheless that such practices were foreign to the true inclinations of the dwellers in the Northern States. Captain Cochrane, who entertained a high regard for the Colombians, remarked of them: ''They have certainly a desire to adopt English manners and customs, and give a decided preference to everything English. This may be thus accounted for : first, that for a long period England was the country that furnished 170 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA them, through Jamaica (by means of the contraband trade) with all the comforts or luxuries of life, and conse- quently gave them a relish for everything English, and engendered a kindly feeling toward the inhabitants of a country which supplied all their wants ; and, secondly, be- cause the natural turn of a native Colombian much more assimilates with the character of an Englishman than that of any other nation in Europe ; for he is reserved, thought- ful, and fond of commercial pursuits. Though polite and desirous to oblige on first introduction, yet, like an Eng- lishman, he requires time, and a knowledge of your char- acter, before he becomes intimate, and then you find him to be an excellent and valuable friend. ' ' The first British troops who seem to have taken part in the Northern War of Liberation comprised a small body of men brought out by Sir Gregor McGregor. These, when they had once accustomed themselves to the climate, performed such admirable services that more of their kind were in great demand in Colombia. On this a gentleman of the name of English, who is said to have been in the British commissariat service and who was in Colombia at the time, made an agreement with the patriot government to raise a new corps in England. Having been given the rank of colonel in the Colombian service, he departed for this purpose, in which he was eventually successful. In the meantime a Major Beamish, a retired British officer, had busied himself in Ireland in raising a small corps for the Colombian service. Entirely of his own initiative he got together, armed, and equipped three hundred men, and, having purchased a vessel of two hun- dred and eighty tons, he set out with them for Colombia. As fortune would have it, this enterprising officer died suddenly of apoplexy on the voyage; but his contingent arrived safely at its destination, on the 28th of August, 1818, and subsequently played a gallant part in the cam- paign. SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 171 In due course Colonel English, now promoted to the rank of general, arrived at the island of Margarita with a force of two thousand splendid British troops drawn from the Peninsula veterans of the regular army. A little later a Mr. Devereux, who was given the rank of general in the Colombian army, raised some two thou- sand raw recruits in Ireland, and caused these to be transported, in unfavorable circumstances, to Colombia. Such are the main facts concerning the arrival of the British forces. Many of the officers engaged had dis- tinguished themselves in previous campaigns. Some of the most prominent of these were Eooke, Ferrier, Mackin- tosh, Sir Gregor McGregor, Lyster, Sandes, Pigot, Keen, Hamilton, Wilson, Manby, Woodberry, Blossett, Stop- ford, Davy ; to say nothing of Francis Mageroni, Murat's aide-de-camp, who became an Englishman, and was with Sir Gregor McGregor at the capture of Puerto Bello, ultimately becoming a general in the Colombian service. Having now dealt with these main features, we may turn to some of the details of the men and actions. On the landing of the first British contingent on Venezuelan soil the prospects of the newcomers appeared anything but rosy. So abrupt was the change of food and climate that the effect of these circumstances was in the first place disastrous to the British troops, though for the most part these were splendid and war-seasoned men. The officers were a fine set, almost entirely obtained from the regular British army, who had been attracted by the offer of a corresponding rank in the Colombian army to that which they held in their own. But the health of not even the most seasoned of the veterans of the rank and file could withstand the rations which were served out to them, and to which the native troops were accustomed. These consisted purely and simply of three pounds of beef distributed each day — and not a single grain of anything beyond, whether in the shape of salt, bread, or vegetables! 172 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA This was the fare to which the soldiers had to accus- tom themselves in the grazing country. When in the sugar-cane districts, they found that a similar lack of variety obtained ; for here a regime of sugar-cane served for every meal, although it must be admitted that from time to time a few plantains were forthcoming by way of special gratification ! The effects of this extraordinary diet, and of the numerous privations suffered, soon became evident. Dy- sentery and other forms of sickness played havoc with the ranks of the British. In consequence of this when they first attempted to take part in the strenuous marches of the patriot forces the results were lamentable. Day after day men fell out of the ranks to die by the roadside : others were mounted on horses, to the backs of which their weak condition only just enabled them to cling. A contemporary asserts that the unfortunate corps ''soon appeared more like a field hospital than a battalion fit for duty in front of an enemy, and served only as a laughing stock and ridicule for the other troops, who were inured to the climate and bad fare. ' ' All this was to say nothing of the insect pests, jiggers, thorns which tore the uniforms wholesale from the men's backs, and small, fierce fish which bit entire mouthfuls from their legs as they forded shallow streams. There was the mountain sickness, too, the Soroche, which in the loftiest altitudes frequently ended fatally. Soldiering in Venezuela and Colombia held many ex- periences which were disconcerting to a degree, and here the matter was rendered worse by an ignorance of those precautions which a tropical climate demands of the new- comer. As a result of all this a battalion which had landed three hundred and fifty strong could, after two or three months, muster no more than one hundred and fifty men! And these were sorry-looking specimens of humanity, clad in a few rags and tatters. Thus, curiously enough, the actual first entry into South SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 173 America of the British troops who were destined to win for themselves so high a reputation there was achieved under the most unpromising auspices. Before the es- tablishment of the subsequent cordial relationship be- tween them and the South Americans, a sentiment of mutual depreciation obtained; for in the first place the British mistook the sound strategy of the continuous patriot retreats for an aversion to meet the enemy. This condition of affairs continued until the British went into action against the Spaniards for the first time. When the engagement was over they had lost a third of their number in killed and wounded, their commander, Colonel Eooke — a fine officer, who had been aide-de-camp to the Prince of Orange at Waterloo — being among the latter, and subsequently dying of his hurts. Of the re- maining officers. Lieutenant Kaisley was killed, and Lieu- tenant M'Manus was wounded. But, mauled though it had been, the affair had been a triumph for the small British force. Backed by their now admiring patriot allies, they had fought their way with the bayonet inch by inch uphill, and, together with General Paez's cavalry, had with reckless gallantry turned a threatening defeat into victory. And it was now for the first time that they themselves saw the real fighting qualities of the South Americans. The roar of battle had drowned the mutual misconceptions for good and all. "And what do you think of the British now?" asked Doctor Foley of General Ansuartagui, who had recently taken to an open expression of doubt as to whether these Northern troops were even worth their daily three pounds of beef. "They're worth their weight in gold," confessed the General frankly, and from that moment his attitude to- ward the British changed as completely as did that of his compatriots. The battle of Boyaca, which took place on the 7th of 174 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA August, consolidated the reputation of the British, whose ranks had now received some reinforcements. In order to make good the numerous casualties suffered it was fre- quently found necessary to incorporate South American troops in the Albion battalion. In connection with this, Captain Cochrane remarks: "The British had become at length such good marchers, that they always formed the advance-guard of the army, being now complained of as marching too fast, instead of too slow as formerly. Such was the esprit de corps, that the very natives in- corporated in this battalion thought themselves above the other soldiers, and called themselves English, and swore in English by way of keeping up their title. ' ' As a matter of fact, the British influence at this period rapidly permeated all grades of society, and was notice- able even in that the Iberian Viva! was superseded for a considerable time by Hip ! Hip ! ! Huzzah ! ! ! In Colombia too it may be said that the British mer- chants showed at least as much enterprise as elsewhere. Many of them provided important amounts of warlike stores, hoping to be reimbursed when the fall of the city of Angostura should endow the patriot coffers with im- mense treasure. But Angostura, once captured, proved a hollow plum! Loss and disappointment were inevit- able in other directions, too, so long as the patriot cause had not definitely prevailed, and the fluctuations of war continued. As a matter of fact, a number of the earliest flight of these mercantile swallows who came in person found that they had arrived before the true South American sum- mer had set in ! Numbers, understanding nothing of the climate, died of sickness, while others underwent perils of another order. Thus, when the Spanish General Morillo recaptured Cartagena, he seized all the British and foreign merchants, and would have shot them all, but for the interference of the British admiral on the West India station. Surely experiences such as these SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 175 justified a considerable financial profit — which did not always materialize. When General English arrived in Venezuela he was in charge of two thousand troops of as fine a quality as had ever left England. Having found himself financially unable to cope with his important contract, he had handed this over to a Mr. Herring, a prominent London mer- chant, who had completed his share of the bargain in a most liberal and praiseworthy fashion. At the end of a voyage carried out in well-appointed vessels the men landed on Venezuelan soil finely uniformed and equipped. The voyage had not passed without incident, for at Trinidad, the local authorities, at the instance of the gov- ernor of the island. Sir Ealph Woodford, had made an attempt to detain the expedition. As a result a sea-en- counter ensued between some small local vessels and the expeditionary ships, assisted by a Venezuelan corvette officered and manned by Englishmen, which ended in the discomfiture of the former. On its landing in Venezuela, General English's force appears to have suffered in the same way as the rest from the local climate and food. General Urdineta, more- over, under whose command they were placed, took very little pains to render himself popular with the newcomers, and appears to have been cordially disliked. It was undoubtedly largely owing to the behavior of this general that in the early days of their arrival the British troops suffered some slights, and that their re- monstrances on the subject of arrears of pay were frig- idly received. It was on account of this that Colonel Blossett fought a duel with, and wounded, a Venezuelan brigadier-general, and thus was one of the first to mani- fest a spirit that compelled respect. General English himself appears to have faithfully carried out all his duties; but he does not seem to have possessed the temperament of a born soldier. A con- temporary opinion of him was that, "as an officer he was 176 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA destitute of energy, and experience ; as a man he was gen- erous and open-hearted. All that can be said of him in reference to his conduct as commander of the British legion is, that he mistook his profession, for which in- deed he was physically unfitted." The character of Devereux, who raised the chief Irish legion, appears to have been rather complex. It is said that, the son of an Irishman who suffered the extreme penalty of the law for his participation in the Irish re- bellion, he began his career in mercantile pursuits in the United States. In 1815 he went to Cartagena, and dis- cussed with Bolivar the project of raising an Irish legion ; but no steps appear to have been taken in this direction until General English had succeeded in recruiting his formidable force in England. On this Devereux returned to Venezuela and secured a contract signed by Bolivar. He then proceeded to Dub- lin, and, having announced his mission with some pomp, he was given a public reception. He met with no dif- ficulty in raising recruits, for the cause in which he pleaded appealed to the Hibernian element of romance. In a very short time he had assembled two thousand men. Scarcely any of these, however, had the advantage of knowing anything whatever about military life, and as a fighting force they represented completely raw material. Ofiicers, too, were obtained almost entirely from the civilian ranks of the higher classes, although some junior officers in the British army parted with their commis- sions in order to purchase others in the Venezuelan ser- vice. It is said that from the sale of these commissions Devereux obtained no less than sixty thousand pounds, which he retained for himself. Devereux did not accompany this force to South America, and, after suffering many privations on the voyage, it was landed at the island of Margarita, only to have its ranks withered by yellow fever, of which seven hundred and fifty men perished in a short time. SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 177 A species of disillusion other than climatic awaited the officers of the unfortunate corps. In his enthusiasm for the Venezuelan cause, and for easy coin, Devereux had sold no fewer than one hundred and sixteen colonel's commissions ! Here, then, were the one hundred and six- teen Venezuelan colonels — many of them mere youths — arrived on Venezuelan soil, only to discover that their new government, ignorant of their commissions, refused them their rank, to say nothing of its attendant pay ! It was the same with numerous officers of other grades. The chagrin and chaos of the raw army can be imagined. Many of the disappointed officers, having secured a little money by the sale of their personal effects, took passage for the United States, and departed for good. Some are even alleged to have died of starvation. When General Devereux himself came out to South America the ferment had died down, and despair and death had already sadly reduced the ranks of the legion. Devereux and his self-appointed statf arrived in a char- tered coal-brig. The description of this arrival as given by the naval author of ** Recollections of a service of three years ... in the Republics of Venezuela and Col- ombia," although it savors a little of bitterness, is worth giving here : ''I went on deck and was saluted by a jolly-looking old fellow with a nose of a deep rubicund tint, who was walk- ing the deck, and who asked me fifty questions in an in- stant. This personage proved to be no other than Father 'Mullin, an Irish Catholic priest, who had been induced to join the retinue of Devereux, at the recommendation of the celebrated orator, Mr. Daniel O'Connell (whose son accompanied the leader as aide-de-camp) under the title of Chaplain to the Irish Legion, and private con- fessor to its promoter. Father 'Mullin, with much ceremony and circumlocution, informed me that General Devereux was on board, and requested me to go below into his cabin to see him. ' ' 178 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA He found the General in despair, presenting a very un- military attitude, as he was under the impression that the ship had been seized and that he was about to be arrested. Having been reassured, he was further com- forted by the news that an official reception was being prepared for him on the following day. This is our naval author's account of what followed: "Next morning, at the time appointed, I went again to the General, who was far from ready. This arose from the time he took to equip himself for the occasion, and the total ignorance of himself and suite of the method of arranging military appointments, the General and most of his staff (as he termed them) never having been at- tached to any army. . . . The General's dresses were all soldered up in tin cases, that the luster of the lace and bullion might not be diminished by the damp during the voyage. He was busily engaged in opening them when I entered the cabin ... at length all was clear, and we beheld a most magnificent French field-marshal's uni- form, so bedizened with lace that it seemed as if the owner had considered personal appearance of far more consequence in a war-of-extermination than discipline or strength of numbers. ' ' Alas ! On his way to the banquet which had been pre- pared Devereux's horse endeavored to roll at the edge of a pond, and Devereux's brilliancy lost its first bloom. At the banquet itself he found himself in his element; for oratory was one of his strongest points, and he now found ample opportunity for its display. He spoke for nearly two hours, and frequently interrupted the officer who translated his words by such expressions as ''Tell 'em, I '11 destroy every Spaniard in South America ; tell 'em that!" "Say, that all Ireland is up in their cause, in consequence of my representations; tell 'em that!" At last the translator gave up his task with the despair- ing remark : * ' You must wait till you can tell them your- SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 179 self, General, for I never talked so much before in my life." Undoubtedly the manner of Devereux's arrival was on a par with much else connected with himself and his un- disciplined troops. That this very sudden general was an adventurer, there can be no doubt. But that he was totally specious, as has been alleged, seems very improb- able. What would have been easier for a thoroughgoing scoundrel than to have gone off with the money he had made from the sale of commissions, and never to have sailed to South America at all? At a later period, moreover, Devereux showed himself capable of actions such as might wipe out a good many illicit sales of commissions. When Mrs. English, the widow of the General, was grossly insulted by General Barino, the then Vice-President of the State, Devereux, hotly resenting the attempted ill-treatment of his coun- trywoman, called out the villainous high official, with the result that he himself suffered a brutal imprisonment for forty-seven days, until a public court-martial instantly acquitted him. Such acts as these plainly show that General Devereux must have possessed many good points, and that prob- ably one of his worst failings consisted of too fervid an imagination ! The rest of the story of the Irish legion may be told in a few words. The first military feat undertaken by that which remained of the corps was the capture of the town of Eio de la Hacha. Here, finding a large stock of bever- ages and food, they gave up all idea of learning to submit to discipline, and took to plunder and excesses. In the end a number of them made their way to Kingston in the island of Jamaica, where they continued their wild conduct, and became a source of considerable trouble to the authorities. Of the entire number some three hun- dred returned to Ireland, and a hundred and fifty re- 180 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA mained with the patriot armies, becoming trained into excellent soldiers, and eventually being incorporated with the British legion. Of the various actions in which the British fought, the most notable was the decisive battle of Carabobo, which took place on the 24th of June, 1821. The strength of the corps on this occasion was about six hundred, two hundred of its number having been distributed to stiffen the ranks of the native battalions. Beyond these were a hundred of the Irish legion, and some native troops offi- cered by British. In the course of this engagement the British, under Colonel Mackintosh, and the Irish, led by Colonel Ferrier, going to the aid of a patriot battalion which was on the point of falling back, swept forward into the midst of the Spaniards in an irresistible bayonet charge. In this Colonel Ferrier, bearing the regimental colors, fell most gallantly at the head of his men. This charge, united to a furious onslaught by General Paez's cavalry, restored the fortunes of the day, and with this patriot victory died the last hope of the Spaniards in the North. After the battle the British and Irish legions were united, and were distinguished by the name of ' ' The Regi- ment of Carabobo." The corps received the thanks of Bolivar and of the Colombian Congress — thanks that were well earned, as the casualty list showed, for the British lost two-thirds of their number in this action. It is, of course, impossible to enter here into more than one or two of the individual feats of the men who helped to make a fine record in the British military an- nals. Perhaps one of the most salient instances of per- sonal prowess was that given by Captain Rush, who in the action of the 28th of April slew no less than eleven of the enemy with his own hands. The tragic death, too, of Captain Chamberlayne, one of Bolivar's aides-de-camp, is worthy of more than a SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 181 passing word. Left with a handful of men to defend the city of Cumana against a large Spanish force, he held out in the Casa Fuerte in the center of the town until the want of provisions combined with an incessant bom- bardment made the spot completely untenable. The rem- nants of the garrison could resist no longer; but Cham- berlayne was determined not to yield himself alive. In his company was a very lovely girl from Caracas, to whom he was devotedly attached. The girl, whose affec- tion was as ardent as his, chose to die with him. Chamberlayne placed a pistol to her head, another to his own, and it was over the dead bodies of the pair that the Spaniards rushed in to massacre the sur^dving mem- bers of the garrison. A more cheery topic is that of the jovial and daring young Irish officer, who, moved to a mad freak, was re- sponsible for a premature capitulation of Caracas. Hav- ing privately borrowed three general's uniforms (from which it will be obvious that generals were not rare in the Northern patriot army!) he dressed himself in one of them, and a couple of servants in the other two. Then, slipping away from Bolivar's headquarters, he rode to Caracas, displayed a flag of truce, and demanded of the governor the surrender of the city, on the pretense that Bolivar's army had advanced to within three miles of the place. The governor, deceived by this bold front, capitulated, and the Irish officer rode back in triumph to Bolivar, with the document of surrender, sealed and signed, in his hand. A comrade of this ingenious offi- cer says of him: *'Our Lieutenant acquired by this ad- venture the name of 'The towntaker.' He was a brave young man, though thoughtless. He rose rapidly in the army; but, not long after I left the country, was killed, at the recapture of Maracaibo by the royalists." The hands of the British were, in general, so free from loot during this campaign that the spoil which these shared with their South American comrades at the taking 182 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA of the cathedral of the town of Barcelona must be con- sidered as the fruit of a rare lapse. The chief treasure was concealed in a secret chamber beneath the altar, and the story of its discovery suggests the pages of Edgar Allan Poe or Robert Louis Stevenson: ''On tapping round it, we judged by the hollowness of the sound, that there was a closet behind it ; and continuing our search, we found three spring-bolts rather clumsily attached to the frame, upon the touching of which the altar-piece flew open, and disclosed a spacious room, filled with boxes of various dimensions. Colonel Blossett, who thought that this apparent concealment, coupled with other in- dications, implied the existence of a hidden treasure, im- mediately jumped into the room with such violence that myriads of spiders and an enormous cloud of dust came tumbling about his ears. After shaking himself, to get clear of this disagreeable annoyance, he assiduously com- menced operations. ... In a niche we also found one of the most valuable relics of the place, at least to the monks. This was the body of a man of gigantic stature, curiously preserved in a case with a glass cover. It wore a loose dress of white satin, in the Roman form, and round its neck was a golden collar of great weight, set with emeralds and pearls, to which was fastened a chain of the same metal, each link being elegantly chased. On its wrists and ankles were bracelets similar to the collar, to each of which the chain was also fixed; and a crown adorned its head, whereon its name was enameled at full length. This was shown by the priests as the remains of St. Lawrence, the patron saint of the city, to whom the cathedral was dedicated. To him were all miracles as- cribed, and for him, and in his name, were all contribu- tions levied.*' It appears that the ladies of the town were, justly enough, not a little incensed at the spoliation of their patron saint. "Here!" exclaimed one, **they have stripped poor St. SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 183 Lawrence, and everybody knows that he was a good old soldier ! ' ' ''Very true," replied an officer, *'but you know that all soldiers are liable to lose their baggage in time of war." Nevertheless, since it was the British who were re- sponsible for the loss of this particular baggage, it is to be feared that the act did not render them more popular in the eyes of the priests, who from the day of their first landing had regarded them with aversion, and who had assiduously spread unfavorable reports concerning them. They even went the length of instilling into their flock theories to the effect that the British were canni- bals — cannibals, moreover, whom nature had adorned with a tail. It was on this account that, for some time after their landing, the officers of the legion noticed so many searching glances cast toward their figures, fol- lowed by the baffled look of one who fails to see with his eyes that which his mind had confidently predicted ! It is not generally realized that at one period of the War of Independence there were no less than two thou- sand British seamen serving in Bolivar's fleet and in the river gunboats. These men were frequently utilized in land fighting, and made up a most efficient force. Certainly none of the merit of such services as they performed was to be ascribed to Admiral Brion, the first commander of Bolivar's navy. Brion, a native of Curagoa, was of Dutch origin, and, until he entered the Venezuelan service at the age of forty, he had had no experience whatever of naval matters. Indeed, the only reason why he attained at one leap to his high com- mand was that his wealth had in the first instance en- abled him to provide out of his own pocket the squadron he commanded! Brion seems to have been honestly and enthusiastically devoted to the cause. On the other hand, he gave only too abundant proofs of his foolishness, pig-headedness, and utter incompetence. Brion, in fact, was a crank 184 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA whose eccentricity verged at times on madness. What can be thought, for instance, of a naval commander who, when he caught sight of a hostile fleet in a position which would have made its defeat easy, contented himself with firing a salute of twenty-one guns, and with hoisting a demijohn of wine and a live turkey at the yardarms of his vessel, and then sheered off? The uniform which Brion chose for himself was not of the kind to impress naval spectators with the technical and sober efficiency of its wearer. On his own quarter- deck he was usually attired in ^'an English hussar jacket and scarlet pantaloons, with a broad stripe of gold lace down each side, a field marshal's uniform hat, with a very large Prussian plume, and an enormous pair of dragoon boots, with heavy gold spurs of a most incon- venient length. ' ' Brion invariably displayed a deep prejudice against all Europeans, and did his best to thwart the British in the Venezuelan service. His command, however, was not of long duration. He was succeeded by Padilla, a native of Rio de la Hacha, and a brave and practical seaman. Among those of the British who distinguished themselves in this Venezuelan naval service were Chitty, Bingham, Noel, Cobham, and Russel. All these were in command of warships of various kinds, but I have named them thus curtly, being uncertain as to what precise rank they held in a navy that was of necessity of a somewhat improvised kind. Bolivar's relations with the British troops in general were of the most cordial description throughout. The Liberator was outspoken in his admiration for the legion, and at a banquet would frequently drink reverently to the memory of the dead, more especially to that of Rooke, whom he had especially esteemed. Bolivar's ardent and tropical temperament frequently led him into performances of a theatrical nature which to the colder Northern mind might easily obscure his real %-A GENERAL BOLIVAR SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 185 generosity and frank good fellowship. If there were times when Bolivar loved to pose before his troops in a glittering uniform, no one had a better right. Even the fainting emotion which he sometimes indulged in the face of rapturous public applause was a perfectly harm- less weakness. That he was an excellent comrade in times of stress has been proved by many Englishmen in his service. When Colonel Rooke, for instance, was robbed of his baggage on the plains of the Apure, it was Bolivar who gave him half his own wardrobe, scanty enough though it was on the march. A circumstance, too, that won the Liberator the respect of many soldiers was that he was a quite unusually good shot, and a fine swim- mer. When the circumstances warranted such peaceful exercises, moreover, he was noted for the excellence of his dancing. Another of his officers. Colonel Mackintosh, was em- phatic concerning Bolivar's "exertions on the march: *'0n the expedition to New Granada in 1819, we had a number of rapid mountain torrents to pass : in order to cross those which were not fordable, we dragged along two small canoes, fastened to the tails of horses, by means of which we were sometimes enabled to make a bridge; at other times they were used to carry over the troops, arms, etc., whilst those soldiers who had learnt the art of swimming, swam through the water. Upon all these occasions, Bolivar was very active, himself setting the example of labor, and frequently working harder than any common soldier. On passing rapid rivers where there were fords, he was constantly to be seen assisting the men over, to prevent their being carried away by the force of the torrent ; and carrying on his own horse am- munition, arms, and pouches." At the battle of Boyaca, Bolivar was clad in a some- what overpowering full dress of scarlet and gold. But this did not prevent him, his trumpeter by his side con- tinually sounding the advance, from plunging at the head 186 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA of a single squadron of cavalry four leagues in advance of his army, by which means he secured a large number of prisoners which could have been obtained by no other means. It may be remarked that this famous South American leader, for whom the British fought with genuine en- thusiasm, was extremely temperate in his habits, smoking very rarely, and never indulging in spirits. The more lukewarm among his admirers have asserted that this sobriety of his was in a sense obligatory, since a too gen- erous allowance of wine was wont to throw him into a state of excitation from which it took him many days to recover. However this may have been, Bolivar had no fear of London bottled porter, of which he frequently carried with him a stock when on the march. Mention has been made of Mrs. English, who accom- panied General English on his expedition to South America, and who, after her husband's death, continued in that continent. This lady appears to have been of a most resolute and estimable character, and after an un- pleasant experience or two at the hands of some of the less reputable of the native leaders, she appears to have won the respect of all. Her house subsequently seems to have formed one of the centers of Anglo-South American society at Bogota. It was in the course of a ball and supper at Mrs. Eng- lish's house that a joyful and dramatic episode occurred. The Vice-President of the new State was present, and in the midst of the entertainment General Paez's English aide-de-camp, Major Withen, arrived in hot haste with the news that Puerto Cabello had been captured and that the freedom of Colombia had finally been achieved. The bearer of this despatch — signed by Colonel Woodberry — had covered a distance between Puerto Cabello and Bo- gota in twenty days, a feat never before achieved ! It is possible enough that the British legion may have SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 187 been accompanied by others of its officers' wives, but, if so, I have come across no record of them. When the War of Liberation came to an end not a few of these British warriors turned their swords into local plowshares — or their more modern equivalent. Colonel Manby, for instance, proposed to occupy himself in sub- stituting gas for the few feeble paper lanterns which glim- mered from a street corner or two of Bogota of the early nineteenth century. Colonel Johnston, in association with a Mr. Thompson, obtained a grant of the richest rock-salt mines in the North, at Zipaquira, which they in- tended to work on the European plan, while Colonel James Hamilton was given the sole right of navigating the Orinoco River by means of steam vessels. Other officers, moreover, obtained grants of land. CHAPTER X BRITISH FIGHTERS IN THE CAUSE OF SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE (II) Bernardo O'Higgins — State circumstances affecting his birth — Relations between the great viceroy and his son — A haphazard early existence — Meeting with Miranda and San Martin — The consequences of parental neglect — On his father's death Bernardo O'Higgins arrives in Chile — His life as a country gentleman — On the outbreak of war he espouses the patriot caiise — The battle of Rancagua — Admirable qualities of Bernardo O'Higgins — Their value to the State — Captain Mehegan's book — Liberal methods of the Dictator — He maintains his dignity to the end — Juan Mackenna — Early history — His arrival in South America — Made Governor of Osorno by the Viceroy O'Higgins — Subsequent pro- motion — Mackenna joins the patriots — Jose Miguel Carrera — A stormy petrel — Animosity between Mackenna and Carrera — Problems of lead- ership — Carrera banishes Mackenna across the Andes — He fails O'Hig- gins at the battle of Rancagua — Flight of the South Americans into Argentina — Carrera's intrigues in Mendoza are frustrated by Mackenna — Mackenna is killed by Carrera in a duel — The Carreras — Benjamin Vicufia Mackenna — Assistance rendered by the British community of Mendoza — Lord Cochrane — Some characteristics of the great sailor — Stormy career of this marine comet — At the request of Bernardo O'Hig- gins he takes charge of the Chilean navy — His exploits in the Pacific Ocean — The capture of the Esmeralda and of the Corral forts — Fric- tion between Cochrane and San Martin — Bernardo O'Higgins mediator — Cochrane's family — A battle episode — An incident in which Lady Cochrane figured — William Miller — After serving in the British army he sails to South America — Shortly after his arrival in Buenos Aires he receives a commission in San Martin's army — His experiences in the Pampa — Mendoza society — Miller joins his regiment in Chile — His brother officers — ^A heterogeneous but genial group — After distinguish- ing himself in his first action he is given command of a company of marines — The frigate Lautaro's officers and crew — Captain O'Brien — Death of this gallant saiior — Enthusiasm of the Lautaro's scratch crew — Its curious composition — Fine achievements of the young na\'7 — The Chilean proves himself an admirable sailor — Satisfactory relations between officers and men — Miller's marines — Proofs of devotion given by this body — Miller visits Santiago — Gaieties of the capital — St. An- drew's day — Lord Cochrane presides in Highland costume — Entertain- 188 SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 189 ments provided by the British fleet — The first cricket in Chile — Social functions — Lady Cochrane and Seuora Blanco as hostesses — Charm of the Chilean ladies described by a contemporary admirer — The Chilean fleet sets sail from Valparaiso — Admiral Guise — Miller's various wounds — Some fallen British officers — Colonel Charles — Various posts held by Miller — The Montonero cavalry — Motley appearance of the corps — Its value as a fighting force — A dangerous feu de joie — Warfare in the rainless Peruvian deserts — Elaborate strategy devised by Miller — In- genious methods by which the Spaniards were outwitted — Local super- stitions — Amenities between Miller and the Spanish leaders — On the conclusion of the war Miller is made prefect of Potosi — His departure from South America — Esteem in which he was held — Miller returns to South America eight years later — His vicissitudes in altered circum- stances — His death — Honors accorded to his body. IN dealing with the struggle in the South of the con- tinent we are confronted at the outset with an anomaly. Strictly speaking, Bernardo O'Higgins, the son of the famous Irish Viceroy of Peru, being a Chilean and no British subject, has no place in these pages. But, whatever his nationality, it is impossible to pass without remark by so great an historical figure as that of Bernardo O'Higgins. A viceroy of Peru, holding so many of the privileges of royalty, was subject to a corresponding number of the restrictions of his high state. No viceroy, for instance, was permitted to marry a lady who resided within his viceregal territories. But for this law, it is probable enough that Bernardo O'Higgins would have been born in wedlock, for his mother, Isabel Riquelme, belonged to one of the aristocratic families of Chile. She undoubtedly proved an admirable mother, and a deep affection existed between that lady, her son, and her daughter Rosa. It was owing to the irregular circumstances of his fam- ily that so little is known about Bernardo O'Higgins 's quite early days. Even the date of his birth is surpris- ingly vague, and it is generally conceded that it may have occurred at any period between the years 1775 and 1780. The biographies of very few eighteenth-century men of his eminence contain so shrouded a birthday as this ! 190 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA The Viceroy Ambrose O'Higgins publicly recognized Bernardo as his son. At the same time it must be ad- mitted that his care for his offspring was of a desultory species. As a boy of fifteen the latter was sent to Spain, and from there he went on to England, remaining some time at a school at Richmond. At this very early stage of his existence he was ap- parently left entirely to his own devices. Usually, his father's agents supplied him with a sufficient amount of money, but there were times when he suffered from a temporary neglect, and when funds ran low. After four or five years of this comparatively haphazard existence he sailed for Spain. It is curious to reflect that it was this very free-lance life imposed by the merely casual attention bestowed on him by Don Ambrosio which brought Bernardo O'Higgins into contact, in England and Spain, with South American patriots such as Miranda and Salf Martin. In fact, had it not been for this parental neglect, it is morally certain that he would never have formed those connections nor drunk in those progressive ideas which eventually caused him to play so great a part in the subsequent overthrow of that mighty empire, of which, at the time, his father was the greatest administrator. After experiencing numerous vicissitudes and occa- sional privations in Spain, Bernardo O'Higgins, having learned of his father's death, when he himself was twenty- four years of age, set sail for Chile, and very nearly ended his days at Cape Horn, where the vessel in which he was a passenger struck a rock, and lay for a time in the greatest peril. Eventually he arrived home in safety in the Chilean winter of 1802. He now found himself in possession of hacienda of con- siderable importance bequeathed him by his father, and, entering the militia, he lived for a time the life of a Chilean country gentleman. During this period it ap- %rV w, -*!■* SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 191 pears that his views were looked on with suspicion by the Spanish authorities. When the War of Independence broke out Bernardo O'Higgins definitely ranged himself on the patriot side. In the stress of the early, and frequently disastrous, con- flicts he had ample opportunity to prove his courage as well as his resource. One of the most notable instances of this occurred at the battle of Rancagua, where his forces — deserted by his treacherous ally Carrera — were hemmed in by a greatly superior Spanish force. An in- furiated struggle raged, and the Spaniards attacked al- most without cessation for thirty-six hours. In the heat of the bitter struggle each side hoisted the black flag, a somber standard that waved a grim message to the fight- ers that no quarter was to be given or expected ! The Chilean magazine had exploded; ammunition had given out, and the houses of the town amid which they fought were blazing fiercely. Even then Bernardo 'Higgins did not despair. He hastily caused a number of horses, mules, and cattle to be collected. Side by side with a gallant comrade, Ramon Freire, he placed himself at the head of a remnant of scarcely more than two hun- dred of his men. Then, driving the livestock furiously before them to confuse their enemies, the survivors charged out of the burning town, and cut their way through the ranks of the Spaniards. On this occasion O'Higgins received a bullet through the leg, the first of the wounds he was destined to receive in the patriot service. It is clear that, in addition to his qualities of courage and statesmanship, the lovable character of Bernardo O'Higgins assisted in winning for him the great influence he possessed. It seems frequently to have been his lot to play the part of a mediator. He had this temperament of his to thank, early in the campaign, for his appoint- ment as commander-in-chief of the Chilean forces — an 192 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA appointment which, as one who had received no military education, he accepted only after some demur. He does not seem to have been one of the objects even of the many hatreds of Jose Carrera, while, the frequent involuntary umpire in the disputes between Cochrane and the Argen- tine leader San Martin, he achieved the seemingly im- possible in retaining the affection of both. A master mariner, Captain John J. Mehegan, has quite recently produced a book, * ' 'Higgins of Chile. ' ' In ac- tual volume it is a small literary egg, but it is very full of yolk! In this interesting little work the author has followed the career of Bernardo 'Higgins with the en- thusiastic closeness of a genuine admirer. A couple of paragraphs from his preface will bring the career of Bernardo 'Higgins, when at its zenith, very near to our own days: **Many an adventurous seaman from the shores of the Mersey and Thames joined 'Barney's Navy,' and helped to break the Spanish power in the South Pacific ; and the writer in his early days met a few of these ' sheer hulks ' who, under the cheering influence of hot grog, would thaw out, unseal their usually taciturn organs of speech, and recount their adventures and experiences while en- gaged in the service of the ' Irish Dago. ' ' ' As dictator of the new State — the era of presidents had not yet been arrived at in South America — Bernardo re- vealed those great qualities of government with which history has made the world sufficiently familiar. In many respects his methods resembled those of his father, the viceroy. The liberal mind of the latter had frequently nonplussed the Spanish authorities: the progressive measures of the son frequently brought him into collision with the more conservative elements of the new Chile — the elements, in fact, which most closely resembled those of the old Chile. It was the manner in which his progressive policy was opposed by the conservative section that led to Bernardo SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 193 O'Higgins's retirement from power. This momentous step be carried out of his own initiative, and the ceremony with which he divested himself of the insignia of his rank and proclaimed himself a private citizen was characteris- tically simple and dignified. Indeed, the sunset of Bernardo 'Higgins 's career was every whit as impres- sive as its midday hour. More remarkable still, his hold upon the people's affection was as strong. Colonel John Mackenna, who played a very prominent part in the War of Liberation, came out to South America under quite different auspices from those of his British comrades in arms. This, however, was merely owing to the fact that he arrived in that continent fifteen years or so before the fateful campaign began. Mackenna, who was born in 1771 at Clogher in the county of Tyrone, began his military career in Spain. Of a good family, he was received as a cadet in the Irish regiment in that country, and served with some distinc- tion in Morocco and against the French in the Peninsula. He had attained to the rank of captain when it occurred to him that South America promised greater things. There, for instance, was looming the tremendous figure of a countrjTiian who had set out with not a tithe of Mackenna 's advantages, 'Higgins, the Viceroy of Peru. To the dismay of his parents Mackenna determined on the venture, and, at the end of 1796, having been recom- mended to Don Ambrosio 'Higgins, he set sail for Buenos Aires. From that port he pricked along west- wards through the hot summer dust of the flat Pampa, crossed the Andes, and sailed northwards from the port of Valparaiso to Lima. 'Higgins, finding that Mackenna was a man very much after his own heart, made him governor of the town of Osorno, and there, among the beautiful forests, moun- tains, and streams of Southern Chile, Mackenna labored with strenuous success at the problems of road-construc- tion and of the repair and upkeep of the fortifications 194 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA erected to defend the district against the attacks of the warlike Araucanian Indians. He was afterwards given charge of Valdivia, and so satisfied were the authorities with his services that he was promoted to the rank of colonel, and was made Governor of Valparaiso. When the Civil War broke out Mackenna had every material inducement to continue in the service of the royalists. But his convictions lay so strongly with the other side that his material interests went by the board. He em- braced the patriot cause, became a comrade of Bernardo 'Higgins, and together with him shared the vicissitudes of the early Chilean campaign. Very soon Mackenna found himself involved in the confusion brought upon the patriot army by that arch- conspirator and most unreliable of stormy petrels, Jose Miguel Carrera. Carrera, one of three brothers who afterwards suffered execution in Argentina, though he fought as a leader on the Chilean side, had in reality only one cause, and that was his own. On more than one occasion his intrigues obtained for him the temporary command of the patriot forces, but his character never permitted him to retain this post for any length of time. His adventurous disposition, moreover, was not of the type which shows to the best advantages on the field of battle, for in the face of the enemy he more than once failed to lend to his comrades at a critical moment aid which would have averted defeat and gained a victory. From the start of the war Mackenna set himself with resolution to oppose Carrera 's most unscrupulous moves, with the result that a bitter animosity sprang up between the pair. In the early days of the revolution, however, when Mackenna was adjutant general and Carrera was commander-in-chief, these sentiments had of necessity to be suppressed. At this juncture of the War of Liberation undoubtedly Carrera stands for the evil genius of Chile, and Mackenna SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 195 and Bernardo O'Higgins for its good, though baffled, angels. The latter pair fought strenuously side by side, struggling hard to repair on the battle-field the harvest of errors sown by the incapacity of Carrera. Seeing that this condition of affairs could have no other end but that of the niin of the patriot cause, Mackenna in- tervened, and his remonstrances with the Junta — the au- thorities of the very youthful State of Chile — resulted in O 'Higgins being named commander-in-chief of the forces in the place of Carrera. The latter accepted the situa- tion, since no other course was open to him at that mo- ment, but he remained in the neighborhood of the armies, poised like a hawk to pounce upon the first opportunity of snatching power that should come his way. After this the joint efforts of O'Higgins and Mackenna stemmed for a time the royalist tide. But before long the plotting of Carrera again proved successful. Hav- ing obtained the control of the State, he endeavored to make his precarious position more secure by banishing Mackenna to Argentina across the Andes. With the destinies of Chile in the irresponsible hands of Jose Carrera and of his brothers Juan and Luis, a crisis in the affairs of the young State was not long to be delayed. At the fierce battle of Eancagua, Jose Carrera left the gallant O'Higgins in the lurch, and although he, with the remnant of his heroic deserted force, succeeded in cutting a bloody way through the encircling Spaniards, the result was a complete victory for the Spanish general and a triumph for the royalist arms. After the battle of Rancagua the patriot cause appeared entirely lost. The capital was again occupied by the tri- umphant Spaniards, while the remnant of the Chilean force, accompanied by a number of brave ladies, struggled over the Andes into Argentina, losing many of their number in the course of the strenuous journey — a casualty list which would have been increased but for the succor and provisions which Mackenna sent to the stricken fugi- 196 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA tives from Mendoza, the town of his exile at the foot of the eastern slopes of the Andes. Jose Carrera — who had not delayed his flight until the end of the battle of Rancagua — had arrived in Mendoza with the rest of the fugitives. There he endeavored to continue his intrigues ; but he found that the sins of his past were coming out into the daylight to roost! The great Argentine, San Martin — who had received the rest with the most cordial hospitality — looked upon him coldly, and there was his enemy Mackenna on the spot — a witness whose word was honored, and whose testimony could not be doubted. Incensed that his plots should be thus baffled, Jose Carrera picked an open quarrel with Mackenna, chose Admiral Brown as his second, and in the duel that followed Mackenna fell. Undoubtedly this was one of the worst of the many pieces of mischief which Carrera succeeded in doing to the patriot cause ; for the history of the Carrerra brothers would seem to be one of outrage that continually mounted in audacity, and that was only checked by the execution at different dates of all three. But Mackenna, although he fell in this way, had at all events bequeathed his race to the Chilean nation, as is proved by the existence of Benjamin Vicuiia Mackenna, one of the most famous of Chilean authors and statesmen, who was born in 1831. Preparations, moreover, for the campaign continued without a break at Mendoza under the vigilant supervi- sion of General San Martin. The great Argentine his- torian. General Bartolome Mitre, states that the English were the first of the youthful foreign communities to volunteer assistance. According to this authority, they raised a corps of riflemen, on the condition that the offi- cers should be elected by themselves. This they did, be- cause, in their own words *' appreciative of hospitality and the rights of man, they could not view with indiffer- ence the danger which threatened the country, and were SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 197 prepared to take up arms, and, if necessary to yield up the last drop of their blood in its defense." In the part played by the British in the War of In- dependence in the Pacific one of the most notable figures is that of Lord Cochrane. Now in a sense — and in one sense only — this book resembles heaven. The more ma- terial fame a man has enjoyed in his life, the less notice he can receive in these pages ! In spite of objections to the celestial claim, the procedure is inevitable, if a mere repetition of popular history is to be avoided. This applies to Cochrane more than to any other Brit- ish fighter in the patriot cause. So much has already been written about this most gallant and mercurial noble- man that he must appear here merely in a few passing glimpses — which is only fitting in a personality of his elusive and extraordinary daring. Indeed, the peculiarly Irish genius of the great Scotsman, which I have drunk in eagerly from the period- of boyhood's literature, some years ago led me into an error that was due to absent- mindedness rather than to ignorance. For not until the Scottish papers came down upon my error with richly justified severity was I made aware that I had written, in a cotton- wool-headed moment "the Irishman, Lord Cochrane!" To w^hat extent Dundonald himself would have relished this tribute to his resource I do not know. Much, I suppose, would have depended on his mood, the normal frame of which left him in a condition spoiling for a fight ! In his moments of action Cochrane was a magnificent comrade. In the rush of a boarding party, the heat of a hand-to-hand fight, and the steady irresistible advance over the slippery decks, there was no living man whom the ordinary sailor would rather have had by his side. Had he reserved this mood for the turmoil of actual bat- tle it would have been well for him and his friends. It was precisely his inability to shake it off in times and places that should have been devoted to peace that put 198 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA many people — including himself — to much inconvenience in various parts of the world. Before Bernardo O'Higgins had invited him to come out to the Pacific in order to found the Chilean navy, Cochrane had already achieved sufiQcient to cause his name to be regarded with a wholesome dread by his political enemies at home. But he had done more than that. His combative methods in Parliament had imbued his own co-legislators with a dread that was almost equally profound, and, when he had once been removed from the chamber by the force of many arms, there were doubtless a number of the more timid who heaved a sigh of relief on the Westminster bank of the Thames. Bernardo O'Higgins had made no mistake in his man. Lord Cochrane arrived in Chile in November, 1818, and, a marine comet, was followed by an adventurous tail of British and North American seamen. In four years or so he had completely swept away the Spanish navy, that had never even dreamed that a fleet flying any other flag but its own could ever come into existence in the Pacific Ocean. The great admiral's exploits on this coast are, of course, world famous. The two most salient of these are probably the daring and ingenious cutting-out of the Spanish forty-gun frigate Esmeralda from under the guns of Callao Castle, and the storming of the Coral forts in Southern Chile, one of the most astonishing feats ever accomplished by a squadron's landing party. Beyond this were dozens of other performances of a kind that could never have been achieved by a sailor of less determination and initiative than Cochrane. All this was to have been expected, and Cochrane received full honors and acknowledgments from the Chilean people, for whom he entertained a cordial affection. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Coch- rane 's leisure moments were devoted with too much en- thusiasm to the adjusting of grievances — real or imagin- ary — such as required, if the former, little beyond diplo- SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 199 matic handling to be smoothed out of existence. With all his admirable and gallant qualities, too much leisure did not suit one who has been called ''a kind of destroy- ing angel, with a limited income, and a turn for politics ! ' ' It was lamentable, for instance, that Cochrane should have fallen foul of San Martin. But, in any case, the policy and temperaments of the two great men w^ere diametrically opposed. San Martin — ^whose valor was blended with a shrewd and calculating caution of a Scot- tish type — was more than once content to hold back his arm and to let the forces of nature work irresistibly in his favor. Cochrane, on the other hand — with a fire and impatience that was essentially Latin! — became chafed into a frenzy of irritation at a policy of impassivity which was entirely foreign to his nature. Hence a mutual dis- trust, and, only too often, a bitter correspondence. Hence, too, an infinity of worries to the wise friend of both, Bernardo O'Higgins, whose part it frequently was to pour balm on the troubled spirits. When Lord Cochrane sailed out to Chile it had been his intention to remain there for the rest of his life. To this end he had brought out with him agricultural implements, seeds, and other objects. He also brought out his charm- ing wife and his young son. Of the innumerable, and well known, incidents w^hich might be repeated here did space permit is the one which has this boy Tom* — then a youngster of ten — for a hero, when, his face covered with the brains of a marine killed by a cannon ball, he tranquilly assured his father in the midst of a naval engagement, * * Indeed, Papa, the shot did not touch me ; indeed, I am not hurt. ' ' But to attempt to dive into the too great sea of such anecdotes would be to get out of one's depth immediately. As a hostess Lady Cochrane 's success was immediate and great in a land famous for the fascination of its women. Lady Cochrane 's popularity, moreover, was not confined to the upper classes. Here is an episode, told 200 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA by John Miller, which occurred during Colonel (after- wards General) Miller's stay at Huacho: "On the day after his arrival there, and whilst he was inspecting the detachments in the Plaza, Lady Cochrane galloped on to the parade to speak to him (Miller). The sudden appearance of youth and beauty, on a fiery horse, managed with skill and elegance, absolutely electrified the men, who had never before seen an English lady: ^Que hermosa!' 'Que graciosa!' 'Quelindaf 'Que guapaf 'Que airosa! es un angel del cielof were exclamations that escaped from one end of the line to the other. The lieutenant-colonel, not displeased at this involuntary hom- age, paid to the beauty of a country-woman, said to the men, 'This is our Generala.' Her ladyship turned her sparkling eyes toward the line, and bowed graciously. The troops could no longer confine their expressions of admiration to half-suppressed interjections; loud vivas burst from officers as well as men. Lady Cochrane smiled her acknowledgments, and cantered off the ground with the grace of a fairy. ' ' In such delightful company as that of Lady Cochrane we may well leave her gallant husband for a time. William Miller, who was bom in 1795, had seen a con- siderable amount of service with the British army in the Peninsula and in North America, and had traveled Eu- rope rather extensively in a private capacity, before he sailed for Buenos Aires in 1817 in order to take up arms in the cause of South American freedom. He chose the South of the continent in preference to Colombia for the reason that the former as yet was almost unvisited by the foreign soldiers as well as mere adventurers who had flocked in great numbers to the latter country. Once landed on the rich alluvial soil of Buenos Aires, he found himself in the midst of a community of his o\\ti compatriots who had already firmly established them- selves in that budding city. Although strongly tempted by the lucrative commercial vista which was already re- SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 201 vealing itself in that spot, he determined to persist in his chosen career of the sword. His closest friends in Buenos Aires appear to have been people of the name of Mackinlay, and a Mr. Dickinson, who presented him to Pueyrredon, the supreme director of the new republic. As a result of this he received in due course a cap- tain's commission in the army of the Andes w^hich, com- manded by the famous Argentine general, San Martin, was then in Chile. Before this, however, he had ridden for long distances over the pampa, and had obtained con- siderable experiences of the life of the plains. It was there that he learned the ways of the Gaucho children of the prairies, and watched them in their every-day tasks when they galloped to ''round up" the cattle, or, having lassoed and slain one of the herd, would roast its carcase above the wood fire that blazed amid the green grasses and scarlet verbena of the pampa, and, having cut away long strips of the cooked flesh, would place the ends in their mouths, and would slice the pieces clear from the main strip by slashes of their long knives. He would see them, too, in their festal lace and silver, thrumming their guitars to love songs or chanted epics, when a single mocking word would send the great sword- knife whipping out from its sheath, and the poncho would go curling rapidly round the left arm of each antagonist as a shield. Undoubtedly he learned much in these first weeks of his in South America which w^as of great use to him in his subsequent campaigns. He learned much, too, from his hospitable Argentine hosts, and galloped after deer and ostrich, and shot duck, partridge, pigeon, and quail to his heart's content. Occasionally, of course, he met with that rough-and- ready criticism such as the raw Gringo must expect at the hands of the hardened rider of the plains. Thus, on his way across the plains to the Andes, having refused the offer of a cigarette, he had to submit with what grace he could to his postilion's audible verdict on himself as 202 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA given to the postilion of the next stage. It was curt, but eloquently pitying, '*He knows nothing — can't even smoke !" At Mendoza, that pleasant town in the shadow of the great Andes, famous for its poplars, vineyards, and peach groves that abound on the banks of its irrigat- ing streams. Miller saw much of the local society. A genial man of the world, the Argentines found him sim- patico, and took him without reserve into their hearts. Thus he was enabled to take part in the evening parties, the Tertulias, of the place, and to admire the infinite grace of the daylight minuets, walked on plain earthen floors by the men of Mendoza and the ladies, these latter fre- quently attired in a riding habit, a long whip in their hand. Miller, having crossed the Andes by the pass of Uspal- lata — until quite recent years a feat much easier to de- scribe than perform — joined his regiment, the Buenos Aires artillery. From the very first moment he appears to have got on well with his fellow officers — a gallant, but curiously heterogeneous set of men. Miller has left a record of some of these, and it is sufficiently instructive. There was Francisco Dias, a most polished ex-officer of the Spanish navy, who spoke English fluently, and was familiar with French literature. There was Juan Apostol Martinez, a very cheerful and most ridiculously eccentric captain, who hated Spaniards and priests to such a degree that he played every conceivable prank on these whenever the opportunity offered, and even fought three duels with Dias on this account. There was a Frenchman who had been educated at the ecole polytech- nique at Paris, and who had afterwards been page to King Jerome Bonaparte ; there was Beltran, a monk who had unfrocked himself to fight in the cause of South American independence, and who proved himself a gal- lant officer; and there was the adjutant, Talmayancu, an educated and lively Araucanian Indian, who was fond of playing practical jokes on the sentries at night! SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE SOS Surely these suffice to prove the extraordinarily mixed composition of the corps! As to the others, let Miller's testimony be given in his own words : ' ' There were some very fine young men amongst the other officers of the corps, and all were extremely obliging. Most of them played on the guitar, or sang, and good fellowship reigned throughout the camp." Having once become thoroughly at home among these new comrades of his. Miller, having obtained leave, rode down to the port of Valparaiso, where he was delighted to see the white ensign floating over the waters of the Pacific. Here he was most cordially received by Com- modore Bowles on board H.M.S. Amphion. Thus we find him established on the Pacific slope where he was des- tined to win fame and honor. It is impossible, of course, to give more than the merest outline of his career here. Of its more salient features it may be said that Miller was fortunate enough to distinguish himself in the first important encounter with the royalist forces, and in this action, heroically assisted by Ensign Moreno, he saved two of the guns of the Buenos Aires artillery. Shortly after this he was detached with a company of infantry to act as marines on board the newly purchased old East- Indiaman of 800 tons, the Wyndham, now known as the Lautaro frigate in the Chilean service. The Lautaro may serve as a typical specimen of the material out of which the young Chilean navy was being forged at that time. Here, then, is the ship's company of the frigate Lautaro of the young Chilean navy. Her officers were for the most part British. Her commander was Captain O'Brien, formerly a lieutenant in the British navy, in which service he had already distinguished him- self in the action which ended in the capture of the United States frigate Essex. O'Brien was one of the most gallant officers who ever trod a warship, to say nothing of the deck of an old East- Indiaman converted into a frigate! He died in the ft04 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Lautaro's action with the Spanish frigate Esmeralda, I when, having leaped on board the enemy's ship at the aead of the willing stream of his men, the two vessels swung apart, and O'Brien, fighting to the last, was un- avoidably left to face the Esmeralda's men with no more than thirty devoted followers. All this was only ten hours after her capstan had been manned for the first time in the Chilean service by the Lautaro's new and scratch crew! And this crew in some ways was one of the most remarkable that ever manned a warship. The expert division was represented by a hundred foreign seamen. Beyond these were one hundred and fifty Chileans, many of whom had never before boarded a sea-going vessel, but whose enthusiasm had been so keen that many of them swam to the ship from the shore in order to make certain of being included in the crew! Such was the Lautaro and her crew, and it was this latter type of sailor that, under Cochrane and his sub- ordinate officers, speedily piled up a record of deeds such as any of the old maritime nations of the world would have been proud to claim for their own. When, whether by capture or purchase, the Chilean fleet increased to more formidable proportions, it was still officered in the main by Englishmen, although a considerable sprinkling of North Americans and other nationalities now assisted, and Captain Dias, Miller's former comrade in the Buenos Aires artillery, being clearly an amphibious person, is once again seen on the waters in command of the little twenty-gun ship Chacahuco. Efficiency soon began to oil the springs of the fleet, and the Chileans, gaining experience, showed themselves even finer sailors than their first commanders had dared to hope. Officers and men — though they frequently failed to understand each other's lay or nautical speech — ^began to swear by each other's merits. Their ships became SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 205 those fortunate things that are known in the British navy as *' happy ships." When at the top of their busi- ness, the crews aimed their guns and boarded with ar- dor ; when off duty, the officers would dance on the quar- ter deck, the men in the waist and on the forecastle. Miller saw to it that his marines kept in the forefront of this progress of efficiency, and they repaid his efforts to the full. On one occasion he was sent ashore with a flag of truce which the Spaniards violated, and had it not been for the intervention of some honorable royalist officers, and for the angry threats of retaliation hurled against the Spanish commander by his comrades afloat, it is probable that his life would have been sacrificed to the vindictiveness of the Spanish general Sanchez. When he eventually returned in safety to his own vessel, Miller found that his marines had gone aft in a body, and had begged the commodore to allow them to land and to rescue their officer, an attempt which must have meant certain death to them! After much successful cruising Commodore Blanco, ac- companied by Miller, set out for the Chilean capital of Santiago, and met with a regular triumphal reception as they approached the city. Incidentally in the course of this journey Miller reveals that even among the very gallant and warm-hearted Chileans there were pressed men. ''The approach," he relates, "was rendered inex- pressibly delightful by the cheering welcome. . . . Even a party of recruits, tied hand to hand, halted and uttered their vivas as heartily as did their escort. ' ' After this Miller was plunged head over ears into the gaieties of Santiago, even then a town of arch-hospitality, at which delightful place even then, as Miller remarks, Chileans and foreigners associated together perhaps more than in any other great town of South America. At the end of November, 1818, Lord Cochrane arrived at Valparaiso to take over the supreme command of the Chilean navy. This was followed by a season of that 206 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA festivity which is so dear to the Chilean heart, and balls and entertainments of all kinds abounded. As a return for the numerous affairs of the kind given by the Chileans, Lord Cochrane in the full costume of a High- land chief presided at an elaborate banquet held on St. Andrew's day. Miller's brother renders a diplomatic account of the convivial revelry on that occasion : *' Extraordinary good cheer was followed by toasts drank with uncommon enthusiasm in extraordinary good wine. No one escaped its enlivening influence. St. An- drew was voted the patron saint of champagne, and many curious adventures of that night have furnished the sub- ject of some still remembered anecdotes." Now, were vulgar slang permitted in a work of this nature, surely the verdict on this wise and guarded ac- count would be " 'Nuff said!" It breathes out a remin- iscent exhilaration which in itself is most graphic. No doubt these good fellows of tried gallantry let them- selves go to their hearts' content, and, each being pro- foundly satisfied with the Veritas (or veritate for the classic-minded) in vino that he found in the other, the budding friendship between the Chileans and British must have attained its intimate majority then and there. This undoubtedly was one of the first of those innum- erable Chileno gatherings upon which the Andes frowned on from above, and the blue Pacific smiled at from be- low! The officers of the two British warships Andromache and Blossom, just then in Valparaiso Bay, lost no time in associating themselves with these festivities. The first regular race course on the Pacific coast was im- provised ; a level space in the neighborhood of the town was cleared of its cactus and scrub, and then followed cricket matches, and the bang of the leather ball against those queerly shaped old bats of the early nineteenth century. But let the contemporary chronicler from whose pages :?%ji. j^K* ■¥. 4r » '■<>o> SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 207 I have already quoted sum up the doings at Valparaiso at this period: ''The intercourse between Valparaiso and the capital was incessant. A grand ball at one place drew numbers of the beau monde from the other. Tertulias, or routs, and dances were given nearly every evening at Val- paraiso. The two presiding belles were Lady Cochrane and Mrs. Commodore Blanco, both young, fascinating, and highly gifted. The first was a flattering specimen of the beauty of England, and the second was perhaps the most beautiful and engaging woman of Chile. ... In the bright galaxy of Chilena enchantresses are to be recorded the names of Dias-Cajigas, Cotapos, Vicuna, Perez, Caldera, Gana, Barra, with a hundred more, all calculated to produce ineffaceable impressions. In the midst of these gay scenes the outfit of the squadron was com- pleted." On the 14th of January, 1819, all was ready, and the following ships put out to sea: O'Higgins, 50 guns, Vice-Admiral Lord Cochrane, Captain Forster ; San Mar- tin^ 56 guns. Captain Wilkinson; Lautaro, 48 guns. Cap- tain Guise ; CJiacabuco, 20 guns. Captain Carter. Miller, it may be said, was appointed to the command of all the troops of the squadron serving as marines. The Chilean navy was now fairly launched upon the waters, and the deeds it performed are too well known to need recapitulation here. When it had done its work no Spanish flag flew, afloat or ashore, along the Spanish coast. The casualties among the British officers on such stren- uous service, as may be imagined, were not slight. From Lord Cochrane himself down to the junior ranks scarcely one emerged from the campaign unwounded. Miller's escapes from death were especially numerous, one of the narrowest of these being when he was injured by a chemical explosion which blew the nails from his finger- tips and his face out of all recognition for the time being- 208 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA At Pisco he was wounded in four places, one ball perma- nently disabling his left hand, and another of the four entering his chest, fracturing a rib, and passing out at the back. On this occasion his life was again despaired of; yet he contrived to win his way back to health, to suffer a grazed head at Corral, and a terrible dose of mutilation at Chiloe, where a grapeshot passed through his left thigh; a four-pounder crushed his right instep, and a bullet inflicted a flesh wound. Three of his trusty marines bore him to safety under a murderous fire, two of them persisting in this duty even after they them- selves were wounded, and once again Miller recovered ! Then, too, the land campaign was responsible for the loss of such fine fellows as Lieutenant Gerard, a gallant young Scotsman who had formerly belonged to the Brit- ish rifle corps ; another Scotsman of the name of Welsh, a deeply esteemed young surgeon whose loss was de- plored throughout every branch of the Chilean forces. But undoubtedly one of the most lamented of all these losses was that of Colonel Charles, a peculiarly gallant and chivalrous soldier who, having passed through the Royal Academy at Woolwich, served in the artillery in the Peninsula, and having been made aide-de-camp to Sir Robert Wilson, traveled and campaigned in Turkey, Germany, and Italy. On his arrival in South America, therefore, Charles was already a person of some distinc- tion, and had received orders and decorations from Rus- sia, Austria, and Prussia. His quite unusual intrepidity and charm made a deep impression on the west coast of South America, and, had he not fallen at Pisco — almost at the same moment when his close friend Miller was so severely wounded — it is probable that his name would still be ringing to and fro between the foot hills of the Andes. To return to General Miller, it may be said that none of his British comrades on land enjoyed such high com- mand and varied experiences of South American war- SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 209 fare as he. Certainly he had no reason to complain of any monotony in his career. His initial appointment to the Buenos Aires artillery was followed, as we have seen, by a transference to the marines. He was subsequently promoted by General San Martin to the lieutenant- colonelcy of a black corps, the eighth battalion of Buenos Aires. After this, having commanded a battalion of the Peruvian legion, he served as chief of the staif of the Peruvian army, the temporary command of which de- volved on him, and at this period he received from Boli- var a letter of appreciation and of personal thanks for his services. After two or three temporary cavalry commands Miller was appointed to the post of command- ant-general of the Peruvian cavalry, and we may pause for a few lines at this appointment, since it was one of the most notable he held. The Montoneros, or irregular cavalry of Peru, knowing either Miller's personality or repute, welcomed him with enthusiasm. Miller, too, was already familiar with the military virtues, as well as with the outward appear- ance, of his new troops. The most ardent admirer of the Montonero cavalry might have suffered some qualms concerning their pres- tige as they paraded before Miller. A pipe-clay mar- tinet would have sunk into an apoplectic trance on the spot. Scarcely any two out of the whole division of Montoneros were alike in uniform, accoutrements, or arms. This strong individuality of the riders seems to have affected even the mounts, for while some rode horses others sat astride mules! As to the men, their athletic bodies were garbed in every conceivable blend of patriot uniform, captured Spanish kit, and countryside costume; though not one of them was lacking his lasso or his poncho. Their arms were almost as varied as their uniforms, comprising al- most every known weapon, from lances, swords, pistols, muskets, and bayonets to daggers and long knives. 210 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA But Miller knew that these rough-and-ready cavalry- men could fight — and their enthusiasm was heightened by the fact that they were aware of his knowledge ! As the commandant-general rode down the motley lines, the Montoneros let loose a spontaneous feu de joie as ir- regular as themselves. No doubt as he heard the bullets whistling past him Miller appreciated the compliment acutely ! The reckless fellows had no concern with blank cartridge ! But they succeeded in not hitting their popu- lar general. It was in operations among the sandy wastes of the Peruvian coastal desert that Miller was enabled to give his strategic genius full play. Frequently his force was obliged to penetrate into completely rainless deserts similar to that of Huantajaya, which used to be locally famous on account of the behavior of one of its young women when on a visit to Tarapaca, where a few quaint streams are wont to trickle. If to begin a story with the words: ''there was a young lady of Huantajaya"— prom- ises (falsely) a continuation in Limerick verse, it cannot be helped. The young lady did exist, and on seeing for the first time one of these streams, she was horrified at the sight of so much precious water running to waste. ' ' Save it ! " she cried, flinging herself down, and endeavor- ing to scoop some of the fluid up in her hands. "You heretics of Tarapaquenos, save it!" The methods by which Miller continually deceived the Spanish leaders as to the actual strength of his force was frequently entertaining in the extreme — to all but the commanders of the opposing army. There would be numerous jugglings with uniforms. Trumpeters would sound at night in desolate valleys where no others but themselves rode, and dozens of camp-fires would blaze, warming nothing but the dry Peruvian air! Spanish prisoners just previous to their release would witness the cleverly staged march past of a great patriot army, in SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 211 which each man did duty many times over. At night, too, these prisoners would hear the reiterated commands to prepare fresh billets for expected troops, and each such order was followed by the noise of an arriving squadron. This was sometimes carried to such a pitch that the patriot rank and file themselves were sometimes completely deceived as to the actual strength of the army with which they were marching! Miller's brother gives some interesting details concerning the use made of in- tercepted ofiGcial royalist letters: ''The originals were kept, and others counterfeited, and sent in their stead. Other letters were written in cipher, or in a mysterious style, for the express purpose of being intercepted, and which made Manzanedo doubt the fidelity of his own officers. Cordova and Rodriguez, two distinguished and influential priests, were particu- larly useful in the execution of these stratagems. Cor- dova willingly acted as secretary. . . . He was of a jovial turn ; and often, when half the night had been con- sumed in despatching letters in various directions, he and Miller would pass the remainder in hearty laughs at the strangeness of their productions, and in speculat- ing with great glee upon the probable results." The result of all this was the complete outwitting of the Spaniards, whom Miller would frequently keep in check by a mere handful of men posing as a formidable army! No doubt, too, Miller's impish genius made the most of those mysterious, rainless, and arid hills and valleys where, some said, lights would flicker at night, and the voices of the slaughtered ancient Peruvians would sound again across the still air! Miller, moreover, succeeded in winning the esteem of the Spaniards, who respected his chivalry, and when the occasion arose, courtesies were frequently exchanged be- tween him and the royalist leaders. So liberally were these amenities of warfare cultivated that the Spanish 212 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA general Valdez, when be learned once that Miller had no cigars, sent the patriot commander a box of his own Havana s ! When the War of Liberation had been victoriously con- cluded the South Americans made it abundantly clear that they did not look upon General Miller in the light of a mere soldier of fortune. He was named prefect of the province of Potosi, and was thus given authority over a population of some three hundred thousand people. The scope of this civil and military authority, moreover, was extraordinarily wide. Miller's office included the posts of superintendent of the mint, director of the bank, vice- patron of the Church (who had the power of displacing clergy from their office, and without whose ratification no clerical appointment was valid) and involved the filling of over a hundred civil appointments ! Miller held this post with all success until reasons of health made it urgently necessary for him to return to England. His parting from his colleagues, both civil and military, was of the most affectionate description, and it was with a deep sense of mutual esteem that Mil- ler and the inhabitants of Potosi took leave of each other. After this Miller, bearing high and cordial testi- monials from General Bolivar, rode down from the moun- tains to the plains of Buenos Aires on his way to Europe. His material rewards, although not munificent, were not to be despised. He had received five thousand pounds from the Peruvian Government, and a grant of land from Argentina. It is said that an English merchant, traveling in the in- terior of Peru at that period, made a point of announcing himself as a countryman of Miller, because the usual an- swer was, ''A countrjTuan of Miller's must have the best house and the best fare that an Indian village can af- ford." It is in one sense regrettable that Miller's public career cannot be closed with this triumphal homecoming of his SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 213 to England. But after eight years he returned to Peru again, and this time found the new State in the throes of its internal dissensions. Becoming involved in these, he was banished from the country in 1839. This af- forded a tragic contrast to the manner in which his first departure had been effected. Decidedly it was not the fate anticipated by one of whom General Bolivar had said that, "South America will always claim as one of her most glorious sons. ' ' But Bolivar's own lot was very little brighter than Miller's. The changes in Peru had been rapid! Miller subsequently obtained an appointment as British consul-general and commissioner in the Pacific, and, again returning to Peru, he endeavored, without success, to make good his financial claims against the Peruvian Government. In 1861 he felt that his end was near, and, having been taken on board H.M.S. Frigate Naiad, he died, as he had earnestly wished, under the British flag. Notwithstand- ing his difficulties with the Government, his popularity with the Peruvians seems to have been practically unim- paired, for during his illness he was publicly prayed for — a very unusual circumstance in the case of a non-Roman Catholic — and, buried in the British cemetery at Lima, he was accorded a public funeral. He appears, indeed, to have been genuinely mourned. No people have proved themselves more generous than the South Americans in the erection of monuments to their heroes. O'Higgins, Cochrane, Mackenna, Brown, and the rest have been very freely honored in this way. But Miller lacks his adequate measure of commemorative stone — probably for the reason that his services were spread over several frontiers and that no country can take undivided charge of his fame. CHAPTER XI BRITISH FIGHTERS IN THE CAUSE OF SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE (in) Captain Hall — His friendship with San Martin — San Martin's lofty atti- tude — Expression of his views to Captain Hall — Sentiments of a great South American patriot — His philosophical temperament — A deck- washing episode — Incidents at the fall of Lima — The British fleet on tlie Pacific coast — Popularity of the officers — Part played by them — Benavides — Some incidents of a sinister career — The renegade's escape from death at the hands of a firing-party — Further betrayals — Bena- vides becomes a leader of the fierce Araucanian Indians — Increase of his power — He succeeds in capturing British and North American whaling ships — His windfalls in men and munitions — Preparations to invade Chile — How cavalry trumpets were made — Captain Hall is sent to negotiate for the rescue of the British and North American seamen — Captain Hall's adventures among the Araucanian Indians — Experi- ences at a native orgy — Description of the savage chief Peneleo — A dangerous interview — Execution of Benavides — Adventures of Captain Roberton — His feud with the Italian desperado Martilini — His home on the island of Mocha — His capture by Martilini and subsequent es- cape — Martilini, captured by a French vessel, is sent as a prisoner to France — Roberton is imprisoned by Bolivar — His escape — Subsequent movements of Roberton and Martilini — Cruelties attending a Spanish imprisonment — Further atrocities committed by Benavides — Colonel O'Carrol and Lieutenant Bayley as victims — Captain Brown finds shel- ter on a British warship — The manner in which Colonel Ferguson's life was saved — Colonel O'Connor — Dr. Moore — Colonel O'Leary — Colonel Wilson — ^His remarkable journey — A justly popular officer — The Scottish captain of the Spanish brig La Vigie — A determined sailor — Improvised ammunition — A daring escape — Admiral Brown — His early career — He establishes a packet service between Buenos Aires and Montevideo — Founder of the Argentine navy — Some naval facts. CAPTAIN HALL, as an unprejudiced eye-witness, is one of those who have borne the most con- vincing testimony to the real greatness of San Martin — ^who, by the way, has been referred to by Had- 214 SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 215 field as of Irish de-scent, a claim which would seem doubt- ful. A warm friendship appears to have sprung up be- tween the two men. As Hall watched the chivalry and self-effacing genius of San Martin, his admiration deep- ened for the man who solemnly declared that when his task in the field should be concluded he intended to retire from the scene of his glory into private life, and who, to the astonishments of the skeptical world, fulfilled his in- tentions to the letter! San Martin, for his part, spoke very freely to Captain Hall. Decidedly he did not permit his quarrels with Cochrane to influence his cordial relations with other Englishmen. His own aide-de-camp was the very tall and stately General O'Brien, who subsequently became the Uruguayan consul-general in London. Incidentally it may be remarked that O'Brien obtained at least one priceless curiosity as a reward of his services; for Mr. W. Bollaert relates that in 1859", when in London, that the General showed him the large and rich umbrella- shaped canopy which used to be held over Pizarro when he went in state. This was given to O'Brien when the South Americans entered Lima in triumph. In the course of one of his conviersations with Captain Hall, San Martin revealed very fully the reasons for the policy which he was then carrying out in Peru. The nature of this conquest of Peru, he maintained, differed entirely from that of Chile. It was not a war of con- quest and glory ; it was a war of new and liberal princi- ples against prejudice, bigotry, and tyranny. No doubt San Martin's mind was running at the time upon the heated criticism of the impetuous Cochrane, to whom this species of campaign was gall and wormwood. "People ask," said San Martin to Captain Hall, *'why I don't march to Lima at once ; so I might, and instantly would, were it suitable to my views — which it is not. I do not want military renown — I have no ambition to be the con- queror of Peru — I want solely to liberate the country 216 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA from oppression. Of what use would Lima be to me, if the inhabitants were hostile in political sentiment? How could the cause of independence be advanced by my hold- ing Lima, or even the whole country, in military posses- sion? Far different are my views. I wish to have all men thinking with me, and do not choose to advance a step beyond the gradual march of public opinion. ' ' Surely these words, delivered in San Martin's usual quiet tones, would in themselves be sufficient to stamp their speaker as one of the world's great men. Like his brilliant colleague, Bolivar, San Martin was at least as much of a philosopher as a soldier. He was keenly alive to the value of local influences, and fully appreciated the distinctions which geographical situations must impose on policy. He was one of the few of his age and race who realized the perils which lay in the path of too head- long attempt at indiscriminate progress. It was in ref- erence to this that he wrote : **If all Europe enjoyed the liberty of the English na- tion, the greater part of the Continent would writhe in chaotic agony; on the other hand, the English nation would consider itself enslaved were it governed by the Constitution of Louis XVIII. It is right that the Amer- ican peoples should be free ; but it is also right that they should enjoy their liberty in that proportion which is best suited to their needs. A departure from this rule would mean the triumph of their enemies." The quotation of a last reference to San Martin by Captain Hall will show that the General possessed the temperament, as well as the words, of a philosopher — a combination that is probably rarer than would be im- agined. When the final capitulation of Lima was at hand, San Martin took up his quarters on a yacht which was lying off Callao. '*I had occasion," explains Captain Hall, ''to visit him early one morning on board his schooner, and we had not long been walking together when the sailors began washing the decks. 'What a SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 21T plague it is,' said San Martin, 'that these fellows will in- sist upon washing their decks at this rate.' — 'I wish, my friend,' said he to one of the men, 'you would not wet us here, but go to the other side.' The seaman, how- ever, who had his duty to do, and was too well accus- tomed to the General's gentle manner, went on with his work, and splashed us soundly. 'I am afraid,' cried San Martin, 'we must go below, although our cabin is but a miserable hole, for really there is no persuading these fellows to go out of their usual way.' " Obviously, though San Martin could lead troops and win battles, he was no swashbuckler! When the last Spanish stronghold in South America, Lima, the ancient capital of the viceroys, was about to fall, the inhabitants showed themselves in dire dread of the anarchy that they feared would follow the capitula- tion. San Martin was very soon able to prove to them how complete was his hold over his men, and how rigidly he maintained the ethics of law and order. It appears, nevertheless, that the anxiety of the Limanians had not been without foundation; for, in anticipation of its fall, several bands of desperate characters had been hanging about the outskirts of Lima. When Captain Hall and three companions were riding toward Lima, they saw one of these gangs, a dozen strong, pull three travelers from their horses and strip them of their cloaks. After this, they formed in line across the road, and, brandishing their cudgels, awaited the Eng- lishmen. "We cantered on, however," says Captain Hall, "right against them, with our pistols cocked and held in the air. The effect was what we expected: an opening was made for us, and the robbers, seeing their purpose frus- trated, turned about, and became suddenly wonderfully good patriots, calling out, 'Viva la Patria! Viva San Martin!' '' Perhaps the British commanders on the Pacific coast 218 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA at the beginning of the nineteenth century merely repre- sented typical average specimens of the naval officer of that period. If so, the service was as fortunate in her men of these days as it has been before, and since. John Miller has left us an interesting note concerning the esteem with which the British were regarded on the Pacific. He says: ''Another powerful reason for their preponderating in- fluence was the strict observance of the laws of neutrality by the English naval commanders, and the honorable, straight-forward, courteous, and manly frankness with which English naval officers conducted themselves. Captains Sir Thomas Staines, Bowles, Shirreff, Falcon, Sir Thomas Hardy (now Eear-Admiral), the Hon. Sir Robert Spencer, Porter, and many other officers are still remembered, and frequently mentioned by South Amer- icans in terms of the warmest regard. ' ' The part played by these officers on the South Amer- ican station was sufficiently varied. Occasionally a cap- tain was called upon to serve as an ambassador between the contending forces. This occurred in 1814 when Cap- tain Hillyar, of H.M.S. Phcebe, sailed from Callao to Val- paraiso with proposals to the Chileans from the Viceroy. Captain Hillyar^ then shepherded the patriot delegates to Talca, at which place a meeting with the royalists was arranged, and a short-lived truce was concluded on the 5th of May. One of the most sinister figures of the War of Libera- tion on the Pacific coast was that of Benavides. In fact, this creature of incarnate ferocity, bold animal courage, and unmitigated villainy was of a type such as is very seldom met with outside the pages of those melodramatic novels which are designed first to thaw the shillings from the public's pocket and then to freeze the blood! Benavides 's career was remarkably well filled with in- cident. From the word. Go! he plunged headlong into iniquity. A deserter from the patriot cause, he was cap- SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 219 tured by the Cliileans at the battle of Maipii. Sentenced to be shot, in company with two or three other renegades, he retained sufficient presence of mind to feign death when severely wounded by the firing squad. Even when a sergeant gashed the supposed corpse across the neck with his saber, Benavides gave no sign, though the shock was severe enough to cause him to carry his head to one side for the rest of his life. Having recovered from his terrible wounds — by a species of superfluous miracle — Benavides managed to ingratiate himself with San Martin, and to obtain par- don and reinstatement in the Chilean forces. But con- stancy had no place in Benavides 's unquiet spirit. Very soon afterwards he deserted again to the royalist cause, and took up his abode among the terrible Araucanian Indian warriors, who at that time were hostile to the Chileans. The wild Araucanians found in Benavides a leader to their taste, and they followed him in many a bloody in- cursion into the civilized Southern provinces of Chile. Sometimes the Spanish flag would wave over these re- lentless marauding bands, as they plunged out of the Southern evergreen forests, but more often the standard that floated over the massacres was one of Benavides 's own devising. After a time, his power increasing, Benavides began to cast a longing eye on the sea. An ambitious rogue, he foresaw that the conquest of the Pacific waters (Coch- rane had not yet risen on the horizon) might extend his chieftainship into something really approaching a king- dom. It is at this point, then, that he is brought into contact with the British and Americans. Whalers frequently came to an anchor off the moun- tainous and wooded coasts of southern Chile, and Bena- vides determined that a whaler he would have ! He suc- ceeded even beyond his expectations. First of all he surprised and captured the American ship Hero; then, in 220 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA a similar fashion, he took possession of the American brig Herselia. His good fortune did not end here. Soon afterwards he captured the British whaler Perseverance, and, finally, the American brig. Ocean, bearing thousands of muskets destined for the patriots, fell into his clutch ! Here was Benavides, already more than half way to- wards the realization of his wildest dreams ! He had his ships, a formidable supply of arms for his Araucanians as well as for the British and North American sailors whom he had ruthlessly pressed into his service, and the gratified Spanish authorities at Chiloe had sent him a detachment of officers and men as well as a number of field-guns ! Benavides now began to prepare his army for the serious invasion of Chile. He combined an unusual de- gree of ingenuity with sheer savagery. Having first of all murdered the captain of the Perseverance for an at- tempt at escape, and cut the body of a sailor to pieces for the same crime, he set himself to commandeer part of his new fleet's equipment for the benefit of his land forces. Sails vanished into small pieces — to become trousers for his army ! Welded by the reluctant hands of his hapless ships' carpenters and new recruits, harpoons grew into lances and halberts. Almost every essential of his army was obtained in the same way : even cavalry trumpets in abundance were obtained by stripping the copper from the bottoms of the ships. It was the captain of the Herselia who had given this last idea to Benavides. A shrewd fellow, he took ad- vantage of the glow of incautious pride with which the possession of the trumpets filled the dreaded chieftain, and contrived, with a number of others, to escape in two whale boats, and to bear the news of his comrades' dis- tress to Valparaiso. We are now brought once more into the company of our most admirable Captain Hall, who was ordered south in order to attempt the rescue of these British and North SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 221 American subjects, but not to embroil himself with Bena- vides — a sufficiently difficult commission! When Hall arrived off Benavides's headquarters he found that this worthy, accompanied by some thirteen hundred men, including the British and North American seamen, had marched to the northeast from that spot. Although Hall landed and proceeded in search of him, he was not able to light upon Benavides himself, who was engaged in his own species of warfare. The British and American sailors shortly afterwards made their escape; but it was not Hall's fate to return to his ship without an adventure, although this was of a quite different order to any that he had expected. It appeared that a chief of the name of Peneleo, an ally of the patriots, had taken prisoner some of Bena- vides's Indians, and, having slaughtered one of the men before his wife's eyes, was about to carry off the widow. As the chief's camp was in the neighborhood. Hall de- termined to endeavor to rescue the unfortunate w^oman, although he had been warned that his quest w^ould be fruitless, as Peneleo "had scarcely anything human about him, ' ' Arrived at the Indian camp. Captain Hall and one of his officers found themselves in the midst of a native orgy, and, incidentally, in a tight corner. His descrip- tion of the event is worth quoting : ''On our entering the court-yard of their quarters, we observed a party seated on the ground, round a great tub full of wine ; they hailed our entrance with loud shouts, or rather yells, and boisterously demanded our business ; to all appearance, very little pleased with the interrup- tion. The interpreter became alarmed, and wished us to retire ; but this I thought imprudent, as each man had his long spear close at hand, resting against the eaves of the house. Had we attempted to escape, we must have been taken, and possibly sacrificed, by these drunken sav- ages. As our best chance seemed to lie in treating them 228 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA without any show of distrust, we advanced to the circle with a good-humored confidence, which appeased them considerably. One of the party rose and embraced us in the Indian fashion, which we had learned from the gen- tlemen who had been prisoners with Benavides. After this ceremony, they roared out to us to sit down on the ground along with them, and with the most boisterous hospitality insisted on our drinking with them ; a request which we cheerfully complied with. Their anger soon vanished, and was succeeded by mirth and satisfaction, which speedily became as outrageous as their displeas- ure had been at first." The orgy grew rapidly wilder, until the appearance of Peneleo himself put the crowning touch to the picture. He was rather more drunk tfian the rest : ''A more finished picture of a savage cannot be con- ceived. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man; with a prodigiously large head, and a square-shaped bloated face ; from which peeped out two very small eyes, partly hid by an immense superfluity of black, coarse, oily, straight hair, covering his cheeks, and hanging over his shoulders, rendering his head somewhat of the size and shape of a beehive." Peneleo, surly and hostile, was in a dangerous mood: his spear stood only too conveniently to his hand, and it was a matter of touch and go whether the questions the naval officer asked about the captive woman would not be their last. As. for the woman herself, she seemed recon- ciled to her lot! From the glimpse they obtained of her, Peneleo 's peculiar and sinister charm appeared al- ready to have wiped away her tears and the memory of her late husband ! It may have been this that saved the lives of the officers, and let them out of a very serious scrape. As for Peneleo 's chief, Benavides, he met with his deserts on the 12st of February, 1822, when he was at length brought to justice, and his lurid career ended. SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 225 He was dragged from the prison at Santiago in a pannier tied to the tail of a mule, and was hanged in the Plaza. Even the more disciplined of those Southern Indians in the Chilean service were not always the most amiable persons to meet. On one occasion when some English ships were visiting the port of Talcahuano, they landed a force of marines who went through some manoeuvers in company with the Indians. When the marines had fin- ished, the Indians began their exercises. An eye-witness remarked of them that : "The lances which they use in real combat are from eight to ten feet in length, pointed with iron about two feet long ; but for fear of their doing any mischief, these lances were left behind at Conception, and in their stead they were armed with long sticks or branches of trees. They first formed themselves into a line, and their ofiScers rode round and round them at full gallop, probably as in actual warfare, to remind them of the exploits of their ancestors, and animate them to heroic exertion. "Meanwhile, the Indians were sounding the note of defiance, a sort of tremulous, soft, melodious cry, pro- duced by shaking the flat hand upon the mouth, while they utter the tones. Next, the command being given to advance to the charge, they drove their horses forward at full speed, with protruded lances." Afterwards these Indians, having, according to their usual custom, drunk, not wisely but too well, became truculent to a degree. According to the narrator : "When they arrived that same evening at Conception, they galloped about the streets till late at night, fighting among themselves and terrifying the peaceable inhabi- tants. There seems to be a strange mixture of pride and meanness in the character of these Indians. The three Indian officers who dined in the ward room, complained that they were not asked into the cabin, and yet these same men asked some of our officers to give them money." From all this it will be evident that the temperament 222 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERIC*^ of this branch of the famous Araucanian warrior tribes was sufficiently complex. Such episodes suggest the old story: that the natives took from the white man his worse, rather than his better, traits. Undoubtedly the hero of some of the most extraordi- nary adventures of the war was Captain Roberton, who came out in company with Captain Guise — Cochrane 's second in command and eventual successor — to join the Chilean navy. The experiences of this daring sailor were of the kind such as are very seldom to be met with outside vivid and rather out-of-date blood-and-thunder paper covers. In the course of his career Roberton became involved in a blood-feud with an Italian desperado of the name of Martilini, once a boatswain in a patriot vessel, who had deserted to the enemy. On their first meeting Martilini was wounded by Roberton. Shortly after this, with the permission of the Chilean Government, Roberton took up his abode on the uninhabited island of Mocha. There, amid the southern Chilean forests, where the fuchsia and the beautiful waxen petals of the copihue flower light up the aisles of vegetation, he set up a correspondingly ro- mantic household, of the kind classified as irregular. Presently Martilini appeared off the island in the pirate ship Quintamlla. Roberton, caught at a disadvantage, was torn away from his leafy bower, and, flung in irons on board the Quintanilla, was reserved for an end of tor- ture and death such as is romantic only in print. He was preserved from this fate by one of the violent storms of those latitudes, which caused his captors to release him, and to seek the aid of his expert seamanship. The gale having subsided, Roberton made use of his tem- porary freedom to escape, and, once clear of the Quin- tanilla, sent her commander a message that promised a taste of his vengeance on the first opportunity. But this never seems to have arisen. Calms and gales both played their share in preventing a further meeting SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 225 between the two enemies, though Koberton pursued his quest with the most grim resolution. After a time mis- fortune dogged the career of both. Spurred on by some mad freak of intoxication — or mere grapeless irresponsi- bility — Martilini planked three or four roundshot into the side of a French brig-of-war that he was passing, trusting to the breeze to carry him safely away from the unprepared French vessel ! A sudden calm enveloped the Quintanilla — just in the way that a lurking enemy leaps from an ambush! The result of this was that he was borne away as a prisoner to France. It was somewhere about this period that Eoberton, rashly venturing into the thorny wildernesses of politics, fell foul of Bolivar, and — as a fatefully ironical conse- quence ! — was confined in one of those very dungeons in Callao for the abolition of which Bolivar, in a greater degree, and he himself, in a lesser, had struggled so arduously. Eoberton, having no taste for a Callao dungeon, escaped in a manner characteristic of him. Snatching his opportunity, he came charging out, knocked down each sentry that opposed his exit, dashed through the main guard with the velocity of a stone shot from a catapult, dived into the sea, swam out to a merchantman, and got clear away. Unfortunately I have no record of the ultimate fate of Eoberton and of Martilini. Eoberton made his way southwards again to his loved island of Mocha, in the verdurous shades of which he may, or may not, have spent the rest of his days. As for Martilini, it is recorded that in 1828 he was again in command of a privateer in the Pacific. I have a shrewd suspicion that if ever Eoberton saw the other's topsails above the edge of the waters, he betook himself to some intricate forest nook with his senora, until a clear horizon told him that he might safely return to the lovely ruca that was his romantic — but draughty — home ! The fate of those British officers in the South American 226 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA service whom tlie royalists succeeded in capturing was occasionally of the worst. Captain Esmonde, for ex- ample, was very scurvily treated in the dungeons of Callao. An act of poetic retribution, however, followed, for it was on this account that his brutal jailer, who de- sired to establish himself well with the patriots at the end of the war, failed to regain his Peruvian estates. There are several instances, too, of a captivity in irons sufficiently lengthy to lay the bones of the sufferers bare. But Benavides and his band of Araucanian freebooters went far beyond anything committed by the royalist regu- lars in the way of atrocities. Among other barbarities inflicted on Colonel 'Carrol, Lieutenant Bayley, and other officers who fell into the hands of these, was that of having their tongues cut out. There were occasions, naturally, when the British Pa- cific squadron found itself influenced by motives of hu- manity rather than by the icy reasoning of pure neu- trality. Thus when Captain Brown of the Argentine navy — ^who had been captured when in command of the Maippo brig, and who had for a year lain under sentence of death — escaped to a British warship, he found sanc- tuary there; notwithstanding the angry protests of the viceroy, who *' proved by precedents commencing in the year of our Lord 1499, and ending Anno Domini 1808, that the British commander had overstepped the boun- daries marked out by international law. ' ' On another occasion the life of Colonel Ferguson, one of the British aide-de-camps whom Bolivar delighted to have on his staff, in his Southern campaign, was only saved owing to the chance presence of a boat's crew of a British man-of-war. Remarking the unusually fair skin of one of a party of patriot prisoners drawn up for execu- tion on the beach, one of the sailors ran up to him, and, discovering that he was an Irishman, brought his officer in haste to the spot. In this case the Spanish authorities must have been in a complaisant mood, for, as a result of SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 227 the officer's intercession, they did not hesitate to com- mute the sentence on the spot. Ferguson appears to have been a very gallant officer, and met his death when defending Bolivar during the outbreak of a conspiracy in September, 1828. Some other officers of Bolivar's, who do not come within the scope of the operations previously referred to, may be mentioned here. Among these was Colonel O'Connor, a gallant Irish, who raised a regiment at Panama, and brought it to Peru, where he became notice- able for his bravery. Bolivar — whose devoted body-surgeon was Dr. Moore, an Irishman — showed his predilection for the British by the manner in which he employed them on his staff. An- other of his aides-de-camp, by the way, was Colonel O'Leary, who from the age of seventeen had fought in the cause of South American independence, being pres- ent at every engagement of importance that was fought in Colombia, in the course of which campaign he received several wounds. He was frequently entrusted with im- portant diplomatic missions. A third British aide-de-camp was Colonel Belford Wil- son, who, educated at Westminster and Sandhurst, was among the finest and most promising of the British com- batants in South America. His qualities were fully ap- preciated by Bolivar, who singled him out for various special missions, one of these being the bearing of the Constitution drawn up for the new Republic of Bolivia. In the course of his journey Wilson covered the eighteen hundred miles between Lima and Chuquisaca in nineteen days, and returned by a slightly longer route in the same number of days ! Wilson, it may be said, was exceptionally popular with all his brother officers, of whatever nationality they might be. One of his actions may be quoted as giving a clue to the secret of this general esteem. Having been made colonel at a very youthful age, he refused for a time to 228 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA receive the rank, pleading that this very early promotion was unfair to his comrades. In the end it was only in obedience to Bolivar's express orders that he gave way on the point. To turn for a moment to the opposite pole of affairs, among the four British subjects who fought on the Span- ish side in the War of Independence was a very deter- mined Scotsman who commanded the royalist brig La Vigie. He espoused the Spanish cause, it appears, not on account of any political convictions, but in order to avenge some losses he had sustained at the hands of the patriots. The name of this adventurous seaman does not appear to have emerged from the chaos of events with which it was associated, but his deeds made a sufficient impres- sion at that time. In the course of a gallant but most uneven fight with the Chilean warship Congreso, com- manded by Captain Young, having used up every shot in his locker, he continued to blaze away marline-spikes, nails, and bits of iron, until he had cleared his vessel of the last hope of anything in the way of a missile ! Then, under a heavy fire, he made for the shore in a boat. A search party of marines from the Congreso followed him, and came upon him concealed in a house. On this the intrepid Scotsman knocked down the officer of marines and two of the privates, and escaped at the expense of a severe bayonet wound. After this meteoric outburst of deeds his personality fades away into the unknown. Presumably some day or other the status of many of the lesser lights among the historical personages of South America will become fixed. Decidedly the process will be anything but a simple one in view of the extraordinar- ily sharp divergences that are revealed in the contem- porary opinions. Admiral Brown affords one of the numerous instances of this, even though his personality is too important to be included among those lesser lights I have referred to. SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 229 The leading figure among the sailors of the young Argen- tine navy, he is spoken of in terms of unstinted admira- tion not only by the Argentine and Chilean chroniclers of the period, but also by all the British who happened to be residing at the time in the neighborhood of the river Plate. Yet at this same period Brown is referred to by the Eev. R. Walsh, a most enlightened and liberal-minded clergyman resident in Brazil, in a totally different man- ner. Walsh terms Brown a pirate, and alludes to him thus in no abusive sense, but with the calm detachment proper to an uncontrovertible fact ! William Brown, who became an admiral in the Argen- tine service, adds one more to the long list of Irishmen who fought in the patriot cause. Born in county Mayo in 1777, he went to sea in his early boyhood, and after many strenuous years the ship in which he was serving, the Eliza, was wrecked at Ensenada at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. So far as Brown was concerned, this was a blessing, very much in disguise, for it led him to the threshold of his future career. The young Irishman determined to remain where fate had cast him. In a remarkably short time his enterprise had established a packet service between Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and he had become the owner of the schooner Industria. Then the War of Independence broke out into full flame, and the new Buenos Aires authorities, casting about them for a man who should found and fight a navy, offered the post to Brown. He accepted without hesita- tion, was given captain's rank, and devoted himself to his task with enthusiasm. Brown's first squadron was inevitably of an impro- vised order, but it was with such materials as he had got together that he destroyed the greatly superior Spanish fleet off Montevideo in May, 1814, and thus brought about the surrender of the city. After this, seeing that there 230 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA remained scarcely anything for him to do in the Atlantic, Brown prepared a squadron with which to harry the Pacific coast. This consisted of the 20-gun brigantine Hercules, commanded by his brother Michael, in which he sailed as commodore, and the 16 gun-brigantine Trini- dad, commanded by his brother-in-law, Walter Chitty. These were followed by a subsidiary squadron compris- ing the Halcon and the lugger Uribe, manned entirely by Chilean refugees and Argentines. The first three vessels flew the Argentine flag, but the little Uribe, thirsting to avenge the disaster of Rancagua, sported the black flag in token of war to the death. But this grim standard was destined never to float over the waters of the Pacific ; for the stormy water of Cape Horn swallowed it up with the vessel that bore it. The remaining vessels boldly proceeded to blockade Callao, making various captures and causing great alarm all along the Pacific coast. After this they set sail for the north, and in the middle of February, 1816, they ap- peared off the port of Guayaquil. Having stormed the fort which guarded the mouth of the port, the expedition sailed up the river, and engaged the main fort of San Carlos. Here the Trinidid ran aground, and, finding her- self helpless, was obliged to surrender. Brown, who chanced to be on board that vessel, had already stripped himself naked, and had plunged into the sea in order to swim to the Halcon, when he perceived that those who re- mained on the Trinidad were being slaughtered by the Spaniards. Brown turned in the water, and swam back to the Trini- dad. He clambered up the ship's side unperceived, and in stealthy haste made his preparations. Then, stark- naked, a sword in one hand and a lighted torch in the other, he rushed to the magazine, and threatened to blow up the ship and all on board unless the Spaniards gave quarter to his men. The appalled Spaniards held their hands, and the gallant Brown and his men were taken SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 231 ashore as prisoners. Brown himself was immediately exchanged for the Governor of Quayaquil, who had been captured just previously. It may be said that Brown's vessel, the Hercules, was eventually taken in charge by a British man-of-war, and was condemned at Antigua on account of a violation of the navigation laws. The remainder of Brown's career was concerned with the internal wars of a later period of South American history, and we shall meet with him again in another chapter. PART III SOUTH AMERICA IN THE EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY CHAPTER XII THE FIRST BRITISH RELATIONS WITH THE NEW REPUBLICS Naval chroniclers — Shrewdness of their comments — Respective situations on the Atlantic and on the Pacific — Popular captains — Petition of British residents — The Lima theater — Captain Basil Hall — A friend of San Martin — His intercourse with the Argentine Liberator — Pen-pictures of the Pacific coast — H.M.S. Briton — Some experiences of her ships' company — A humorous episode at Piura — H.M.S. Cambridge transports British consuls to South America — Tragic end of one of these officials — Various episodes related by the chaplain of the Cambridge — Some notable names and characters ashore — Sunset is delayed for an hour when Bolivar dines on board the Cambridge! — Some local bills-of-fare — Profuse hospitality of the South Americans — Part played by British merchants — Episode at an official ball at Valparaiso — One of the trage- dies of a defunct regime — Manner in which Bolivar was received at a ball given by a British merchant — Bolivar's country house near Bogota — Views of an ex-official of the suppressed Inquisition — Petition of a cock-fighting monk — His letter to Lord Derby — Growth of British popu- lation in Valparaiso — Missionary and scholastic enterprise — A bur- lesque mutiny and its consequences — Experience of an American mer- chant on the Pacific coast — Judge Prevost and his unfortunate joke — Some mining incidents — Interest evinced in London — Bolivar as an ex- pert — End of the "boom" — Surveying on the South American coast — The voyage of the Chanticleer — Death of Captain Foster — Improvement in sea food — Origin of the term "Gringo" — ^A Chilean explanation. WE are largely indebted to that small band of British naval men stationed on the Pacific coast at the time of the War of Independence for a knowledge of the more intimate — and consequently more interesting— details of the social and political events. The reason why so few accounts have come down to us in the English language of the events, manners, and customs of the river Plate countries in the earliest years of their independence, is neither political nor commercial. 236 236 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA It is sheerly geographical, and consists in the muddy shoals — at that time innocent of any dredger — ^which caused the visits of British warships to be comparatively rare, and thus failed to remedy the lamentable lack of naval note-takers. It was these shrewd naval observers who marked how, when the establishment of the patriot government had be- come assured in any district, the costume and customs of the inhabitants altered as if by magic. They noted how the primitive local garments of the ladies, and the cloaks of the men disappeared, to give place to European fashions. They have referred, too, to the assured and confident air that now followed the former appearance of trouble and distrust. They watched the quick growth of national pride, the phenomenal springing up of com- merce, and the rapid founding of the schools, libraries, and centers of arts. They noticed with admiration, too, that, wherever the patriot flags were unfurled, two institutions — bull-fight- ing and slave-trading — immediately died away. Indeed, there were not lacking those who asserted that the un- usually brutal exhibitions of bull-fighting at Lima formed part of the viceregal plan for the mental treatment of the colonists. But those from whom these statements eman- ated were almost certainly carried away by their anti- royalist sentiments. It is, of course, impossible to refer individually even to those of the most notable group of British naval officers who served in the Pacific at this period. Nevertheless, Captain Thomas Brown who sailed out in 1823 in the 42-gun frigate Tartar to South America deserves some special mention for the extraordinary popularity that he enjoyed on the part of both Spaniards and South Ameri- cans. Before the departure of the Tartar from the South American station. Captain Brown received from Bolivar a portrait of himself which he had taken the trouble to FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 237 send all the way from Alto Peru, where the Liberator was then engaged. At Callao, on the other hand, that gallant and stern soldier General Rodil, Spain's last hope in South America, and Bolivar's greatest enemy, refused Brown leave to purchase ship's stores, adding that, as a mark of his friendship and esteem, the British captain must consent to accept as a gift anything that his ship required. What more varied and striking testimony of a true popularity could there be ! Another British commander whose personality cannot well be overlooked was Captain Bowles, who played a sufficiently important part on the Atlantic station. A testimonial was drawn up at Buenos Aires on the 24th of March, 1814, ''to express to you the very high esteem with which your conduct has impressed us, and to offer you our most grateful thanks for the constant and efficacious pro- tection you have afforded to the British interests." This is signed by ''John Nightingale, George Dyson, R. Montgomery, Robert Orr, G. T. Dickson, John M'Neill, James Brittain, James Barton, H. Chorley, J. Thwaites, Joshua Rawdon, J. Boyle, W. Wanklyn, W. Stroud." And to a document in connection with a presentation made to this officer six years later in Buenos Aires were attached the signatures, "Rich. Carlisle, G. T. Dickson, Will. Cartwright." In those early and troublous days of South America, when it was inevitable that the foreigner should suffer from time to time between the grinding wheels of patriot and Spaniard, the presence of a British vessel in a port was undoubtedly a comfortable feature to the new Brit- ish settlers on the South American coast. At the foot of a petition that "before the Indefatigable leaves these seas she may be replaced by another vessel of war, if it be not incompatible with his Majesty's service," drawn up in Valparaiso on the 27th of March, 1815, occur eight signatures which presumably are those of some of the most prominent British merchants then 238 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA in the town. These are: Colon Campbell, Jno. Jas. Barnard, N. Crompton, George Cood, Andrew Blest, John Blest, T. Beetenson, and James Ingram. These British naval men were, of course, the only spec- tators who obtained a clear and impartial view of the social situation before and after the revolution. Many of the changes came about with a surprising suddenness. So far as the theater was concerned, for instance, the transformation of the audience seems to have been as dramatic as anything which occurred on the stage. Here is the description of one of these naval eye-witnesses, of the Lima theater : "In the evening there was a play, but the people we had been wont to see there before the revolution were all gone; and their places occupied by Chilian officers, and by English, American, and French merchants, to- gether with numberless pretty Limenas, a race who smile on all parties alike. The actors were the same, and the play the same, but everything else — dress, manners, lan- guage — was different: even the inveterate custom of smoking in the theater had been abolished by a public decree." To my mind, as I have already said, the most outstand- ing of the records of the Pacific coast during the last period of the War of Liberation and the first few years of the independence are those of Captain Basil Hall. Hall reveals himself as an admirable type of the British sailor, and it is clear that his kindly geniality won for him as much popularity as his firmness gained him respect. Enjoying as he did the intimate friendship of San Martin, the great Argentine would unbosom himself to him of his hopes and fears, plans and ideals. Much has been written of late of San Martin, and it is a little diffi- cult to understand why Hall's first-hand and intimate testimony has been so seldom referred to. The British sailor's admiration for San Martin was by no means universally shared at the time it was evoked. There FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 239 were many who doubted — and, after all, this doubt was not so unnatural a thing in those who did not know the General — the sincerity of San Martin's statements that he desired all for his country, nothing for himself. But Hall was not among those who doubted. His fervid pen- picture of the Liberator was justified to the full by sub- sequent events, when San Martin, having achieved his great work, voluntarily descended from his pinnacle in the full blaze of publicity, and entered private life — and, incidentally, an oblivion, from the tragedy of which his name was not drawn until more than half a century later. Captain Hall has provided a set of pictures of the life of the Pacific coast which are in many respects unique. Moreover, whether he were chatting with San Martin, being entertained ashore, protecting British interests, ne- gotiating between royalists and South Americans, or fac- ing a hostile Spanish mob at Callao, as was once his lot, he appears to have risen to the occasion with the most admirable equanimity. The complications which the British naval ofiQcers on the South American station had to face during the first year or two of the War of Independence were not light- ened by the fact that we were at the time at war with the United States. In the course of this the United States frigate Essex worked considerable damage to the British whale fishery in the Southern seas, and at the end of 1813 H.M. frigate Briton, 38 guns, was ordered to the Pacific to endeavor to meet with the American vessel. The Briton did not meet with the Essex (this vessel, after a desperate resistance, having already been cap- tured by the Phoebe and Cherub), although she spoke with some of the whaler captains who had been victims of the American frigate's raid, and, among some green bushes at Chatham Island, found the tomb of a Lieutenant Co wen, one of the Essex's officers, who had fallen in a duel with a brother officer named Gamble. 240 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA The Briton's company saw a good deal of the Pacific coast. When lying off Callao, they saw much of the good people of Lima, and this is what Lieutenant John Shil- libeer, in command of the marines, has to say of them: *'The ladies being pretty, and possessing a more than ordinary share of interesting vivacity, we were led so imperceptibly to the point of departure, that it had arrived before we could have hoped it had half elapsed." This is well meant, but almost as involved as the morals of a lady who, at the Northern port of Piura, came off with a number of others to visit the Briton. In 1814 the rage for collecting souvenirs from visiting warships had not reached its height, so her action in pocketing a certain amount of the Briton's silver proved that her ideas an- ticipated the times. She was obviously confused when the Captain's steward retrieved from her capacious pockets a silver knife and other objects of the kind. Nevertheless, there seem to have been circumstances which made this appropriation rather out of the ordinary. "It may be urged in extenuation of her fault," gravely explains Shillibeer, ''that Lord Anson, at his visit there, had played a trick or two on the family from which she was descended." Could Anson only have foreseen one of the results of his famous voyage! In 1823 H.M.S. Cambridge set out for South America, having on board four British consuls, Messrs, Rowcroft, Nugent, Parish, and Hood, who were appointed respec- tively to Lima, Valparaiso, Buenos Aires, and Mon- tevideo. Each of these officials was provided with two vice-consuls. Doubtless the South American squadron was not ill-pleased when British consuls were appointed to the Pacific coast, for, until the advent of those useful agents, all official matters and commercial difficulties which cropped up between the South Americans and the British had to be adjusted by the British naval com- FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 241 mander-in-chief, who thus, whether he would or not, became a Jack-of-all-trades, ashore as well as afloat. All the consuls reached their destinations safely, but Mr. Rowcroft met his end under tragic circumstances very soon after he had taken up his post. He had been din- ing on board the Cambridge, and was anxious to return to Lima after nightfall. He had been warned that this attempt would be dangerous, since the uniform of the city of London cavalry which he wore somewhat resembled that of a Spanish officer, for which it might easily be mis- taken in the dark. But the unfortunate official deter- mined to set out, and the predicted catastrophe occurred. The patriot guard, making certain that it was a Spaniard advancing toward them, fired, and Rowcroft died the next morning from his wounds. It may be remarked here that, although Great Britain had appointed her consuls to most of the new republics as early as 1823, some time was destined to elapse before the weight of full diplomatic relations was added. The first envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to be appointed was Mr. Alexander Cockburn who was sent to Colombia in 1826. After this Sir R. Ker Porter was appointed charge d 'affaires to Venezuela in 1835 ; in 1837 Mr. W. Wilson proceeded in a similar capacity to Bolivia. The diplomatic equipment of the entire continent soon followed, with the result that South America was no longer regarded as a collection of experimental groups of humanity but as a gathering of friendly states, each of which was rapidly growing in importance. To the chronicles of Miller, Cochrane, and Hall might well be added those of the chaplain of H.M.S. Cambridge, who modestly writes under the initials H. S. His pages are few and small, but they are filled with most interest- ing matter. Among the personages he met was the Span- ish General Rodil, who came to dine on board the Cam- bridge shortly after the fall of Callao — a stronghold which he had defended with a tenacity in the face of hopeless 242 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA odds such as none but a man of his extraordinary de- termination and courage could have exhibited. It was Rodil who, for month after month, maintained the spirit of the diseased and starving garrison. His methods were occasionally relentless and bloodthirsty ; but he himself at all times set the highest example of courage and watch- fulness. His activities were ceaseless by day and by night, and he was invariably to be found at the point of danger. When the inevitable end drew near, Rodil ate and slept on the parapets, never once entering his quar- ters, while his beard, for want of shaving, grew long upon his face. What an heroic figure would have been Rodil's, had he served a victorious cause ! It is the chaplain of the Cambridge who relates how, at the hauling down of the Spanish ensign at Callao, Cap- tain Simpson, of the Peruvian navy, stood near the in- domitable Rodil, and remarked that the Spanish gen- eral's face remained impassive, and that he even smiled slightly — as well he might in the consciousness of a duty so heroically, if ruthlessly, done. It is he, too, who gives us a wealth of such instructive paragraphs as the following: *'We reached Santiago about two o'clock. Lord Byron and I drove to the house of the agent for the Chilean Mining Association, where we found a hearty welcome and invitation to fix our abode during our stay in the place. We dined at the English inn, and in the evening went to visit at the house of Admiral Blanco. Here I met with Martin de la Vega, an old man of eighty-four, who dances at all the tertulias ; he is chaplain in the army ; and before I had known him half an hour, he told me, I am the man mentioned by Captain Hall, in his book on South America." Here is another fragment that introduces a number of sufficiently notable names: ''This evening I rode up to Lima in the stage coach which has been lately established, in company with Gillespie. I established myself in Mrs. Walker's hotel, near the Church of San Augustin. The FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 243 next morning I called on General O'Higgins, who very obligingly invited me to dine with him. General Sands, an Englishman, who has been nine years in the Colombian service, and Mrs. Houston were of the party. Gen. O'Higgins 's mother, a pleasant lively old woman, and his sister, a lady apparently about fifty, dined with us. The conversation was various and most agreeable, and the dinner sumptuous, and dressed much in the English stile." On one occasion, when Bolivar was dining on board H.M.S. Cambridge, the boats had been ordered at sunset. So agreeable did the entertainment prove that the British commander, possibly bearing Joshua in mind, gave orders that the sun was not to set until half an hour after its usual time. And the sun obeyed — so far as the ship's routine was concerned! When the Liberator in his gorgeous uniform descended the gangway at the hour of official sunset the dusk had fallen, and the stars had be- gun to shine ! On this occasion his appearance was thus described: ''His countenance seems open, and his con- versation lively and unassuming ; but his whole figure and face are those of a man worn out with care and toil." Bolivar made evident his appreciation of the Cam- bridge's entertainment by a slight testimonial which he sent on board the next day. Ten bullocks and fifty sheep ! Even in those days there was nothing niggardly in South American courtesies ! Indeed, this generous species of hospitality was illus- trated in a remarkable fashion even at a dinner given by the local priest. Here the meal was ushered in by vermi- celli soup and boiled fowl ; after which came ' ' two dishes of boiled meats, beef, tongue, and a fat ham, all mixed to- gether, and surrounded with vegetables, pumpkin, cab- bage, and potatoes." To top up this profusion arrived a roast turkey and a dish of baked cream! One is con- strained to believe that this was not the good cura's normal fare ! Let it be added that at a dinner at another 244 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA establishment two turkeys were brought to the table, the one hot, and the other cold, both ornamented with sweet- meats and gold leaf. It must not be imagined that the civilian element had played no part in the stirring events of the day. Mr. John Miller, who wrote the '^ Memoirs of General Millar," freely acknowledges the various services rendered by the British mercantile community of the Pacific coast to the South Americans. He cites the case of some English merchants who joined the patriot cavalry in the charge at Maipu — the most conspicuous of these being Messrs. Samuel Haigh and James Barnard. He mentions, too, cases of private benevolence and friendly offices. But it was another matter, protests Mr. Miller, when it came to hard and fast business — when the justice of the respective claims of the patriot or royalist causes were apt to become diminished in importance before the per- sonal considerations involved in the questions of per- centage and profit. This may well have been so. The community would not have been the first to drown senti ment in financial success ! The attention of the average person who troubles him- self about this period is so apt to be taken up by the spectacle of the patriot victories and of the triumphant vindication of their rights that one is apt to forget that, the more brilliant the light, the darker the shade. Much has been heard of the Spanish haughtiness and arrogance ; but there was the other side of the picture. Captain Hall gives us a pathetic glimpse of this in his description of an elaborate official ball at Valparaiso — an entertainment at which the Chilean ladies appeared in the most magnifi- cent toilettes. But Captain Hall happened to look into a side chamber, where lurked the skeleton of the feast. This is what he saw: ''I was struck by the appearance of several lady-like young women standing on chairs and straining their eyes, as they looked over the heads of the servants and musi- BRITISH SOUTH AMERICANS A BRITISH SOUTH AMERICAN' ON HIS RANCHO FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 245 cians to catch a glimpse of the strangers in the ballroom, from which they appeared to be excluded. Seated on a sofa in the corner near them were two stately old ladies, simply though elegantly dressed, who did not appear to sympathize with their children in eagerness about the ball, but sat apart quietly conversing together. In their countenances, which retained traces of considerable beauty, there dwelt a melancholy expression ; while their demeanor indicated an indifference to all that was pass- ing. On enquiry, it appeared that they were old Span- iards, who, under the former administration of the coun- try, had been persons of wealth and consequence, but whose existence was now scarcely known." While on the subject of these entertainments, we may skip a few years, and remark on one which took place in Peru. On New Year's day of 1825 an English merchant in Lima gave a ball in honor of Bolivar and of the battle of Ayacucho. This was a very full-dress affair, a strong band being in attendance, and bunting flying freely. At one end of the ballroom was a full-length portrait of Bolivar, done on canvas, while a similar likeness of Sucre adorned the opposite wall. When Bolivar entered the room there was considerable acclamation, the orchestra striking up the Colombian na- tional air. It is to be hoped that this portrait of Bolivar was a success, for the sake of the Liberator, for to be confronted all the evening by a libellous replica of one- self must be depressing even to a person of such indomi- table spirit as Bolivar! Considering the almost certain absence of any really capable artist in those stirring times, one is inclined to fear the worst. Bolivar, how- ever, could not have been much disconcerted, for after supper he waltzed with a young lady of Lima. It may interest admirers of Bolivar to learn that the General possessed a very pretty country house at the foot of a picturesque ravine in the neighborhood of Bogota. In this pleasant, verandaed building, set in the 246 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA midst of the forest, and surrounded by gardens laid out in the French style, Bolivar was wont to entertain his friends at numerous dinner parties. Here, according to a contemporary authority, he appeared to great advan- tage, "evincing the good humor and urbanity of his dis- position, though never descending from his finished, gen- tlemanly manner." Occasionally when the old order came into collision with the new, the result was tragic, as when, for instance, the old Spaniards found themselves deprived not only of their property and social position but of their homes. Just as often the upshot had its ludicrous side. Delu- sions were apt to be shattered on either side. The pop- ular notion, for instance, that the oflQcials of the Inquisi- tion were of necessity callously hypocritical as well as cruel in the exercise of their grim duties is not always borne out by a closer acquaintance with these men. A minor instance of this occurred at Lima, just after the abolition of the Inquisition at that place. One of the ex- priests of that much dreaded institution happened to find himself in company with some Englishmen who were din- ing, and after an acquaintance had been struck up he turned to an acquaintance, and exclaimed in genuine dis- tress: **0h! What a pity it is that such fine rosy-look- ing, good young men, should all necessarily and inevitably go to the Devil ! ' ' Another curious character of the Pacific coast at this period was a monk who was passionately addicted to cock- fighting. Having made the acquaintance of the chaplain of H.M.S. Cambridge, he begged the latter to write to Lord Derby, whose breed he had heard was the best in England, in order to ask for four fighting-cocks and as many hens! In the end he himself compiled a letter to Lord Derby, and demanded the favor in a collection of most ingenu- ous sentences. Whether the epistle ever reached Lord Derby I do not know. FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 247 All this time, of course, society was consolidating it- self in the more important towns of the Pacific coast. The South Americans rapidly adapted themselves to the liberal notions of existence which now prevailed, and the intercourse between them and the British continually de- veloped. The importance of the immigration of these latter may be gathered from the fact that in 1823 the British population of Valparaiso, which at the time con- tained some ten thousand inhabitants, amounted to no less than a thousand. In the meantime a Mr. Thompson, a missionary, founded Lancasterian schools at Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Santiago. He subsequently, about 1821, founded a fourth at Lima. It is noteworthy of remark here that, although he met with considerable opposition in Peru, he received the hearty support of the clergy and monks. Lancastrian schools were established, too, in Colom- bia and Venezuela almost before the North was liberated, one of the first being at Cartagena. An even bolder flight of enterprise was initiated in 1823, when another missionary caused the New Testa- ment to be translated into Quichua, the language of the ancient and modern Peruvian Indians. No picture of this kind, of course, could be without its reverse. A quaint Northern instance of the confusion and mental giddiness into which too powerful and rapid a dose of liberty had flung the inhabitants of many of the districts is related by a naval officer with some humor : **0n Christmas Eve, at the time we were sailing up the river, the whole army of the State of Guayaquil, con- sisting of one regiment, marched out of the town, and having taken up a position half a league off, sent in a message at daybreak to the Governor, to say that they were determined to serve under no other flag than that of Bolivar ; and unless they were indulged in this matter, they would instantly set fire to the town. The Governor, with the good sen^e and prudence of utter helplessness, 248 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA sent his compliments to the troops, and begged that they would do just as they pleased. Upon the receipt of this civil message, one half of the regiment were so much pleased with having the matter left to their own free choice, and being rather anxious, perhaps, for their break- fast, which was waiting for them, agreed to relinquish the character of rebels, and come quietly back to their allegiance. ' ' It is on such Gilbertian foundations as these that many Englishmen build up their conception of South America of to-day! For, all that, it is true enough that the early nineteenth century provided plenty of instances of the kind throughout the continent. That the temperament of the South American need not of necessity be mercurial was discovered somewhat to his cost by a North Ameri- can merchant who in the early 1820 's landed thirteen arrohas of sugar at the port of Chorillos on the Peruvian coast. To his dismay he found that the peasants em- ployed to carry the goods from the beach to the town in- sisted on pocketing a proportion of the sugar. Nothing would stop them. The scandalized merchant beat the men with his fists until he had to cease for the simple reason that his knuckles were worn out. They took his blows with perfect stolidity, accepting them in tacit ex- change for the sugar, of which they continued to pocket what they considered their share with a calm and un- breakable resolution? They made no attempt to molest their employer, and the American may well have thought himself fortunate in emerging from the situation with the loss of nothing beyond one out of his thirteen arrohas of sugar. Among the other incidents of the early days of libera- tion there is an amusing story told of a certain Judge Prevost, a jocular agent from the United States, who was in Buenos Aires in the 1820 's — that period of giddily rapid governmental transition. Judge Prevost made a habit of stepping on to the balcony of his house every FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 249 morning and of demanding of the first person who would chance to pass beneath, "Who governs to-day?" Little things lead to men's undoing, and it was the coincidence of meeting a brother wag — who replied, ''Quien sdbef (who knows!) — one fine morning that led to his abrupt departure from Buenos Aires, It was Prevost's delight to tell this story: it never failed in its reception. Un- fortunately for himself he told it once too often, and it reached the ears of a governor who was lacking in humor, and who was determined to let the official from the United States know who was governing that morning ! So poor Judge Prevost had orders to depart forthwith, and four hours later found himself bound for Chile in the good vessel Enterprise, the property of a Mr. Samuel Haigh — who has already been mentioned for his gallant assistance to the Chilean cause — who was himself traveling in the ship at the time. After this smart reminder of that of which the age was still capable, it is time to return to the practical and commercial side of the situation. No sooner was Peru in the hands of the South Americans and its industries and commerce open to the world than an intense excite- ment manifested itself in the London mining market. The mines of Peru — where, incidentally, an Englishman of the name of Green was already superintending the brand-new coinage at the Lima mint — were calling, with the magical name of Potosi written in glittering letters in the sky high above all the rest ! On 'change in London Town bankers and merchants nodded together with the ponderous and chastened wis- dom of the financier, their eyes filled with the yellow gold of Peru that filtered through the London sunshine, and with the silver that blinked more dully through the mist. To do them justice, the inhabitants of young independ- ent South America tumbled to the situation with a rapid- ity which augured well for their future careers as busi- ness men. In their eyes it is possible that the mines were 250 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA of rather less import than the company of important and eager gentlemen who were reported to be hastening to the spot from London, bearing extraordinary powers and authorities to deal in mines on a scale such as mines had never been dealt in before! So those who had mines prepared to sell them then and there, and those who had none prepared to sell some one else's — and frequently succeeded in the attempt! Never, too, was there such a furbishing up of old and exhausted mines, of which, the rights lay by the law of the land at the disposal of the first comer! Local com- panies were formed with the object of securing every mineral field which might be bought for a song, and every effort was made to receive the mine buyers with forethought and suitable attention ! In due course the commissioners arrived. Once upon the scene, several of these turned out to be old friends of the local mine-magnates — Englishmen who had taken part in the revolution and who, having convinced the Eng- lish capitalists of their knowledge of the Peruvian min- ing world, now returned to the scene of their former ex- ploits, some of them traveling en prince this time, ac- companied by secretaries, technical advisers, and valets. In London, fed by ardent reports from South America, the speculation in these matters grew more and more in- tense. Had the worthy investors known the language of to-day, they would have declared that their market was booming. The shares of one or two of those institutions which had sent out the most elaborate commissioners ac- tually rose to one hundred times the amount of their original value, and had all the appearance of being about to continue to soar at the same pace for an indefinite period. In the meantime Bolivar himself had taken a hand in this Peruvian mining enterprise. It is a little difficult for the casual historian to associate the romantic figure of the Liberator of half South America with any dealings FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 251 of the kind. But when the occasion arose Bolivar showed himself as fully alive as any one else to the value of min- ing scrip. First of all he rescinded the law which al- lowed the first comer to take possession of unworked mines — a decree which was subsequently revoked in turn ; then he put up for sale the whole of the unappropriated mines of Upper Peru. The whole of the unappropriated mines of Upper Peru, gentlemen, in one lot ! Going — go- ing— ! *'A million dollars!" bid a syndicate from Buenos Aires. ''Twelve hundred thousand!" capped a rival. ''A million and a half!" offered Captain Andrews, a London commissioner. Bolivar, having cast a wary eye over the local market, shook his head. He could do bet- ter than that in London, he believed. He named his own commissioners, who should make for the financial hub of the world. But they got no farther than La Plata. By that time the news had arrived that the London min- ing balloon had burst with a most painful and costly pop! Thus in 1825 the South American market knew its first panic in London. After the crisis the mining values of Peru gradually found their right levels, and a number of properties which had been considered as sound were found almost worthless, while, on the other hand, many which had been held as of little account provided with a most gratifying surprise those people who happened to be financially interested in them at the time when they consented to reveal the value of their contents. At this period a great amount of survey work was ac- complished by British vessels on the South American coast. It is, of course, impossible to follow the details of their enterprise, and a few records of a single expedition may serve well enough to illustrate the rest. In 1828 Captain Henry Foster sailed in H.M.S. sloop Chanticleer on a scientific mission to the Southern At- lantic — a voyage which has been graphically described by 252 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the surgeon of the vessel, Mr. W. H. B. Webster. Ar- riving at Montevideo, they found the Portuguese garrison besieged by the Gauchos, and the surgeon on the occa- sion of a landing-party found himself unexpectedly look- ing down the muzzle of a carbine which a suspicious Gaucho was pointing directly at him. The man must have been a formidable person to meet, as, beyond his carbine, he was provided with a lasso, a cutlass, and a brace of pistols! After a conversation of signs, the mind of the Gaucho seems to have been relieved, for he made a polite bow, and vanished. After this the Chanticleer sailed down to Cape Horn, and in the name of King George the Fourth annexed some territory, made friends with the Fuegian Indians, and met with H.M.S. Adventure, commanded by Captain King. At a later period of the cruise the Chanticleer found her- self off the Brazilian convict island of Fernando Noronha, and the officers bore testimony to the civility and good- nature of the convicts who had the free run of the island. The voyage ended in a tragedy. Having completed some valuable astronomical observations at Panama, Cap- tain Foster was returning in a canoe to his ship. Pro- ceeding down the historical river Chagres, he leaned against an awning, which gave way, precipitating him into the water. A young officer and his coxswain in- stantly plunged together after him, but the swift cur- rent of the stream had sucked the Captain beneath, and the grim Chagres Eiver had yet one more catastrophe to add to its long list. At the time of the Chanticleer's voyage science had al- ready begun to play some part in alleviating the fare of the sailor and in minimizing the risk of scurvy — a work in which Captain Cook had already shown such zeal. From the modern point of view progress was compara- tively insignificant, as will be evident from a remark of the Chanticleer's surgeon: "It is not very long ago that I was shewn in Sir Ashton Lever's museum a piece of FIRST RELATIONS WITH NEW REPUBLICS 253 dried salt-beef ; the shreds of which it was composed ex- actly resembled ropeyarn, and, having been round the world, it was very properly treasured up as a curiosity. ' ' One can picture the shudderings of the advertising manager of a present-day food extract on being con- fronted with an uncompromising description of this kind. But even at that period it was said to be possible to cook a joint of Donkin's preserved meat in London and to eat it fresh at Cape Horn. Sailors themselves alleged that it might be taken right round the world, and be as good as ever. This in itself does not seem to suggest a rope- yarn texture. No doubt they were easily satisfied in those days, and the explanation lies in the '*as ever." Before forsaking the subject of the sea, we may touch on a topic, which at first would seem to have no connec- tion with it! The term ''Gringo" is, of course, applied with impartial generosity alike to the European in gen- eral, or to the North American. But it was made to apply in the first place more especially to the Britisher. It cor- responds more or less with the ''rooinek" of South Amer- ica, and has its softer and friendlier counterpart in the *'new chum" of our own colonies. When in Chile, on several occasions I heard the origin explained of this word of scanty compliment. Accord- ing to my informants of the Pacific coast, it appears that the primary source of this was the musical propensities of a boat's-crew of a British ship anchored off a Chilean port. The men, it appears, when pulling ashore, across the blue waves, trolled out the ballad ''Green grow the rushes, 0!" in a lusty chorus that in part remained in the ears of some Chilean Guazus who happened to bo listening ashore. Hence the contraction of the first words into "Gringo." I can only give this story as it was told me by Chilean and Englishman alike. Unfortunately there was no date attached — which omission in itself need not necessarily make the tale improbable ! 254 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Senor Lucio V. Mansilla, however, in his work on ' ' Ro- zas ' ' maintains that ' ' Gringo ' ' is not an Americanism, for wanderers such as the gipsies were known by this name in Spain. Other foreigners were distinguished by simi- lar nicknames. Thus the Spaniard was known as the Godo, and the Italian as the Carcamdn, while the general term for a foreigner unused to the saddle was Mattur- rango. CHAPTER Xni EAKLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS IN THE REPUBLICS Social conditions in the new South America — The influence of concessions — Occupations followed by the first British settlers — Wild scope of their energies — Some early hotels — Scottish milkmaids — Varied circum- stances of the pioneers — South America as a Latin continent — Role played by the British — Some questions of shopkeeping — Past and pres- ent position — The road to Chile — Experiences of some Cornish miners — A combat with a condor — Travel in the Andes — Isolated miners — Method of conveyance in the Colombian mountains — The Sillero and his revenge — Turbulent priests at Mendoza — One interpretation of the advantages derived from the Revolution — The exchange of commodities between Britain and South America — Some ill-fated shipments and in- congruous objects — Origin of a quaint local custom — How a Scotsman vindicated his veracity — British pastoralists on South American soil — The Indian peril — Methods of attack employed by the aborigines of the Pampa — Measures of defense — Northern natives — Ravages committed by them during the War of Independence — Havoc wrought in the town of Santa Marta — A naval day ashore — Experiences of a shooting party — The historical lake of Guatavita — Plans for the securing of its treas- ure — The etory of the Spanish soldier and the golden images — A curi- ous Northern custom — Rough sport — An early nineteenth-century Co- lombian dinner — Christmas festivities at Bogota — Procedure substi- tuted in 1823 for the medieval entertainment — Appearance of the Northern traveler — The sons of generals Miranda and Wilson — Cap- tain B. J. Sullivan — The river voyage of Lieutenant W. Smyth and Mr. F. Lowe — Preparations for crossing the continent by stream — Departure at the last moment from the Samarang — Assistance re- ceived from the Peruvian Government and the British community — Start of the expedition — Colonel Althaus — Major Beltran and Lieuten- ant Azcarate — Difficulties in connection with the escort — An alteration of the route is found necessary — The Huallaga River — A launching ceremony — The native crews — Aboriginal humor — Prevalence of Brit- ish goods — An advance agent of imagination — The Ucayali River — Sojourn at a mission establishment — Leave taken from the Peruvian oflBcers — How the lack of funds was remedied — Incidents on the final voyage — Arrival at ParS. 265 256 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA OWING to the nature of its population the tend- ency of South American society has always worked toward the foundation of a small but bril- liant aristocracy at the head of a disproportionately large untutored populace. In the south of the continent the important immigration from Europe has had the effect of supplying the republics of the temperate latitudes with a bourgeoisie of weight and influence. But in the first quarter of the nineteenth century no such body had come into existence in any part of the continent. It was largely owing to a misconception of these social conditions that the policy of the first British relations with the South Americans had very soon to be amended. London financiers and merchants drew their impressions of the South American from such personalities as Mir- anda, Bolivar, San Martin, and Rivadavia, and there were many who seemed to consider that these extraordinarily gifted men were merely average specimens of South American humanity ! The inevitable disillusion followed expectations such as these. Besides the honorable men of the new republics, there were those others — whose total absence from any state would automatically unveil a solid Utopia ? And for such as these no mine in the continent was as profitable just then as the dazzling field for the nimble-witted in- troduced by the British hunt after industrial concessions ! After this the British commercial men — like the burned child who forgets the pleasant warmth of the fire in the pain of a burn — held aloof for a time, until matters be- gan to adjust themselves to the actual and practical exist- ence of affairs. It is clear enough, too, that those British pioneers who first settled themselves in the liberated states had not gaged the depths of the national forces of their adopted lands. A study of the occupations carried on by the Brit- ish for the first few years after independence had been achieved is instructive. At this period we find that they EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 257 had taken over almost every occupation and profession — with an enthusiasm, indeed, that might have applied to our own colonies. That they should have given the initial impetus to finance and wholesale commerce, and that they should have embarked in agriculture and stockbreeding, was inevitable. Those doctors, too, who came out to assist in the war of Liberation, and who remained to continue their work in the Southern Continent must have been welcome visitors. The state of Spanish medical science at that age may be gaged from Richard Ford's description at an even later period of the circumstances of the peninsula, where *' All Spaniards are very dangerous with the knife, and more particularly if surgeons," and where the wight who falls ill is especially unfortunate, as, ''whatever his original complaint, it is too often followed by secondary and worse symptoms, in the shape of the native doctor"! That the British doctor himself of the early nineteenth century is evidenced by a letter of San Martin 's, written from Mendoza, when he was beginning to formulate his plans for the invasion of Chile. In this he remarks that ''Doctor William Colisberry, who also attended me in my illness at Tucuman, assures me that I have not six months to live" — a prognostication which, had it been fulfilled, must have altered the whole course of South American history ! But the energies of the British extended far beyond such professions as this. We find them as hotel, eating- house, and reading-room proprietors. They are seen as laundry-folk, market-gardeners, shop-keepers, artisans, and coachmen. They founded periodicals in Spanish as well as in English, and they frequently served as the crews of the river schooners. We know that at Montevideo as early as the 1820 's, a "respectable ordinary" was kept by a Mr. Caulfield, at which most of the English and American merchants boarded. At that time no doubt beef was the most pop- 258 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ular meat in that establishment, for Mr. W. H. B. "Web- ster, the surgeon of H.M. sloop Chanticleer, relates that the price of the finest beef in the town was Id. per lb., though 8d. per lb. was demanded for very indifferent mutton. At this period, too, an Englishman kept a hotel at Santiago in Chile, which was frequently crowded to over- flowing by the Cornish miners and others who arrived in such numbers when the first short mining boom of this part of the Pacific coast was at its height. Scarcely, moreover, were the Spaniards driven from Lima — and before they were expelled from the neighbor- ing part of Callao — ^when one reads of Walker's hotel, near the Church of San Agustin, in the Capital of Peru, as well as of Oliver's hotel in the same town. In this last building, by the way, a British naval chaplain has placed it on record that he married one of the first English couples to undergo that ceremony in Spanish South Amer- ica. Undoubtedly there was more love than learning in the match, for each of the couple had perforce to be con- tent with making a humble mark in place of a signature. Nevertheless, that is no reason why their descendants — the name of the original couple not being given — should not be millionaires to-day! This particular occupation was well enough, but so en- thusiastic was the general enterprise that in 1820 a colony of Scottish milkmaids was introduced into Buenos Aires in order that the luxury of butter should abound at that place. Despite many set-backs, owing to the wild state of the cows, the Scottish lassies eventually succeeded in producing much butter — only to discover that the con- temporary local preference for oil remained perfectly unshaken ! Many of these experiments, as a matter of fact, were persisted in, in spite of the warnings of many who real- ized the futility of round pegs in square holes. Several contemporary writers urged with considerable reason that EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 259 South America of the early nineteenth century was no place for the British working man or small tradesman, nor would be until some generations had passed away. Many returned home to resume their lives in more settled surroundings, and to feast their eyes upon a sight for which a Cornish mine captain in the midst of the Andes once expressed his longing: ''Them things that do wear caps and aprons!" Yet, curiously enough, of those who decided to stay on and to risk all an astonishingly large proportion made their fortunes. How many British have there not been in South America who spoke English like a peasant and Spanish like a foreign lord ! Men who o^vned their many square leagues and the allegiance of scores of retainers, whose services they received with the dignified Spanish calm that had become their second nature. But in gaining all this they had lost their birthright — a possibility which none of them had foreseen when they first set foot in the Southern continent. The process was gradual and imperceptible, and its conclusion invariably saw the man a devoted citizen of the republic whose soil he now claimed as his own. As for sons and grandsons, every breath that they drew was Latin, and very rightly Latin — although I fear that in one or two instances the preference was accentuated by an uneasy consciousness of their ancestor's modest social position in Europe; which is a pity, seeing that this- latter was usually a very fine fellow. It was here, of course, that the secret lay — the key to the situation which had not been grasped by any Anglo-Saxon foreigner in the early ages of the era of in- dependence. South America, being essentially a Latin continent, had to develop on Latin lines. There are more roads than one to a state of advanced civilization. The Englishman, when he beckons, makes an upward gesture ; the Iberian curves his fingers in the oriental downward sweep : but the result is the same. When it had become plain enough that these new states 260 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA did not intend to adopt the Anglo-Saxon ideals, it must be put to the credit of the British that they realized the ap- propriateness of the choice, and set themselves content- edly enough to fill those particular roles which the exigen- cies of industries, politics, and temperament allotted to them. Thus in course of time the number of British shop- keepers, officials in the pay of the republics, and other persons whose occupations became more or less super- fluous, diminished while on the other hand, the demands of finance, transport, wholesale commerce, and the land at- tracted an ever-increasing flow of men of this nationality. Indeed, the respective situations of the British shop- keepers in South America of a hundred years ago and of to-day are worthy of a rapid interlude. It may be that one of the chief errors of those worthy retail adventurers who sallied out to the Southern ports at the beginning of the nineteenth century was that their enterprise was be- fore its time — for now that the Southern republics have at length, after the countless vicissitudes inseparable from the process of such a consummation, taken their proper place among the great nations of the world, have not such vast organizations as Harrods, Maples, Mappins, and other establishments that can only exist in company with a high state of civilization and many dollars, now planted themselves in the soil of the new lands, attracted there as irresistibly as an asbestos moth would be to a nourishing flame ! But we have advanced a century beyond the openings of British trade with South America. In the early nine- teenth century one of the first spots to attract the British in any numbers was Central Chile. This was mainly on account of the mining ventures which have already been alluded to. But at that period the experiences on the road to Chile were as varied and as rough as even the most en-, thusiastic traveler in search of local color could have de- sired ! EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 261 Owing to their complete mastery of their craft, it has been the lot of Cornish miners to travel in many parts of the world. But they can have known few stranger jour- neys than that across the dusty summer grasses of the Argentine Campo. As the coaches, bound and strength- ened with rawhide from wheel to roof, sped across the alluvial plains, the men who came from the long narrow streets of whitewashed Cornish cottages must have won- dered at much that they saw. As for their grim guardian angels of Gauchos, who galloped tirelessly by the side of the coaches, and who regarded with amazed contempt these strange creatures from abroad who possessed two legs, and who yet did not know how to sit a horse — they and their families at the fortified post-houses were not the least curious of the many new sights the miners saw. Captain Head relates the remark of one of them, as they went from east to west: ''They be so wild as the donkey," said one of the Cor- nish party, smiling; he then very gravely added, ''And there be one thing, sir, that I do observe, which is, that the farther we do go, the wilder things do get ! ' ' It was this Cornishman, or another of his party, who some time later, when in the Andes, rode up to a condor who had gorged himself to such a degree on the carcass of a horse that he was unable to flap his heavy body away. Determined that he would break a spear with so unusual an antagonist as a condor, the miner descended from his horse, and closed with the gigantic bird. "No two animals can well be imagined less likely to meet than a Cornish miner and a condor," observes Head, ' ' and few could have calculated, a year ago, when the one was hovering high upon the snowy pinnacles of the Cor- dillera, and the other many fathoms beneath the surface of the ground in Cornwall, that they would ever meet to wrestle and 'hug' upon the wide desert plain of Villa- Vicencia. ' ' It was a case of St. David and the Condor, and after a 262 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA tremendous struggle victory rested with the man from the land of leeks, who triumphantly bore away some of the great carrion bird's wing feathers as trophies of the day! The accounts of these early crossings of the Cordilleras, which are fairly numerous, dovetail their various facts, the one with another, in a most interesting fashion. We have a relation, for instance, by one of the first English- men to pass the Andes of the accouchement of his wife in the bleak and terrific upper-world of peaks, chasms, snow, and condors — one of the most trying experiences, not only for the wife but for the party, which can possibly be con- ceived. In a later book another traveler tells how he met an English lady traveling with a young family among the Andes heights. Her eldest — a boy of seven, who had ridden the whole way — was the actual child who had first seen the light in that wild spot. He was certainly the first Englishman — I do not know if there has been a second — born in the shadow of Aconcagua ! Numbers of the Cornish miners were occupied in the Venezuelan mines, of which so much was hoped at the beginning of the nineteenth century. At one of these, the Quebrado Mine, no fewer than three hundred British miners and laborers, and artisans were employed. There would seem to be very few of the mountainous mineral nooks of South America into which these Cornish miners have not penetrated at some time or two. An epi- sode in support of this is related by Mr. H. C. Ross Johnson at a much later date. Writing in 1868, he tells how, when traveling in the very remote Argentine province of Catamarca, he quite unexpectedly came across a Cornish mine captain and six Cornish foremen miners. They had been engaged for four years, at a temptingly high rate of pay. Their lives must have been monoto- nous in the extreme ; for since the date of their arrival at the spot, three years before Mr. Ross Johnson met with EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 263 them, they had not been five miles from the lonely moun- tain mine in which they worked ! Although many of the early British travelers suffered dangers and hardship in the passage of the Argentine- Chilean Andes, they were at all events spared a sensa- tion which is related with considerable emphasis by more than one Englishman who penetrated into the Colombian mountains. These were apt to be carried in a chair strapped to the back of a powerful native mountaineer, known as a sillero. The experience of these travelers as they sat like portmanteaus on the backs of the moun- taineers panting across precipices of a sickening depth could have been no enviable one. It is related that in the course of the War of Independ- ence a Spanish officer, who was being carried in this way, caused himself no little brutal amusement by digging his spurs into the unfortunate sillero, until the man, goaded to desperation, jerked him from the chair into the depths of a tremendous abyss, after which the sillero fled into the wilds for refuge. It was natural enough, owing to the confusion attending the replacing of one rule by another, that the lesser events should be described by the British spectators rather than by the distraught local actors. It is to these British trav- elers that we are indebted for much of the local color of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It is they who have described the decay in the authority of those priests who, disgracing their cloth, crowded into the cock-pits, each with his fighting cock under his arm. It is they, too, who have told us how a number of the most ignorant of these priests, bitterly resenting the freedom accorded to the British in Mendoza, managed for a time to secure the governor of that province when he was in bed. After this, taking advantage of the lapse of lay authority, they burned in the public plaza a copy of the Constitution of the new and objectionably tolerant republic ! But such reactionary spasms were fleeting. The popu- 264 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA lace on the whole was not slow in appreciating the ma- terial and moral benefits derived from the revolution, al- though these were sometimes judged in a sufficiently crude manner. A British officer who traveled over large stretches of the north of the continent just after the conclusion of the War of Independence used to ask many of the people with whom he came into contact what was the chief benefit they had derived from the revolution. He relates that the answer was invariably the same, *'I can now procure English goods at one third of the price at which they could be purchased during the dominion of the Span- iards.'* From which it appears that the highest affairs of state can have the most homely significance ! The method by which British trade was opened with the Pacific coast of South America was simple enough. Goods suitable for the Chilean market were consigned from London or Calcutta to agents in Valparaiso or San- tiago. The payment for these might be made in the or- dinary way by bills or specie. Another method of liqui- dating the amounts of these imported goods was by the shipment of copper in return. In this way a British ves- sel would discharge her cargo at Valparaiso and would proceed to Coquimbo in the North to fill up with copper, the shipment of which had been arranged for by the mer- chants in Valparaiso or Santiago who had purchased the European or Indian goods. A similar exchange of commodities developed through- out the continent. Buenos Aires and Montevideo sent horns, hides, tallow, and other products of a pastoral country. Brazil sent coffee and sugar ; Peru and Bolivia sent their minerals and drugs, and in fact every one of the new states contributed according to its capabilities — which depended largely on the industry of its people and the political tranquillity of the state. On the other hand, the importation of the machinery and goods, which had been so sternly shut out by the EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 265 Spanish laws of the Indies rapidly had its effect on the industries of the continent and helped to change the face of many a landscape. That there were instances of over- enthusiasm and want of judgment goes without saying. Melancholy traces of these were left in such objects as massive pieces of mining machinery stranded in some lofty and difficult pass of the Andes. Occasionally, too, the geographical conditions of the various districts were misunderstood — as when skates were sent to tropical Brazil ! It must be admitted that the finish of much of the early nineteenth century ware sent from England to South America was entirely inappropriate to its surroundings. Walsh, for instance, relates that at a supper in a balcony of the glowing uplands of Brazil, a rather mystic enter- tainment — doubtless illuminated by fire-flies — at which six young female slaves, robed in white, attended, the Staffordshire Punch- jug bore upon its honest face the blunt legend, ' ' To all good fellows. ' ' No doubt, too. Captain Head, resting in a hut in a re- mote corner of the then wild Pampa, and watching the onslaught of a cloud of locusts on his belongings, took some comfort from the assurance that ornamented a mug in the rancho: "No power on earth Can make us rue, If England to her- Self proves true." The meetings which had occurred from the dawn of South American history between the upper classes of the Anglo-Saxons and of the Iberians had been facilitated by the knowledge, tastes, and inclinations which they pos- sessed in common. But when, with the increased oppor- tunities of travel, the lower orders of the British con- trived to penetrate into the continent, their collision with the humbler South Americans could not well fail to be 266 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA productive of a good deal of misunderstanding and mu- tual wonder. Such as these, of course, possessed in the first instance scant opportunity of studying the life of the better-class South Americans, or of being struck with some of the curious customs which the more cultured travelers re- marked. One of these habits, though trivial enough, was quaint. This was the friendly flipping of bread pellets at meals, which, in the second decade of the nineteenth cen- tury, appears to have been indulged in with an enthusiasm that, having peppered the persons of all the guests, left the floor littered with the bread missiles. This was looked upon as a very curious and notable South American habit, until it was discovered that the custom had been intro- duced a few years before by some rather rowdy young Englishmen! But nowhere else, apparently, had these banqueting battles been taken up so whole-heartedly since they flourished in London in the days of James II! Of the more humble immigrants they were enterprising folk, those who plunged into the midst of a people, whose language they did not understand, and whose customs they had to pick up as best they could. Yet there were many who set out in this way, single-handed, and who carved a career for themselves, notwithstanding the dis- advantage of having to slash first of all in the dark ! But the drawbacks of this racial solitude must have been heavy. In such circumstances traveler's tales are apt to be double-edged. Many an itinerant expounder has flattered himself that he has been dispensing useful information, when all that he has taught his hearers is the conviction that he himself is a liar! Something of this kind hap- pened to an old Scotsman who had long been settled in Corrientes when the first British war steamer to ascend the Parana River halted at that subtropical port. Many years before in an incautious and expansive moment he had told the Corrientinos of English coal — of the black EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 267 stones that would burn and blaze. As a result, his repu- tation for veracity had shrunk thinner than the legs of the herons on the Parana. But when the black diamonds, nestling in their bunkers under the white ensign actually came up the river, his opportunity arrived with them. He boarded the vessel, secured some lumps of coal, took them ashore, piled and lit them, and, watched the flames burn away the doubt of many years from the faces of his apologetic, excited, and gratified friends. This story is, I believe, absolutely true. Later, when the pastoral value of the Southern half of the continent became evident, arrived young men of the type of those who proceed to our own colonies. With them arrived cleaner stallions, straighter-backed bulls, and meatier and woolier rams. Very soon these British newcomers made themselves at home to an extent in which none of their predecessors had succeeded. They fraternized with South American landowner and with Gaucho alike, and a mutual respect was rapidly established. The Englishman, for his part, became attached to these immense plains of alluvial soil in a fashion that is seldom seen outside the bounds of his own empire. In the early days — and until the middle of the nineteenth century — he had not only hardships to contend with, but the Indian peril as well. South America lacks a Fenimore Cooper, which is re- grettable, having regard to the wild scenes conjured up by the Indians of the Southern pastures of the continent. In many respects these resembled the redskins of North America. Their war-whoop was similar, but rendered yet more barbaric by striking the yelling lips with the hand, thus breaking up the sound. Their lances were of a prodigious length, and their horsemanship was such that entire companies of them would sweep to the attack, and present the appearance of mere riderless horses, the dusky warriors clinging out of sight beneath the bellies of their mounts. At other times they would play such 268 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA circus-like tricks as that of standing upright on the backs of their galloping horses. A number of the British pioneers lost their lives at the hands of these savages, and many a British-owned home- stead went smoking up to the skies after their raids. A fairly effectual method of defense was that of digging a deep and wide ditch round a threatened estancia house. Bred in the unbroken level of the Pampa, the Indian horses had never acquired the art of leaping, and the rifles of half a dozen resolute men stationed behind a sufficiently important ditch frequently sent hundreds of marauding Indians to the rightabout, for the Pampa war- rior, afoot, somewhat resembled a non-swimmer in the sea, and had no stomach left for fight or play ! In the forest and mountain country of the north of the continent the aborigines were, of course, of quite another type. Here, although there is no record of any aggression on a national scale, the Indians appear to have broken out into lawlessness on one or two occasions as the northern War of Liberation was drawing to a close. Sometimes their ravages were sufficiently serious. Captain Coch- rane, who in 1823 visited Santa Marta, an important town in Colombia, found that it had quite recently been occu- pied for three weeks by insurgent Indians, who had cre- ated enormous damage, with the result that the popula- tion of the place had been reduced from eight thousand to a few hundreds, and that the commerce of the city had been completely destroyed for the time being. "I dined," says Captain Cochrane, ''with Mr. Fairbank, the principal merchant of the place, from whom I heard many particulars of the ravages committed by the Indians, the traces of which I beheld in half-destroyed doors, wain- scots and beams, and felt in the total want of most of the usual accommodations of civilized life. Those marauders had drunk all the spirits in his cellars; but his vin de Bordeaux and champagne being too delicate for their un- sophisticated palates, they had amused themselves by EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 269 smashing a portion of the bottles to atoms, and with the remainder of the wine, on account of the scarcity of water, they had boiled their meat in large kettles suspended over bonfires made of the furniture of the proprietors, before the doors of their houses." Surely the only comment possible is that these were very liquid pearls, and very dusky swine ! In such troublous times the British consulates have often proved havens of refuge, and have occasionally served as storehouses. William Bollaert, for instance, writing in 1860, says that one of the most interesting sights of Panama was the patio, or courtyard, of the Brit- ish consulate, piled up with bars of silver from Peru and Chile, on their way across the Isthmus. Captain Cochrane has been quoted more than once in these pages, but I must refer to him just once again, and at some length, in order to show the pleasant breeziness of some naval men's day ashore near Cartagena. **0n the 8th," says Captain Cochrane, **Mr. Eennie, Mr. Isaacs, Mr. Miers, and myself, made a picnic shooting • — party with the officers of the Isis. We slept on board the frigate the evening before, and started at daylight next morning, having taken a hasty breakfast previously ; and landing at Senor Lazaro de Herrera's estate, we divided into parties, and commenced operations. At nine o'clock we all assembled to a second breakfast, with a very motley show of game, the best being three quails, shot by my companion Mr. Rennie, and myself. . . . After our breakfast, which was infinitely better than our sport, we turned into our hammocks, and slept until one o 'clock, when Mr. Rennie succeeded most effectually in dispelling sleep by a series of practical jokes. He placed a small donkey, as a bedfellow, beside Mr. Miers, who was aroused by the ungentle caresses of the animal ; which, displeased at its novel situation, began to kick, and awoke Mr. Miers from his gentle slumber, amidst the laughter of all his companions, who did not fail to make a few jokes on the 270 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA occasion, which were received with much good temper. Mr. Rennie's next feat was to awaken Mr. Isaacs, which he did most completely, by shooting a pigeon which was roasting (roosting?) over that gentleman's hammock. We now all rose, finding that no chance of being allowed to repose any longer was left us. I bought all the pigeons I could procure, and proposed a pigeon-match for the amusement of the party. This was acceded to : and, after a general competition of skill, it was decided in favor of the first lieutenant of the Isis, as the best shot. At two, we sat down to dinner, being joined by Captain Forrest ; and in the cool of the afternoon we again started in search of game. I saw a great many large snipes, but could not kill any. Returning homewards, my guide led me to a spot which was sometimes the resort of wild-deer; at the moment, fortunately for me, one was grazing there, which I killed with buck-shot, hitting her in the neck. I carried her down in triumph, and was allowed by general acclamation to be the most fortunate man of the day. The principal spoil of the rest of the party consisted of Muscovy ducks, tame cocks, barn-door fowls, etc., which they had shot, because they could procure no sport in the field, and therefore took their revenge on the domestic poultry. Everything was however paid for, and the cot- tagers requested us to return and visit them again at some future period. We then embarked; and, on reach- ing the ship, sat down to a good supper in the gun-room of the Isis, where we canvassed our exploits, and determined a day of pleasure and conviviality." Could any episodes have been more refreshing to the war-worn and rather tragic soil of Cartagena ? These other episodes connected with the north of the continent have at least the added merit of local color. It is probable enough that a certain amount of the legend of Manoa and its wonderful waters was founded on the Colombian mountain lake of Guatavita, a spot which had been held very sacred by the Indians before the advent of EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 271 the Spaniards. Here twice a year, the Cacique of the tribe would be paddled to the middle of the lake, and among the other ceremonies which took place his body was powdered with gold dust, after which he plunged into the water. This lake was inspected with some curiosity by the first British travelers in that region, with the idea of draining off its waters, and thus securing the enormous amount of treasure which, it was reputed, lay at the bot- tom of the lake. No steps of this kind appear actually to have been taken at the time. The travelers, however, were shown the sepulchers of two of the ancient Caciques, and also a cave in the rock, which was said to have been connected with this worship, and its entrance to have been guarded by two life-size figures of gold. It was re- lated that a Spanish soldier, having lit by accident on the spot, had got the length of cutting off a golden finger, when he was attacked by the Indians, and, bleeding from his wounds, only escaped with the greatest diflSculty. When he returned with a strong party to the spot, the golden figures had vanished, having probably been flung into the lake. It is possible, of course, that this story is as flimsy as that of Manoa itself. On the other hand, it seems to contain nothing that is essentially improbable. Of the many bizarre customs of the north of the con- tinent the following one witnessed by an Englishman was certainly not the least strange. That it afforded a sufficiently rough sport will be gathered from his account : *'In the evening, attended high mass; and afterwards witnessed an imitation of bull-fighting, in the front of the church. A man, the tallest and most powerful in the place, was selected, on whom was fixed, and well secured, a large ox-hide, with enormous horns, hollowed and filled with brimstone and other combustible materials; a pair of eyes, and large and round as a saucer, and a tail of most tremendous length. The moon had not risen, and 272 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the night was dark, when the burning composition in the horns was ignited, and the sport commenced. The fiery bull attacked all the assembled world — such shriek- ing, such running, such scampering ; all was confusion and uproar! Some bolder than the others faced the blazing bull, held up roanas before him, and shook flags in front of the flaming horns; some dexterously avoided the thrusts made at them ; others, less fortunate, were falling beneath the force of the furious animal, who would fre- quently have set fire to his prostrate antagonist, but for the friendly interference of some companion, who would on such an occasion seize the bull by his convenient length of tail, and swing him round from his fallen foe, before he could satiate his revenge." The following note, too, will give an idea of an early nineteenth century Colombian dinner : *'The first course consisted of soups, fish, roast and stewed meats, poultry, etc; likewise numerous made dishes, interspersed with vegetables, olives, melons, etc; until not an inch remained to put another dish on; the table actually groaning under the weight of eatables. This is the principal course, and takes up a considerable time. The soups are removed the moment they are done with, and large made-dishes of meat placed in their room. A bottle of wine, generally vin de Bordeaux, is placed to every person, with a decanter of water, wine-glass, and tumbler; and white wine is distributed here and there about the table ; every one drinks when he likes, which I think is much better than our English custom, which may force a man who is eating curry to drink Madeira. After it is seen that every one declines eating more of the course on the table, champagne is handed round, and then a gen- eral rising takes place ; you adjourn to another room, or walk about the garden, until the table is cleared, and the second, or dessert, course is arranged. This move is cer- tainly agreeable at so large a party, and you return with renewed appetite, to attack the second course on its being EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 273 announced, which generally takes rather more than half an hour. We found the table elegantly replenished, and ornamented with flowers ; it consisted of tarts, puddings, creams, all kinds of preserves, and sweetmeats (in which latter the natives excel) ; likewise every variety of fruit in the greatest profusion : wines were placed at moderate distances, as before." Various descriptions have been given by British trav- elers of the festivities which took place at Bogota between the 24th and the 30th of December, partly in honor of the season, and partly to commemorate the victories by which the independence of the nation had been won. Imitations of medieval tournaments were given in appropriate — and presumably stifling — costume. A queen of the tourna- ment was elected, who presented the prizes for sports of a medieval nature such as tilting the ring, and charging a wooden figure, swung on a pivot, which, if not fairly struck with a lance, flew round to strike the discomfited rider on the back. In addition, more modern amusements, such as cutting off the Turk's head, were introduced. It happened that in 1823 a scarcity of funds produced a lack of knights. So, in the place of the tournament, a quieter entertainment was held, which was signficant of the spirit of the times. Seiior Triana, the director of the Lancasterian school, brought forward twelve pupils for public examination. These, standing up to the fire of questions, are said to have acquitted themselves very well in the subjects of the Old and New Testament, Spanish grammar, and arithmetic. There is no denying that this particular procedure, ad- mirable though it was, was a little too restrained in its atmosphere to be natural to the flaming tropics, where declamation and costume were only appreciated on a pro- nounced scale. In the early days of the Independence to meet even a typical Northern traveler was to imagine oneself on the boards of an opera house. Here is a de- scription of these by a contemporary English visitor : 274. BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ' ' They generally wore red or blue pantaloons, with long boots, spurs with immense rowels, broad-brimmed hats, and the wrapping cloaks called mantillas, or in their stead capotes, or roanas, which completely envelop the wearer, like the cloaks of our military. They go well armed, hav- ing pistols in their holsters and swords by their sides, which precautions have become habitual, through the effects of protracted war, and were necessary on account of the disturbed state of the country. ' ' Notwithstanding these romantic perambulations the country showed itself fully prepared to enter into com- merce. Perhaps one of the most striking testimonies to this effect is to be found in one of the first concessions granted by the free state of Colombia. This concerned the famous pearl oysters for which so many tall ships had plowed the waves, and for which so many bucaneers had slain, and fought, and bled. Now, the exclusive right of fishing for pearl oysters with machinery, for ten years, was given to Messrs. Eundell, Bridge, and Rundell, of London ! An eloquent change of address ! This, at the time, was considered by an expert to be a concession inferior in value to none except that for the then proposed cutting of the Panama Canal ! After this we may turn to a minor incident which illus- trates further the spirit of the age. The son of the fa- mous General Miranda must have inherited his father's temperament and convictions in no small degree, for a British traveler who was in the neighborhood of Caracas in 1823 relates that, as he was breakfasting at an inn he was joined by two young men, the sons of Generals Mir- anda and Wilson. Wilson was on his way to take up his post as aide-de-camp to General Bolivar, while Miranda was about to set up a printing press which was to devote itself to the cause of liberty. The great amount of survey work achieved by British officers of the South American coasts in the early years of the nineteenth century has been referred to. Some EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 275 notable performances of this kind, too, were made on the great river systems, and, as these come within a different category, they may as well be noticed here. Much admirable survey work was effected on the Pa- rana Eiver by Captain B. J. Sullivan, of H.M.S. Philomel. Commander M'Kinnon states that this officer was on board the Alecto, when she was returning from the up- river expedition against Rosas. The little war-steamer came rushing down the swift stream at a furious pace, but Sullivan "coolly stood on the paddle-box, and conned the vessel by a motion of his hand to the quarter-master." One of the most enterprising journeys across the con- tinent was that undertaken in 1834 by two young naval men. Lieutenant W. Smyth and Mr. F. Lowe, who arriving in H.M.S. Samarang at Callao, took to discussing the in- terior of Peru with an English and some Peruvian resi- dents of the port. It was said to be possible, by penetrating inland to the banks of the Pachitea River, to enter the Ucayali stream, thence to emerge into the Marailon, and eventually by means of the Amazon to open up a direct route to the At- lantic. The seamy side of the trip was represented chiefly by the inevitable hardships of the road, and by the reported presence of cannibals on both banks of the Pachitea River. Neither of these prospects sufficed to deter the two Samarang officers, who, encouraged both by their captain and the British consul-general at Callao, determined to make the attempt. The Peruvian authorities promised assistance, and all that remained was to obtain the con- sent of Commodore Mason, the senior officer of the station. The Samarang was due to sail for home on the 25th of August, and, as luck would have it. Commodore Mason's ship, the Blonde, only arrived just in time. In the end it resolved itself into a question of minutes as to w^hether the two young officers would sail to England in the usual way in the Samarang, or whether they would have the op- 276 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA portunity of undertaking one of the most adventurous journeys possible across the continent. The Samarang was already under sail when the Com- modore's permission arrived! As they themselves put it, Smyth and Lowe had only just time to scrape together a few traps, and to bundle down into the last boat for the shore ! The two Samarangs had need of all their unbounded enthusiasm, for they soon discovered that this land cruise of theirs was not to be all plain sailing. The young Per- uvian Government was very willing to assist, but its means at the time were phenomenally limited, and the first instalments of mules and other necessaries rapidly ab- sorbed all the oflScers' available private store of cash. But here the newly formed British community very dis- interestedly stepped into the breach to the extent of sub- scribing sixty pounds. In the end the two set out, accompanied by some Peru- vian oflScers, who were instructed to render them every assistance as far as the frontier. The senior of these was a Colonel Althaus, whose name as a gallant patriot soldier is, I find, referred to on several occasions in the memoirs of British ofiScers in the revolutionary cause. Indeed, he is more than once alluded to as a most genial companion, with an exceptional fund of humor which kept his comrades continually amused, and which caused him to receive unusually kind treatment from the Spanish oflQcers into whose hands he once fell as a captive for a time. But on this occasion Althaus 's services appear to have been of a very mediocre order. Probably the ob- jects of the expedition interested him too little and its worries too much. It was after having successfully ne- gotiated the high and snowy levels of the neighborhood of the Cerro de Pasco that the troubles with the reluctant Indian carriers became acute, and Althaus separated him- self from the party, and abandoned the expedition. His juniors, however, Major Beltran and the naval lieutenant EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 277 Azcarate, more than compensated for this loss by the staunchness and good-comradeship they displayed from start to finish. At the lofty mining town of Cerro de Pasco they came across some mining machinery which had been erected by an English company in 1827. The company had failed, but considering this remarkably early enterprise, it surely deserved a better fate ! After this, it may be mentioned in parenthesis, occurred a certain disappointment in the expected escort, for instead of two hundred soldiers only nine made their appearance. And these — perhaps to ren- der their numbers more formidable — were accompanied by their wives and children ! In the end — owing to the reduced circumstances of the party and the continued desertions of the Indians — the route originally chosen had to be given up, and it was decided to make for the Huallaga Eiver instead. There was no more question now of mountain sickness, snow, and barren peaks. Passing downwards through coffee plantations and pleasant vegetation, they embarked at length on the lovely little stream of the Chinchao, with the keen delight of sailors setting foot even in the frailest of canoes. The Chinchao almost immediately led into the Hual- laga, and the party soon found itself negotiating the rap- ids of that important stream. At one of the tiny river ports the two British naval officers organized a ceremony such as those waters had never witnessed before. The oc- casion was the launching of a new canoe to hold the Peru- vian officers. Thanks to the festal exertions of the en- tire party, the canoe took the water fluttering with British and Peruvian colors, while the drums and pipes of the Indians sounded at their very loudest ! After this laudable joviality it was a little disconcerting for the expedition to find that the new Indian crews re- fused to start unless they were accompanied in the canoes by their wives, children, dogs, cats, and a number of pots 278 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA and pans. But there was nothing for it, and so it was with the gunwales of its canoes almost submerged by this unwelcome and heterogeneous load that the party went on its way downstream, the genial Indians presently kill- ing for food some red-bearded monkeys which, owing to the unshaven state of Smyth and Lowe, they insisted on calling the Englishmen's countrymen ! It is more instructive to note that even in these remote Indian settlements on the banks of the various streams printed cottons, green baize, ribbons, cutlery, glass beads, and other objects of the kind were to be met with, all of British manufacture. In fact, "we never entered a place, that was more than a small village," say the joint authors, ''in which we did not meet with some of the manufac- tures of our own country." It is on reading such phrases as these that it is difficult to refrain from the condition of a laudator temporis acti! At the next halting place of importance the party found itself received with an amazing amount of pomp and cere- mony. This, it eventually appeared, was owing to the strategy of a messenger sent in advance, who had little faith in the half-savage inhabitants. As a precautionary measure against their wilder instincts he had announced that a general, his aide-de-camp, a saint, and a priest were about to arrive ! The prospect of this militant, ecclesias- tical, and haloed galaxy completely overawed the vil- lagers, and when the officers of the expedition saw the wealth of fowls, fish, and plantains which awaited them they forgave the fertile imagination of their messenger ! In due course the party emerged upon the broad, glassy stream of the Ucayali, and both the Samarang officers justly congratulated themselves on being the first English- men to float on these waters. Soon after this the expedi- tion became the guests of a notable Peruvian missionary. Padre Plaza, who used his very important influence over the Indians in their favor. This solitary mission station at Sarayucu, a few miles EARLY TRAVELERS AND TRADERS 279 up a tributary stream of the Ucayali, was the limit of the Peruvian officers' journey, and it was with a sincere mu- tual regret and an exchange of cheers that Beltran and Azcarate separated themselves from their British com- rades, who started on their long journey downstream, their quaint craft adorned at all points with live speci- mens of the rarer birds and monkeys such as the two had been able to collect. The remainder of the journey down the great network of the Amazon basin streams was safely effected. No cannibal attacks were encountered, and, indeed, it was only when the party began to approach the more impor- tant Brazilian centers toward the Atlantic coast that a vital but prosaic inconvenience began to be felt — the lack of funds. It seemed something of an anomaly that an ex- pedition which had braved climate, cataracts, and canni- bals, and had penetrated the heart of the continent from west to east should be held up for the sake of a few dol- lars ! It was so, however, and the situation was only re- lieved by the sale of a double-barreled gun, a valued gift of Captain Paget 's of the Samarang, On the proceeds of this gun they continued their journey to Para — and even had a few coppers to spare for a canoe ornamented with a silver-gilt crown which they encountered on its way upstream on a religious beg- ging expedition, a craft which came gliding along the tropical stream with flag flying and to the pomp of drum beats and the music of hymns ! After this they floated down without further incident of note to Para where, having occupied eight months on the journey, they met with a most cordial welcome from the officers of H.M. sloop Dispatch which happened to be lying in the port, as well as from the British merchants of the place. Thus ended a small but notable expedition, the value of whose surveys was freely and fully acknowl- edged by the Peruvian Government. It was some ten years later that the upper reaches of 280 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the second greatest river system of the continent were opened to foreign traffic. In 1845 a treaty was entered into between Great Britain and Paraguay, which gave British subjects the right to navigate the Paraguayan rivers. Incidentally, it permitted them to reside in any part of Paraguay — their area of residence had previously been confined to the town of Asuncion — and to marry Paraguayans: a privilege of which they had not legally been considered as worthy until then ! CHAPTER XIV THE BRITISH IN BEAZIL (l) Influence of the Spanish occupation on the policy of Brazil — Some at- tempt at settlement in the North — Irrigating port regulations — Bahia as a place of call — The court of Portugal — Political situa- tion in the Peninsula — Dilemma of the regent, Prince Joao — — The result of vacillation — Eventual adoption of the British proposals — Advance of Junot — Flight of the court — Arrival of the royal fleet at Bahia — The event described — Enthusiasm of the Brazil- ians — The British vessels — Inconveniences endured by the royal party and the court on the voyage — Assistance rendered by the sailors in a delicate situation — The manufacture of garments at sea — Prince Pedro's clothes — Arrival of the royal party at Rio de Janeiro — Joy of the inhabitants — The British fleet in Brazilian waters — Arrival of Sir W. Sidney Smith — Opening of the Brazilian ports — Concessions to for- eigners — Erection of an English church — Differing views of the local ecclesiastics — A subtle bishop — Testimony of English and American clerics — Mercantile collections and consular fees — Enterprise of the British merchants — An overflow of imported goods — Want of judg- ment and its results — Consequences of climatic ignorance — Incidents of some naval cruises — Loss of the Agamemnon — Contemporary mid- shipmen's quarters. THE influence of the Spaniards on the policy of Brazil lasted for a considerable time after the Portuguese Empire had thrown off the dominion of Spain. Notwithstanding the genuine friendship which existed between the British and Portuguese in Europe, several armed collisions between the two nations occurred in Brazil. The British occasionally joined the expedi- tions of the Dutch West India Company, that had been formed for the conquest and colonization of the north of Brazil, and in 1629 we find an Irishman of the name of James Purcel in command of a settlement established on the Island of Tocujos. After a desperate resistance the place capitulated on 281 282 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA terms that were extraordinarily liberal. Not only were its defenders permitted to evacuate the place and to re- tain their property, but it was agreed that they should be provided with a free passage to Portugal ! This attempt does not seem to have been a solitary one, and the Portu- guese were loud in their complaints that the quantity of tobacco grown by these unwelcomed settlers was suffi- ciently important to injure the trade of Para. Perhaps it was the bitterness engendered by this which rendered the events of the next collision between the two races so much more embittered. This occurred during the very next year, and the scene of hostilities was again the Island of Tocujos, to which some two hundred Eng- lish had repaired under the command of one Thomas, an old soldier, who is said to have served with distinction in the Low Countries. Thomas was captured and cut to pieces by his enraged opponents, after which the fort sur- rendered. A later expedition under a leader of the name given as Roger Fray — which, as Southey reasonably ex- plains, is probably the Portuguese rendering of Fryer or Frere — met with no better success. Even in the South, where no such attempts were made, Brazilian ports, generally speaking, remained inhospita- ble places, and British sailors, including the famous Cap- tain Cook, met with every obstacle which could be put in the way of intercourse with the shore. Landing parties were only permitted under a Brazilian guard, and arrests of travelers under the most flimsy pre- texts were frequent. In fact, the Brazilian colonial au- thorities made a conscientious attempt to give their ports a sufficiently unpleasant name to render them unpopular in the eyes of the undesired foreigner ! These Brazilian ports, more especially that of Bahia, were visited by a number of British vessels bound for India. Just as Pedro Alvarez Cabral, bound for the shining East, had lit by accident upon Bahia, and thus dis- covered Brazil, so the British East Indiamen of a later THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 283 era found that the set of wind and tide made it to their advantage to sail first to the southwest skirting the Bra- zilian shore, until they had attained to a point most fa- vorable for them to shape their course for the east. These would frequently put in at Bahia, and less often at Eio de Janeiro; but it was seldom indeed that their reception at either of these ports was spoken of with any enthusiasm by the seafarers. It was not until Brazil be- came a kingdom that this situation changed. When the change occurred, however, it was a sufficiently momen- tous one, connected, indeed, with nothing less than the ad- vent to Brazil of the Portuguese court. In order to start at the beginning of Great Britain's share in the kingdom and empire of Brazil, it is necessary to flit in the winter of 1807 to the north across the inter- vening ocean to where the court of Portugal, with the re- gent Prince Joao at its head, was fluttering uneasily on the westernmost fringe of Europe. In this heyday of Napoleon's power no refuge — saving moral surrender and an alliance with the French — re- mained except across the seas, for the advancing soldiers of France lay between Lisbon and Europe. England, the old ally, a gray-skied but hospitable, lay to the north. But the political disadvantages of a flight to a foreign country were too weighty, and its effect upon the Por- tuguese peasantry could not fail to be lamentable. To the south, six thousand miles across the ocean, lay Brazil, the majestic colony that represented a continent in itself. It was true that until then Brazil's principal fame in the northerland had been on account of the trea- sures she had yielded up. For centuries Brazil had been milked; even then she had never been found dry either of produce or affection. The loyalty of the Brazilians had flourished like a wallflower on its stone, with no out- ward evidence of support and encouragement. In its terrible stress the little kingdom of Portugal had been cheered by the cries of devotion which had gone up from 284 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA this tropical and neglected colony. The refuge of Brazil, moreover, had been strongly recommended by England, and at that period British recommendations were not, after all, hints which it was advisable to ignore. These circumstances had helped to settle the mind of Joao, perched on the cliffs in the neighborhood of Lisbon like a doubting seabird meditating flight. Had the matter been less urgent it is certain that Brazil would have whistled in vain for a king, for at the best times Joao's mind strongly resented the operation of being made up, and probably no ruler ever possessed a temperament less suited for governing. As it was, the prince regent had vacillated giddily for a time between the demands of the French and the British. Once, judging the French peril to be the nearer of the two, he had acceded in despair to the terms of that nation, and had begun to carry out the stipulated measures against the British. He discovered almost immediately that, so far as his own interests were concerned, he had fallen into a grievous error. Junot was already advancing light- heartedly toward Lisbon, and the regent was thunder- struck to hear of a French proclamation in the face of his submission, to the effect that ' ' the House of Braganca no longer reigned!" Joao, his plans veering all round the compass, turned in haste to England for aid, and announced his intention of embarking under the protection of the British fleet. But the measures, instigated by France, that he had already taken against the British residents in his kingdom had raised the anger of that nation. Lord Strangford, her ambassador, had demanded his passports, and had em- barked on board the Eibernia, one of the vessels of the British fleet commanded by Sir Sidney Smith, which im- mediately began a rigorous blockade of Lisbon. On the 27th of November after some hurried negotia- tions. Lord Strangford landed, and learned from Joao of his renewed resolution to fall in with the British plans, THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 285 and to move his court to Brazil. Poor Prince Joao's mind, unstable at the best of times, must have become completely confused by the rapidity of these changes of plan. On the one day he had sacrificed the time-honored alliance with England, and imagined that he had defi- nitely bound himself to France. Almost on the next he had sought the arms of England again; and now, at two days' notice, he, his family, and his court were to be up- rooted from their native soil, and were to be sent down below the Equator to the great colony which, it was said, was all aflame to receive them. Fortunately for himself, Joao had never suffered from a surfeit of dignity; had this been so, his discomfiture must have been still more acute. But at this crisis one of his actions — a typical one — toward the advancing Ju- not, now again an enemy, reveals the curious complica- tions of his mind. At the last moment, yielding to one of the impulses of his weak and kindly nature, he ordered a confidential servant to prepare quarters and a meal for the French general, in order that the latter should find himself comfortable on his arrival ! The scene of the royal departure from Europe was, in its way, as dramatic as any other of that very stirring period. Joao had selected the 29th of November as the day for that fateful event. The interval for preparation between that and the 27th, it must be admitted, was not long. But even here a certain amount of procrastination was evident, for, judging by the rate of his previous prog- ress, Junot might be expected to arrive on the very day of the court's departure, or, at the latest, on the following morning. From the days when the keels of ships first clove the Southern Atlantic, the Brazilian port of Bahia has offered a favorable landfall for navigators. So that, since chance and its geographical position had already led to it so large a number of humbler explorers, it was only natural that Bahia should have been the first of the Brazilian 286 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ports to witness the arrival of the fleet conveying the royal party. The approach of the ships is easy to picture, for the scene here is, in its way, one of the most romantic in South America. There has been little outward change from that day to this in the verdure-covered promontory, jut- ting out into the blue waters on one side of the bay, and in the bay itself with the pink and white and yellow houses of the town at its edge shining brilliantly in the strong sun- light against the background of vivid blue, into which pricked upwards here and there the feathery green heads of the palms. There were the lower tiers of the port buildings, backed by the little cliifs, on the summit of which the houses and the serried churches of the main town reared themselves. Without a doubt every point of vantage was agog with spectators. Sallow-complexioned officials, merchants, and planters were gazing eagerly across the glittering waters, while the crowds of stout, big-bodied Negro men and women — the Negresses of Bahia still hold the proud reputation of being the largest owners of avoirdupois in the world ! — stood with mouths agape and their wide-open eyes displaying an unusually liberal circle of white about the pupils. They were all fervent folk these, whatever their shade of color, and in the eyes of the general popu- lace the royal personages had been invested with a mystic and almost holy glamour that made the sight of them in the flesh seem an unearthly privilege. Thus when the canvas of the advancing vessels stood out high and clear against the horizon a boundless en- thusiasm prevailed ashore. Some ran to seek out bunt- ing until every colored rag in the city floated lazily in the hot air. Others ran to fire saluting guns, to compete with those which were already banging away from the little marine fort set in the waters of the bay — for rejoic- ing without good, honest noise has always seemed chas- tened joy to the Brazilian. Yet others, amid the shout- THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 287 ing of the crowds, hurried to let loose the flights of cere- monial rockets so dear to the Iberian heart, whether by day or by night. It was in the face of all this that the fleet sailed up and dropped anchor in the bay. The British had proved themselves faithful watchdogs. The four trim and stately warships of that nation which had served as escort throughout the voyage were to be distinguished from the rest, if for no other reason than that their canvas shone strangely white by comparison. The ships were three fine 74 's, and a 98, and on the flagship, the Marlborough, floated the broad pennant which Sir Sidney Smith had specially authorized Captain Moore to fly, when past Madeira, to give him greater weight for his important mission. Had the overjoyed Brazilians been in a more critical mood they would have noticed that in the matter of out- ward appearances and rigid nautical pomp the Portu- guese vessels suffered not a little by comparison. These, having started ill-prepared and in haste, were now soiled and untidy naval ducklings. The interiors of their hulls were in no better case. There, most decidedly reigned no evidence of intrinsic glory. In some respects the voyage had proved probably the most unique undertaken by any ordinary people, to say nothing of royalty. So fevered had been the em- barkation at Lisbon that many ladies found themselves without a single change of garment with which to face these thousands of miles of travel! And — a horror of horrors that at all costs had to be kept from the worship- ing Brazilians ! — this applied not only to ladies of high degree but to the female members of the royal party it- self. In mid-ocean, when the state of affairs could no longer be borne with equanimity, appeals had been made from the royalty-freighted Portuguese vessels to the Marlbor- ough. Captain Moore had shown himself sympathetic in 288 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA this delicate situation, and had rendered such assistance as he could. But even in their most thoughtful moments British naval commanders do not — or, at all events, are not supposed to — carry spare outfits for ladies. Never- theless, his men seem once again to have more than justi- fied their willing and handy reputation. Cloths, sheets, and blankets were produced, and these eventually took the place of many silks and satins. Whether Jack actually went the length of assisting with the needle, I do not know. Yet I can imagine a boatswain's mate, surrounded by sewing satellites, tack- ling even such tender technicalities as these with a calm resolution before which the sangfroid of even the sewing- machine pirate in ''Peter Pan" would pale! As for the bed-sheet-suit in which Prince Pedro and many others landed on Brazilian soil, I would wager ten dozen of the finest Bahia oranges that these were stitched together by one of the watches of the British vessels ! In any case the proceedings on shore could have left the royal party very little leisure to reflect on their impro- vised garments. For Joao, whose exit from Portugal had of necessity been as rapid and furtive as that of a hunted rabbit, found himself welcomed in this glorious tropical country with even greater acclamation and more joyous pomp than any ordinary crowned hero of a hundred fights! Thus the strange, and occasionally comforting, vicissitudes which attend the lives of princes as well as those of lesser folk must have been brought strongly home to him. A month later the four British guardian ships escorted the Portuguese royal vessels still further to the south, and after nine days at sea the fleet sailed through the narrow channel between the stately mountain peaks into the en- trancing and dreamlike harbor of Rio de Janeiro, and cast anchor before the houses of the town. It was one of the most lovely spots in all South America that the court of Portugal, somewhat awed and amazed THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 289 at the aspect of the tremendous coast, landed at the time of year when the fierce summer's sun rays were just be- ginning to give way to the rains of autumn. Here was a magnificent opportunity for an epigram from the royal lips, or, failing a full-blown epigram, some lesser utterance which might at least have set a princely seal on an event which was actually of first class histori- cal importance. But there exists no evidence that he did not fail to miss the opportunity ! Perhaps — like many ordinary travelers before and since that event — he was fully and honorably occupied in gaping at the majesty of the scene. In any case he did not forget to adorn Cap- tain Moore's breast with the Portuguese Order of the Tower and Sword, as a token that the British squadron's task, now completed, had been successfully performed. It soon became evident, however, that this duty was merely a preliminary to a long spell of duty for the British fleet on the Brazilian station. Almost immedi- ately afterwards Sir W. Sidney Smith came out in the Foudroyant of 80 guns to take over the chief command, and the British vessels, serving Brazilian interests, were rather jealously nursed by the Brazilian authorities. In the meantime, having escorted the royal personages and seen the court safely established at Rio de Janeiro, we may as well take a turn ashore with the rest, and follow in the footsteps of the able Lord Strangford, the first of the corps of ambassadors to follow the royal family to its new capital. In its new and kingly circumstances it was clearly out of the question that the old colonial plan of secluding and guarding from foreign interference the trade of Brazil could be continued. The ports had been declared open; a new treaty was discussed and signed, and, egged on by Lord Strangford, the Portuguese began to make half-reluctant efforts to clear the great land of Brazil of its honored dust of centuries. An important feature of this treaty was that it accorded ecclesiastical rights to the British for the first time in the 290 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA history of Portugal or Brazil. It permitted the British to build a church of their own, provided that its exterior architecture were in the form of a private house, and that no bells should sound above its still dubiously regarded roof. This concession was destined to raise a pretty flutter in the local ecclesiastical dovecot. As fate would have it, the papal nuncio was in Rio at the time it was made, and this nuncio cast a very jaundiced eye on the quite modest exhibition of liberality. Having failed to get it rescinded, he bethought himself of some counter-blasts. There was the Inquisition, which for the last half century had been in disuse in Lisbon, and which had never even been intro- duced into Brazil ! If the heretic church, why not the In- quisition by its side? It was an ideal moment, urged the earnest nuncio, for the reestablishment of that much needed tribunal. What could be more effective in the way of corrective medicines, he may have added, than a stout and straining rack, a trusty ''boot," or a really re- liable spiked ''Virgin," with a few odd thumbscrews and minor persuaders to fill up the gaps! But even such tempting offers as these proved of no avail, and the mor- tified cleric had, perforce, to watch the obnoxious building rising under his very nose ! The bishop of Rio de Janeiro, on the other hand, took quite a different view of this first English church to be erected in Iberian South America. He openly admitted that he had no objection whatever to its presence. "The English," he argued with an authority that was perhaps half grave and half jocular, "have really no religion, but they are a proud and obstinate people. If you oppose them they will persist, and make it an affair of infinite importance ; but if you concede to their wishes, the chapel will be built, and no one will ever go near it. ' ' This was probably a very subtle bishop. His own point of view, at all events, seems to have been justified by the remarks of the Rev. R. Walsh, a pleasant writer, who THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 291 was chaplain of the embassy at Rio some twenty years later. ''This argument," complains Walsh, ''had its weight, and the Brazilians say he was right, for the event has verified the prediction." The expenses of this new church were met in a fashion of which examples are to be remarked in the British "fac- tories" at such places as Lisbon, Oporto, Madeira, and elsewhere. By a voluntary tax on their own goods the British merchants provided funds for the building and upkeep of the church, the stipend of the chaplain, and for purposes of general charity. This brings us to the topic of the British mercantile community, which was now established at Rio, having the advantage of a special judge, a Juiz Conservador, whose business it was to attend solely to their affairs, and to see to it that justice was done them. Whatever their chasteners may say of the enterprise of the British merchants of the present day, their ancestors showed no lack of the quality then. No sooner were the commercial doors of Brazil flung open than the traders rushed through with all the enthusiasm of a modern queue besieging the early doors of a theater. Not only did they board every available ship and come bobbing merrily southward over the Equator, but they sent their goods with more zeal than discrimination. As to their wares, they came and still they came, in brig, barquentine, and full-rigged ship, until private houses were impressed into the service to act as auxiliaries to the choked warehouses, and the eyes of the people of Rio grew very round and still more brilliant at the astonishingly high and pleasant rents that their stones and mortar now brought them in. As for the customs-house, its building was overflowed and swamped in the very early days of the commercial rush, and very soon the despairing officials abandoned the attempt to cope with their task. Truth to tell, at that period the first result could be achieved by quite modest 292 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA shipments, and the second by even the faintest pressure of hard work ! But the results were unfortunate for the shippers. As the forest of masts thickened over the bright waters of the bay, so did the heaps of strewn mer- chandise extend further along the beach. According to an eye-witness, these were some of the objects which lit- tered the shore : salt, casks of ironmongery and nails, salt fish, hogsheads of cheese, hats, small mountains of vari- ous-sized crates, hogsheads of earthen and glassware, cordage, bottled and barreled porter, paints, gum, resin, tar, and an almost infinite catalogue of other objects. At- tached to these first shipments were what might be termed some side-harvests of profit for those shrewd folk who understood the art of profiting from other people's mis- fortunes. For vast quantities of goods damaged by rain and sun, and vast quantities that were not, were sold, os- tensibly for the benefit of the underwriters, but in reality for that of the overjoyed Portuguese and Brazilians who bought them for a song ! That some of these objects should have realized a small price was natural enough. Some of the manufacturers * had permitted their enthusiasm to outrun their geographi- cal and climatic knowledge. Thus the aspect of those pa- thetic consignments of stoves and warming pans would have moved the soberest Brazilian to violent hilarity had he had i\\e faintest understanding of their purpose. But when it came to steel skates, such as actually arrived in considerable numbers in the first ships, all comment ends — what was to be said to these ! But trust a new land to improvise uses for even the most unpromising objects ! Very soon the warming pans found themselves very much in their element, for, handled by perspiring Negroes, they were used to skim the scum from the surface of the boiling sugar. The skates served occasionally as door-latches; but their steel was more frequently fashioned into knives, and often employed for far more heated purposes than the innocent maker of the THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 293 skate had ever suspected! Far more appropriate were some invitation cards decorated with the rose, the sham- rock, and the thistle, which, distributed for the official opening of the senate house, caused a natural and puzzled flutter of delight among the British community until it was discovered that the simple and unsophisticated reason for their emplo^Tnent — like that given by the man called Brown for his wearing of the Macpherson kilt — was that they happened to have been bought ready made, and paid for! But these land affairs have caused us to overshoot the course of the navy. Most of this time Sir W. Sidney Smith, in command of the British fleet, was acting the part of marine guardian angel in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, while Joao, appreciating the security thus offered, played the part of a solicitous mother fowl toward his defenders. The officers of the British fleet on the Brazilian coast were apt to complain that the station was too inactive a one. It is certain that the regent dreaded the British vessels putting out to sea. Occasionally, however, they would slip out, and that fine 64 ship the Agamemnon continued to indulge in at least one important cruise in spite of the prince's anxiety. On this cruise she correctly ascertained the situation of the rocks of Martin Vaz and the Island of Trinidad. On this latter island the Agamemnon had an unexpected find. Here they discovered seven men of the crew of an American whaler, who had existed on the island for eighteen months. They had been landed in order to effect a cure for scurvy, and their vessel, lacking a good anchor- age, had been blown away from the spot in a gale. So here they were, seven exact models of Robinson Crusoe, clothed from head to foot in hairy goatskins, and each with an eighteen months ' growth of beard of his own. These seven exiles were staunch-hearted fellows, for they refused to be taken off by the Agamemnon, feeling certain that their own vessel would return to fetch them. 294 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA One can only hope that their faith was suitably rewarded. As for the Agamemnon herself, in 1809, the following year, this fine vessel. Nelson's favorite ship, was wrecked to the south of Brazil on an island in the neighborhood of the river Plate. There was a greater difference between the tropical cruising of the early nineteenth century and of the early twentieth than the average landsman realizes. Salt junk and weevil-haunted biscuits have come down with popular tradition, of course. But there was far more than that. Here, for instance, is Mr. Walsh's description of the mid- shipmen's quarters on board of H.M. frigate Galatea, in which he was invited to dine, and where he appears to have spent a very enjoyable hour or so : "They were divided into two messes, the larboard and the starboard. These were little recesses boarded off on each side of the mainmast, lighted by bull's-eyes, but so faintly that it was necessary to have candles at mid-day. It was so intensely hot, that we were all obliged to strip, and dine in our trousers and shirts." Nevertheless Walsh found among their good company, none of those mannerisms such as had been depicted by Congreve and Smollet. So, you modern landsmen, when you next picture one of these fine frigates heeling her stately pile of canvas to the trade wind, or standing up in the breathless air straight as a pillar of pearl, remem- ber that the life of her midshipmen down below was not all beer and skittles — to say nothing of ice, electric fans, and fresh air ! CHAPTER XV THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL (ll) An entertainment on board H.M.S. London in Rio Harbor — Symbolical decorations — A feat in toasts — Prince Joao honors Sir W. Sidney Smith — Withdrawal of the regular fleet — Lord Beresford arrives with a British squadron — Life on the Brazilian station — An American critic on the court at Rio — The opera — A mixed chorus — Joao VI and a mercantile captain — Incidents during the visit of the Emperor Pedro II to an American passenger steamer — Unexpected welcome on the part of the City of Pittsburg's steerage passengers — Some difficulties of British naval commanders on the Brazilian coast — Imagined grievances — Necessity for tact — Incidents at Rio and at Maranhao — A lesson at Pernambuco — Arrival of Lord Cochrane — Difficulties of his situa- tion as commander-in-chief of the Brazilian navy — His crews — The fleet in Rio harbor — Commander James's description of Cochrane — Alleged recruiting methods of the latter — Opinion of the British officers — Capture of Bahia — Pursuit of the Portuguese fleet — Local disturb- ances at Para — The riot crushed by Captain Grenfell — Pimishment of the ringleaders — Terrible fate of a number of prisoners — Various ex- planations of the tragedy — Cochrane's relations with the Brazilians — He is created Marquis of Maranhao — Extraordinary findings of the Rio prize court — Cochrane's return to England — The manner in which he reimbursed himself. WHILE in Rio Harbor Sir W. Sidney Smith de- termined to celebrate his Britannic Majesty's birthday with all fitting honors. The Lon- don, profusely decorated and beflagged, and with her quarterdeck hung with the royal standards of England and Portugal, was the scene of an elaborate entertain- ment. Prince Joao honored the occasion with his pres- ence, and by way of a flattering attention that part of the deck reserved for him was covered with French flags. So that — whatever those ridiculous Frenchmen might be doing with bis country in Europe! — Joao could at least enjoy the satisfaction of saying that he had stamped on their colors in Rio Harbor! 295 296 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA In the course of the toasts at the subsequent banquet the prince regent set himself a high standard in the way of optimism when he began with: "The King of Eng- land ! May he live till time shall be no more ! ' ' There seems, unfortunately, to exist no record as to how far this graceful feat of enthusiasm was rivaled in the suc- ceeding toasts. When the entertainment was drawing to a close Joao performed one of those peculiarly graceful acts of which his paradoxical character was capable from time to time. It was the hour of sunset, and the flags were about to be lowered. He seized the opportunity to request that the Portuguese standard which had been floating on the Lon- don might be brought to him. Six seamen bore the flag to him, and he commanded that it should be laid on the deck. Then he turned to the Admiral, and addressed a short speech to him : "Admiral, your advices which I received by despatch gave me information that Portugal had in part been taken possession of by the French ; such intelligence convinced me I was betrayed ; but to you. Admiral, I and my family owe our liberty, and my mother her crown and dignity. We are this day come on board the London to celebrate his Britannic Majesty's birthday; and on this joyful oc- casion my royal standard has had the honor to fly at the masthead of the London in conjunction with that of Eng- land. It now lies on the deck; and permit me to return you and the officers thanks for all the services which you and they have conferred on myself and family. Accept this standard from me, and from henceforth quarter the arms of my house with those of your own : it will remain a memorial for your posterity that your exertions pre- served us from falling into the snare which Buonaparte had laid for our destruction." Whatever Joao may have lacked in dignity, none can deny that this high honor to the British admiral was fittingly and royally bestowed. When Sir W. Sidney THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 297 Smith left the Brazilian station, after some eighteen months of command there, it was as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword. He was succeeded in his post by Admiral de Courcy. There were occasions, of course, when the Brazilians had an opportunity of seeing that sea-power is not a mere matter of bunting, awnings, and trim uniforms, but that it was a possession for which the greatest price of all had to be paid. For instance, when on a windy summer's day of 1812 the Java frigate engaged the superior force of the United States ship Constitution, and fought on until she was little more than a heap of wreck- age on the water, with nearly half her crew out of action, when no option remained but to strike. It was shortly after this that the astonished inhabitants of Bahia saw the tragic boat come ashore which held the gallant Captain Lambert of the Java, who died in a hospital from his wounds a few hours later. As we are now back again on the warm blue waters of the Brazilian coast we may as well remain there until we have done with the part played by the British fleet in the early days of royal Brazil. In those days, as has already been explained, the king of Portugal was scarcely ever without the attendance of British battleships and frigates. It is true that, on the exile of Napoleon to Elba the regular squadron was withdrawn from Eio, and the land stores sold, but the subsequent visits of the British ships continued almost without intermission. In 1816 Lord Beresford appeared in the harbor of Rio in command of a British squadron which was to convey Joao back to his European throne. But when it came to the point of actual departure the vacillating king demurred, and the persuasions of neither the British ambassador nor of Lord Beresford could move him to embark. On the whole, life on the Brazilian station could scarcely fail to be languorous. Those of the officers who appre- 298 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ciated landscape had their fill of its beauties. There was a certain amount of shore entertaining, shooting, and deep-sea fishing. From time to time there would occur a national festivity in which it was necessary for the ships to take part, when the ships' guns would reply to those of the batteries, when the bunting afloat would vie with the elaborate triumphal arches ashore, and when the illuminations at night would prick out dazzling, fairy ships against the soft and dim purple of the tropical night. On these occasions such North Americans as were present would regard with rather a jaundiced eye such proceedings in honor of an intrusive royalty on the republican soil of the Americas. According to Mr. Brackenbridge, one of these critical spectators: ''Kings are very slow in adopting of the age in which they live. They are almost as hard to civilize as are North American Indians. I saw a great many of the nobles running to and fro, and from the richness of their decorations I judged of very high orders, such as gentlemen of the bedchamber, grooms of the stole, and royal rat-killers. I wish I could speak with respect of these things, but from my soul I cannot." This, however, is by the way. There was, too, that rather curious institution, the new Eio opera, or rather ballet. Since this was one of the first theaters ever erected in South America, it would be unfair to judge it severely. Nevertheless, the varie- gated complexions of these ladies of the ballet, sliding up the color scale from deep black to a cafe-au-lait tint, with an occasional startling fairer flower in the ranks, must have been fully appreciated by the festal inhabi- tants of the various gunrooms when ashore on leave. Rio of the early nineteenth century was not the Eio of to-day ! Royalty itself in Brazil suffered some experiences which would have occasioned some mild horror in the European society of that period. For instance, the cap- tain of a British mercantile vessel who bore tidings from THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 299 politically disturbed Portugal was admitted to the pres- ence of the King in order that the latter might learn the news. When the interview was over Joao VI ex- tended his hand in order that a respectful kiss might be pressed upon it. But the honest sailor, who under- stood nothing of such civilities, grasped the royal hand in his own (presumably) tarry fingers, and pumphandled it with painful cordiality. But the King, though shaken, accepted the catastrophe in a philosophical spirit ! When his courtiers would have intervened he bade them let the strange man have his way. A later contretemps of a somewhat similar order is related by Messrs. Kidder and Fletcher. In 1852 a fine new United States passenger steamer was on its voyage to California by way of the Straits of Magellan. During this vessel's stay at Rio de Janeiro the Emperor Pedro II was invited on board, and a brilliant reception was prepared for him. The Emperor and Empress arrived in due course, accompanied by a numerous suite in full court dress. Bunting waved ; music sounded ; flowers glowed ; the Emperor was greatly interested in the vessel, and the visit promised to be an unqualified success. Judge, therefore, of the dismay of the American charge d'affaires and the City of Pittsburg's captain, when the Emperor insisted on inspecting the forward deck, where reclined a host of perfectly unpolished steerage passen- gers who were on their way to the gold-fields. The re- mainder of the scene is best described in the author's own words: '*The Emperor's attention, however, could not be di- verted to a different point ; and the Captain, fearing and trembling, was led to the forward-deck. There, upon the taffrail, sat representatives of the New York *Mose,' the Philadelphia 'Killer,' and the Baltimore 'Plug-Ugly.' The Captain's heart sank within him: he was proud of his ship, proud of his illustrious guest, but he had very little to be proud of in some of his passengers — espe- 300 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA cially the unkempt and unterrified, who were even more picturesque after their voyage than upon election-day. The Emperor now approached the sovereigns — ay, near enough to have them ' betwixt the wind and his nobility. ' Then occurred a scene, rich beyond description, which could never have taken place with others than Americans for actors. One of the unshaven, whose tobacco had, up to this time, occupied the greater portion of his mouth and thoughts, suddenly tumbled from the taffrail, dis- charged his quid into the ocean, and, hat in hand, yelled forth in a well meaning but terrific voice, 'Boys, three cheers for the Emperor of the Brazils ! ' In a twinkle of an eye every Calif ornian was upon his feet; and never, in their oft-fought battles for the * glorious Democracy,* did they send forth such round and hearty huzzas as they did that day to D. Pedro II. The suddenness, the ear- nestness, the good intention, and the enthusiasm of the whole procedure were most mirth-provoking. The Cap- tain's fears subsided: his pons asinorum was crossed, and he took breath and laughed freely. The Emperor returned the impromptu salute with great respect, and for the occasion, with becoming gravity." As the internal politics of Brazil tended to grow more involved, the situation of the British naval commanders naturally became proportionately difficult, more espe- cially when some of the provinces began to rebel against the central power at Eio de Janeiro, and when the Bra- zilians were occupied in severing the ties which bound them to Portugal. A short digression is necessary in order to explain the general situation which prevailed at that time. In the early years of the nineteenth century the Spanish and Portuguese South American colonies were respec- tively undergoing very different species of metamorpho- sis. Those of Spain were occupied in transferring them- selves into republics, while the great country of Brazil was THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 301 learning to be a kingdom. At this period British sym- pathies were, by force of circumstances, rather curiously distributed. In Spanish South America their leanings toward the patriot cause were sufficiently patent — not- withstanding a rigid neutrality of action — to cause con- siderable irritation among the remnants of the Spanish power in Peru. In Brazil, on the other hand, when friction arose be- tween the new kingdom and the mother country, the Brazilians were wont to complain that the attitude of the British was unduly favorable toward the Portuguese. Here again, there seem to have been no actual grounds for complaint. At the same time, apart from any side- issue of sentiment or policy, it is only natural that the sympathies of the British fleet should have lain with our most ancient ally — and this notwithstanding the work which Cochrane had achieved. This sense of grievance, however, had by no means departed when an international incident made it neces- sary for the British fleet to blockade Rio Harbor. The presence of the men of war on this stern mission caused no little indignation. *'We must seize all your ships in our harbor," ob- served an indignant inhabitant of Rio to Walsh, "con- fiscate all your property in the country, and fit out your merchantmen as privateers to cruise against your com- merce in other places." These frank views are at all events instructive as to the contemporary Brazilian idea of the relative naval forces of Brazil and Great Britain ! Indeed, the post of a British commander on the Bra- zilian station in the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury called for no little tact. This was most of all the case in the North, where the ordinary complications were added to by the periodical rebellions against the central authority of Rio de Janeiro. In the course of such actual 302 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA warfare questions were continually cropping up con- cerning the protection of the British residents, many of whom enrolled themselves in a cavalry corps. An instance of this occurred in 1824 at Maranhao when the house of a Mr. Hesketh, an English merchant, was forcibly entered by the local authorities. As a hint con- cerning the unwisdom of such procedure, his Majesty's sloop of war Eclair, which happened to be at the port, shifted her berth so as to approach the shore and con- trol the place with her guns. In the meantime an apology was obtained from the local rebel authorities for the occurrence. But the Junta felt itself outraged at the action of the British, and seriously debated as to whether it should not confiscate the Eclair 's rudder in punish- ment of this too close and too unceremonious an ap- proach ! The discussion, however, does not seem to have touched on the topic concerning the ways and means by which this was to have been etfected. A few months later Captain Johnstone of the Eclair, now in command of the 42-gun frigate Doris, found him- self off rebellious Pernambuco when that port was being blockaded by a squadron from Rio de Janeiro. Here he found it necessary to take strong steps to prevent a repe- tition of a formal but groundless accusation to the effect that he had been supplying the royal vessels with pro- visions. Seeing that his categorical denial was received in an unsatisfactory fashion, he decided that the most efficient retort would be one which affected the pockets of his detractors. So he "up with his anchor" and sailed to Bahia to complete the provisioning of his frigate, thus depriving the inhabitants of Pernambuco of the transac- tion and its profit! We may conclude this naval section with the adven- tures of Lord Cochrane, who arrived in March, 1823, to take charge of the scanty fleet of the newly constituted Brazilian Empire in its struggle against the superior squadrons of the now hostile Portuguese. THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 303 Cochrane threw himself with his accustomed energy into the task of building up an efficient fleet. A number of trading vessels were converted into warships, and the Rio dockyards awoke to the sound of hammerings. Cochrane 's present task was infinitely more difficult than the one he had just completed. As commander-in-chief of the Chilean navy, he had often had to put up with makeshifts in the way of vessels and equipment; but he had invariably found himself supported by single-minded, enthusiastic, and heroic crews. In Brazil he found himself at least as well off in vessels. It was when the question of recruiting crews came about that the chief difficulties arose. The Brazilians not hav- ing yet learned to take an interest in their seas — or any one else's! — Cochrane had to depend for the manning of his marine upon such chance element as he could light on. Once afloat, the sympathies of many of these seemed, at the very least, to lie as much with the Portuguese as with the Brazilians — a condition of disinterestedness by no means laudable in a fighting force ! From the start the adventurous admiral had a good deal of trouble even with such crews as he possessed. A number of these were entirely unwilling to come to blows with the Portuguese, and in several cases — notably one in which an attempt was made to prevent the bring- ing up of ammunition to the deck during an action — certain of the dissatisfied elements made no attempt to conceal the direction in which their sympathies really lay. In the end Lord Cochrane 's resolute character pre- vailed, and he obtained as much control as it was pos- sible to assume over his heterogeneous crews. Then, pursuing his usual energetic policy, he prepared himself for the attack. His first object was the port of Bahia to the north, where the Portuguese naval and military headquarters were now situated. For this purpose he assembled a fleet consisting of the Pedro Primeiro, an 304 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA 80-gun ship, ten lesser vessels, and four armed mer- chantmen. As Cochrane lay in the bay of Rio de Janeiro on the eve of his departure it happened that H.M.S. Tartar was at anchor there too. Conunander James, who was on board the British ship as a junior officer at the time, describes the appearance of the tall, red-haired Coch- rane as he came over the side to pay a visit, accompanied by his flag-captain, Crosby. Those who are curious concerning Cochrane 's uniform when in the Brazilian service may like to know that his surtout coat was surmounted by an embroidered collar and a pair of large epaulettes that supported silver stars. Over his right shoulder hung a broad, light-blue sash, while on his head was a gold-laced, cocked hat with a large cockade, and at his side he wore a strong and serviceable sword. I have already alluded to the great difficulty which Lord Cochrane was experiencing at the time in obtaining efficient crews. Some of the methods which he, or his subordinates, employed in the endeavor to overcome this appear to have earned for him the resentment of his fellow countrymen. That this was not unjustified, may be gathered from Commander James's remarks. The date of the episode was the 1st of April, 1823 : **Lord Cochrane had boats cruising round the ship last night, and no doubt all over the harbor, to entice the men to run. We observed one several times pass this ship; and observing one coming we lowered a boat and examined him. At the same time we caught one of our men on the cue of going overboard. The fellow said he was going to join Lord C. as his surgeon to-mor- row, and made up a poor story. The lieutenant who went in the boat told him that if he caught him enticing any of the men away he would shoot him and Lord C. too. Our sentries, loaded with ball, have orders to fire at any one they might see swimming from us. If Lord THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 305 C. really employed the boats, it shows him to be a mean fellow, as Captain Brown observed." No doubt the infinite resource of such strong charac- ters as that of Cochrane does not always add to the welfare or ease of mind of their neighbors ! At Bahia a few skirmishes took place, after which the Portuguese fleet took refuge under the guns of the forts. Bahia was now declared in a state of siege, and soon afterwards some fresh British oflScers and men arrived to assist Cochrane in his task. Of these officers the most notable were Captains Grenfell and Taylor. Bahia was now closely invested from the land side as well as from the sea. Eventually the Brazilians attacked the place from the land side and entered the city, while the Portuguese abandoned the spot, and their great fleet of seventy men-of-war, transports, and merchantmen stood out for the open sea. Cochrane permitted the armada to pass, and then pursued it relentlessly, cutting out prizes daily from the hapless fleet as it went on its northward flight, until the might of Portugal became a thing of the past in Brazil. Indeed, so persistent was Captain Taylor in his attendance on the fleeing vessels that, capturing a prize from time to time, he pursued them to the very mouth of the Tagus. In the meantime some serious outbreaks occurred at Para, where numbers of Brazilian soldiers got out of hand, and, breaking out into open rioting, endeavored to take advantage of the political situation. Having taken possession of the forts and barracks and military stores, they armed all those who would join them. Then, under cover of shouts of ''Death to the Europeans! Long live independence and the Emperor Pedro!" they made for the palace of the governor, whom they deposed, and elected one of their own companions in his stead. Gangs of these ruffians then filled the streets in a determined search for the plunder which was their real object. They kept possession of the town for two days, 306 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA when a naval contingent, under Captain Grenfell of Lord Cochrane 's squadron, appeared on the scene. An en- counter ended in the defeat of the rioters, of whom large numbers were captured. The next day Captain Gren- fell armed the inhabitants and dragged into the town eight pieces of artillery, manned by the Englishmen. The rebellious soldiers were ordered to lay down their arms and surrender, which at the sight of the cannon they did. They were then marched in two columns to the palace square, headed and flanked by volunteers, the artillery, and marines. Arrived at the square, they were arranged in columns, and the artillery had orders to fire should the prisoners resist the sentence passed. A body of cavalry, forty or fifty strong, who had not yet surrendered, galloped up at this moment, with the intention of charging and throw- ing the infantry into confusion. But when they saw the gunners drawn up, and the pieces in readiness to be discharged, they wavered, halted, and then laid down their arms. There were now five hundred disarmed men on the field. The rebellious soldiery were completely overawed, and everything was as still as death. A council of war and a court-martial followed. Stern measures were de- cided on, and five of the ringleaders were sentenced to be executed on the spot. These latter at first refused to take the affair seriously, and there were many who held the trial to be a mock one, but they were soon disillusioned and profound dis- may took the place of incredulity. When the time given them to prepare themselves for death had expired, the five were led to the front and executed before the assem- bled people. Decidedly this first stern act of justice of independent Brazil would never have been enacted under the nervous rule of Joao VI, who could never bear to sign the death warrant of a man, however criminal his deed! THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 307 About two hundred and fifty of the prisoners were now sent on board a prize ship that was lying in the harbor. Then occurred a terrible, and in many respects inexplicable, thing. During the first night of their con- finement it is said that the sentry heard a great noise from the quarters where the prisoners were lodged. He ordered them to be quiet, but his voice was disregarded and the uproar continued. Moreover, it appeared that they were trying to force the hatches under which they had been battened down. In order to intimidate these prisoners, the sentry fired a shot or two, and in a short time all became quiet. The next morning on opening the hatches it was found that only four were alive of the two hundred and fifty, and that the dead were mutilated in the most horrible way! A good deal of mystery seems to surround this affair. One very improbable account runs to the effect that the unfortunate men went suddenly mad and killed each other in their delirium. Another relates that the Bra- zilians wished to murder some Portuguese prisoners who were with them, but had killed their own countrymen, it being too dark to distinguish one from the other clearly, and that this had led to a general battle. It is obvious that much has remained untold, since it is hardly con- ceivable that out of two hundred and fifty combatants every man, with the exception of four, should have suc- ceeded in killing the other! Yet, according to these accounts, this must have occurred, since it is said that the four survivors owed their safety to having hidden under some water casks all the time. The most probable explanation is that, by reason of some carelessness in the arrangements of the ventilation, the poor wretches perished from suffocation. That gallant stormy petrel. Lord Cochrane, was des- tined to find — as is frequently the lot of sailors and sol- diers — that his material rewards in Brazil were not alto- 308 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA gether commensurate with the warmth of his reception or even with the honors conferred on him. The Emperor undoubtedly felt a warm admiration for the Admiral's feats, and created him Marquis of Maranhao. Even this honor, as a matter of fact, proved a bone of contention; for a prominent statesman, Antonio Carlos Andrada, now challenged the sovereign's right to confer this honor without the sanction of the House of Deputies, remarking that "nobility unaccompanied by any corresponding power was an institution of which he would not compre- hend the object." In Cochrane 's case the shaft of this saying certainly went very wide of the mark. It is true that there were in existence just then large numbers of Brazilians re- cently ennobled for reasons which were entirely uncon- nected with any personal merit or achievements. But this could scarcely be said of the man upon whose strength the empire was relying for its freedom! As might have been expected, the crisis in the affairs of Lord Cochrane and his British officers arrived when the question of prize ships and prize money came to be taken into consideration. Cochrane waited patiently — for him! — while his fleet of prizes threatened to rot in the waters of Rio de Janeiro Harbor. At the best of times Pedro was temperamentally averse to parting with cash or with goods of any description. In the present circumstances, moreover, the enthusiasm attending the captures had largely evaporated. Finding himself now securely seated on the Brazilian throne, it had become Pedro's policy to conciliate Portu- gal rather than to annoy the mother country. It was just at this period that it was becoming noticeable that his sympathies were veering round toward the Euro- pean kingdom. A prize court was formed. The degree of good faith in which this body was disposed to act will be understood when it is explained that the majority of the members were Portuguese by birth ! THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 309 That the findings of this court went against every one of the undeniable claims of Cochrane and his captains, goes without saying. But the proceedings went far be- yond this, and became purely Gilbertian. It was only a short while before that the Emperor had created Lord Cochrane Marquis of Maranhao on account of his naval victories. For having assisted in this campaign, and for having chased the Portuguese fleet to the Tagus and for having captured several of its vessels, the new prize court condemned Admiral Taylor to six months' im- prisonment and to the forfeiture of double the amount of prize money he claimed! Truly, without intending any meretricious pun, it might be said that this remark- able body constituted a surprise, rather than a prize, court ! Neither Cochrane nor his British officers had ever proved themselves men of a type to sit down quietly un- der wrongs such as these. The Admiral, as it happened, had some fairly weighty cards up his sleeve, and he found it the best policy to advertise the fact that he intended to keep them there. He accordingly announced his intention of retaining the specie captured in the course of the blockade of Bahia, as well as some ransoms ob- tained at Maranliao. Pedro himself now made a shrewd move. During a short absence of the Captain, his im- perial Majesty in person boarded Grenf ell's ship, and departed in some haste and considerable elation, having collected from the vessel a large sum of money obtained as ransoms for prizes at Para, which Grenfell had in the circumstances intended as recompense for himself and his crew. The fiery Cochrane 's rage at this treatment may be imagined. His exasperation was not decreased by the grumblings of his British subordinates. Nevertheless the Brazilians continued to avoid a payment in full of the sailors' claims. It was not until the outbreak of a serious revolution at Pernambuco that the authorities proved 310 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA themselves in the least amenable to reason. Then, see- ing that the rebels had managed to get together a small fleet of their own, the value of the foreign seamen and the justice of their claims at once became evident. A sum of money was collected and part of the arrears were liquidated, after which Lord Cochrane and his officers sailed to Pernambuco and proceeded to blockade the town. On this occasion Cochrane decided to run no financial risks. Having restored order out of chaos at Pernam- buco, his actions showed themselves devoid of red tape to a rather startling degree. He coromandeered such prize money as he thought adequate for himself and his crew, and then in his flagship the Piranga he sailed straight home to Plymouth, where he received a warm welcome. The proceeding was, to say the least of it, irregular; but it served the Admiral's purpose. Cochrane arrived in England in the early summer of 1825. His original engagement had been to serve Brazil until her independence had been acknowledged by Portu- gal. This did not occur until August, some three months later; so Cochrane left his Brazilian flag flying during the interval. He was still ready to be called upon, he explained. Doubtless he was; but the distance between him and Brazil was considerable. In the meanwhile the prize money remained his own and his crews ', to the un- bounded wrath of Pedro. CHAPTER XVI THE BEITISH IN BRAZIL (ill) Royalty in Brazil — Some stringent regulations concerning etiquette — Com- pulsory salutations — A collection of ludicrous incidents — Behavior of Dom Pedro — Episode related by Mr. H. M. Brackenridge — A meeting with the royal family — The Queen of Portugal and the United States Minister — A triumphant collision with autocracy — Violence of the Queen — Mr. Sumpter's resolution and its results — Intervention of King Joao VI — Curious ceremonies at Bahia and Pernambuco — Privileged Lisbon beggars — Fortunate recipients of free passages on men-of-war — The voyage of the warship Dom Joao VI — A British merchant's abode in Rio — His work and amusements — Opening of the Exchange — An early Tragedy — The trade in Bacalhao — Coinage and its by-prod- ucts — The British shop-keepers and their Brazilian colleagues — Re- spective qualities of the two — Ephemeral existence of the first news- paper — Private theatricals, ashore and afloat — Public-houses in Rio — Prejudice against mutton in Brazil — Dinner given with the object of destroying this — Hospitality of the Fazendeiro — Local reputation of the British for insobriety — Establishments of the interior — An expe- rience in a primitive household — Mr. Mawe's journey to the Diamond Mines — A negro and his supposed gem — Eventual disappointment — Mawe's experience at Barbacena — The ubiquity of British manu- factures. LET US now perform a feat possible only in print, and turn back a few years to the early events of this tropical court which the British navy had been instrumental in creating. The transference of this court was followed by some local results which the contemporary students of the Portuguese character could scarcely have foreseen. Perhaps it was the collision of royalty with the es- sentially democratic atmosphere of the Americas that brought about a number of explosions of a nature foreign both to the Brazilian soil and to the kindly Portuguese temperament ! 311 312 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA It was undoubtedly part of the old colonial policy which caused the regulations for the exhibition of ex- ternal respect toward the royal family to be arbitrary and oppressive to a degree unheard of in Europe. The ethics of the street were included in these. When the royal family took its airings abroad it was the aim of the authorities to make the progress one of tremendous glamour and dignity. At the passage of a royal per- sonage humanity was commanded to fall as prone as autumn leaves! As a result, the inhabitants of Rio found themselves, whether they would or no — in the early days their enthusiasm was genuine enough — com- mitted to perfect debauche of obeisance. In actual practice, these regulations were made to apply to foreigners as well as to Portuguese and Bra- zilians, notwithstanding the fact that the King had de- clared publicly that he did not require it of any who were not his subjects. In spite of this, whenever a for- eigner or native chanced to meet any members of the royal family, he was obliged, if mounted, to dismount from his horse, and, if in a carriage, to alight with all speed. The ''Times" of November, 1818, has some inter- esting comments on this peculiar state of affairs: ' * Woe to him who is not able to do this quickly enough, for he will be dreadfully chastised by the ser\^ants who accompany him. It happened very lately that two mer- chants, the chief partners of a foreign establishment here, on meeting some of the royal princes, and relying on the ordinance of the King, did not dismount from their horses ; one of them, by the command of the young- est, a boy of fourteen, was severely beaten by a groom, and the other, a man of fifty, received from the Crown Prince himself, a blow from his whip." This reveals a condition of affairs, where dignity would seem to rest with the assaulted rather than with the assailants, and certainly the transplanting of royalty seems to have had curious and exotic results, for the THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 313 journal goes on with the still more astonishing state- ment to the effect that: ''This same Crown Prince on another occasion did not consider it beneath his dignity to throw a stone at a foreigner, who, not knowing him, happened not to have taken off his hat !" Those who have followed Dom Pedro's later career, with all its attributes of personal valor and unconscious buffoonery, resolution, and ridiculous want of humor, will experience less surprise in reading this than they would if the anecdote concerned a more ordinary prince. With such extraordinary evidences of a want of discipline in his youth, the wilder days of Pedro's subsequent life become explicable. An American writer, Mr. H. M. Brackenridge, has already been quoted. He was traveling to Rio de Janeiro on a mission from his Government in 1817, and on his first landing came into contact with Brazilian royalty. He describes his experiences with some satire. He was at the house of the United States minister, Mr. Sumpter, when he saw a cavalcade going down the road. A couple of dusk}^ dragoons, whose faces showed traces of their Indian blood, galloped by, their swords rattling gallantly by their sides. These were followed at a considerable distance by a number of cumbrous and old-fashioned coaches. They contained the Queen, the princesses, and their suite. The procession came to a halt at the gate of the Ameri- can minister, and there the Queen and the princesses spoke in a familiar and friendly fashion with Miss Sump- ter. But for their guard and retinue, Brackenridge says he ''would have taken them to be the respectable class of citizens," Avhich was no small concession from a traveler of his democratic caliber! In fact, our thorough-going republican confesses himself not unimpressed by the modest attire and behavior of these first royalties witli which he was brought into contact. "Although," he says, "I had read a great deal of 314 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA kings and queens and princesses, I had no idea that I should feel so little of that awe supposed to be pro- duced by the irradiations of majesty." Thus our chronicler — a very loyal and estimable re- publican, but faintly inclined to be intolerant — pats with some warmth the back that found so little trouble in remaining stiff and erect. This should not have been difficult, since, with the exception of the Queen's person- ality, there was very little formality about the party. The Princess Leopoldina, he says, was distinguished from the rest by the fairness of her complexion. He adds, however, that there was nothing remarkable in her appearance, and that there were thousands of his coun- trywomen that he would choose in preference for a wife, which confession seems to betray a leaning toward Mormonism ! It was, of course, a terribly servile manner of obeisance shown by the inhabitants — both civil and military — of Rio when in the early days of the kingdom they fell on their knees in the roadway at the sight of their sov- ereigns. But, at the very least, the guards who accom- panied the royal cortege would compel riders to dismount and to stand bareheaded. This crude method, as we have seen, was occasionally applied to foreigners, and, apparently, passed unresented in the majority of in- stances. It is even said that a number of the foreign ministers submitted to this — a most remarkable and quite inexplicable concession. But the American representa- tive was most decidedly not one of these. This latter, Mr. Sumpter, was determined to use every diplomatic means to preserve his dignity. He took every precaution to avoid meeting the royal cavalcade in the street. He was successful for a considerable time; but at last the day came when he found himself face to face with the cumbersome coaches and the outriding dragoons. It was the Queen who chanced to be taking an outing. Sumpter realized that the ordeal could no longer be THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 315 avoided! Anxious to comply as much as possible with courtesy, the American minister halted his horse and saluted her Majesty. But this did not satisfy the Queen. With an imperious gesture she commanded her guards to compel him to dismount. This, let it be remembered, was the act of a sovereign toward a representative of a foreign and friendly power! The dragoons advanced, and, seeing that Mr. Sumpter made no attempt to obey their shouts, they closed in upon him, brandishing their swords. The American min- ister stood prepared to defend himself with his stick, and this determined attitude was sufficient for the appe- tite of the tawdry-uniformed, but cautious dragoons, who retreated to the shelter of her Majesty's carriage: while her Majesty, for her part, continued her way in a huff. Immediately after this incident one of the Portuguese ministry called on Mr. Sumpter, and implored him to consider the effect his example would have on the other foreign ministers, who for their part might refuse to dismount and pay obeisance to the Queen! In view of this extraordinary plea it is evident that the ministers' plenipotentiary were considered rather in the light of school children liable to mischief! The American min- ister roundly declared his inability to guarantee the behavior of his colleagues in any way whatever. After this he went armed and fully prepared for an encounter with the Queen's guard. Sumpter was a determined minister. On a second attempt being made to lower his dignity when he ran into this firebrand of a cortege, he all but blew a number of the royal escort out of existence. This time the matter was brought to the King. The Queen complained of the minister's insolence, and the minister complained of the Queen's insults. The King, very rightly, sided with the minister, and apologized, assuring him that no such childish yet dangerous experiments should be tried in his direction again. 316 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA The Queen, however, was not content to let the matter rest here. Her notorious violence had never yet been tamed by any move on the part of her peace-loving hus- band. Whether by accident or design, only a few days after the King's apology, she again met the American minister in the street. On this occasion she was accom- panied by no less than twelve guards who advanced on the representative of the United States with the intention this time of really having it out with the stiff-necked, conscientious objector to the salute. Mr. Sumpter, noth- ing daunted, drew his pistols, and instead of running away, as the guard undoubtedly expected, dashed straight through them and arrived at the window of the Queen's carriage, with the escort, doubtless in a great hubbub, gesticulating and shouting behind. Mr. Sumpter appears to have taken no notice of them whatever, and they do not seem to have dared to approach him. He, for his part, was giving the Queen a most gratifying piece of his mind ; he told her in so many words that he refused to submit to these orders of hers, and that, to put the matter abruptly, he would prefer to remain on distant bowing terms. He left her, doubtless in a paroxysm of fury, and carried the matter directly to the King, who appeared much grieved, and insisted on making a personal apology. He imprisoned the guards and offered to punish them in any way which Mr. Sumpter should name. Seeing that the real culprit was beyond the reach of justice, the latter desired nothing of the kind, and, with this, the curious incident seems to have ended. As a matter of fact many of the customs which were encouraged in Brazil at this period were of a crude order, ill-calculated to appeal for any length of time to the expanding intellect of the Brazilian. In such ports as Bahia and Pernambuco it was fre- quently the portion of the British and other consuls to take part in some quaint ceremonies, one of which in- THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 317 eluded an obeisance to the portraits of the Emperor and Empress, which were wont to be placed in state beneath a massive velvet canopy. As a matter of fact, this par- ticular part of one of these official receptions was usually omitted by the foreign consuls, although no other of the municipal guests would have dared to leave undone this significant ceremony, even had his feelings prompted to do so. It was inevitable that a certain amount of license should have attended the migration of the court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. It is true that the Portuguese court brought to Brazil a considerable amount of social, artistic, and Hterary benefit. But even a court has its seamy side — or tail, as the case may be. In this case it was most decidedly a tail, since the seamy element was com- prised of the Lisbon beggars. Enterprising mendicants, these, to whose pilgrimages the great South Atlantic Ocean itself formed no barrier ! Indeed, the devotion of these folk to the coins of the migrated nobility and of the rich colonists of Brazil appears to have known no bounds! It is said that no vessel ever left the Tagus, bound for Brazil, without its quota of these tactful gentry. But when it came to giving them free and official joassages on men-of-war, the thing grew Gilbertian to a degree! Yet so it was, and the pressed crew of many a Portuguese frigate had to trim the vessel's sails in order that they might blow a crowd of these mendicants to their destination. One of the most notable instances of this was the sail- ing of the great warship Dotyi Joao VI, which, after various unsuccessful attempts, succeeded in crossing the bar of the Tagus in 1820, carrying no fewer than hvelve hundred passengers. A very large proportion of these were beggars. Many of them, it must be admitted, had smuggled themselves on board, and most of these, again, had provided themselves with no provisions whatever for the voyage! 318 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA The conditions under which such a passage was car- ried out may be imagined. Short of water, food — and, indeed, of everything but filth — the ship staggered through the tropics in a completely insanitary condition. On its arrival, the colonial inhabitants of Rio protested in disgust that they had not thought it possible that such a shipload of vermin and beggars could have floated on the water! It is now time to take a glimpse at the Englishman, settled among the lovely surroundings and comforts of a lesser degree of the tropical ports. There appears to have been nothing ostentatious in the establishments of the early British merchants in Brazil. The ground floor of one of the ordinary massive hewn stone buildings was used as a storeroom for the goods. The first floor was mainly used as an office, and as a sample and show room, while above that again lived the merchant and his family. All this was natural enough, of course, for in those days even in London town the merchant had not yet promoted his social self away from his business premises! Btit the British merchant in Brazil, unlike his pre- decessor John Gilpin, found it necessary to take most of his pleasures at home. He would put up his shutters at about two o'clock, and would prepare himself to dine. He would don a calico jacket for the occasion, and would follow the Brazilian fashion which made it obligatory to offer one of these cool garments to each of his guests, whether there were two or a dozen in number. Then would ensue the siesta — the two hours of blinding-white false night, when nothing stirred save the insects, and dogs, and the vultures wheeling in the sky. Then, when the sun had dropped to fringe the moun- tain tops, there would be a mild stir again in the com- mercial quarters of the establishment, and principals and clerks would get to work again in the matters of Man- THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 319 Chester goods, silks, saddles, implements, and what not. Occasionally the merchant would set out to amuse him- self, and would play a game of quoits, imbibing — mark you! — honest bottled porter in the rays of a burning sun that has taught his descendants a lighter, and per- haps less long, thirst. So much for the British merchant at home in Brazil. Very soon after his arrival the proper aids to commerce began to be established. An imposing exchange was opened in Rio in 1820 by the King, who chose his birthday as the date of the occasion. After listening to an address from the British merchants, King Joao and his family took part in the banquet, which was followed by a ball. In addition to its purely commercial uses, the building was occasionally used by the Brazilians for political pur- poses, and was shortly afterwards the scene of a mas- sacre, when the troops, without justification or warning, fell upon the inmates. In the confusion the caretaker, an Englishman of the name of Burnet, was fortunate enough to have his life saved by his snuff box. For a bayonet, viciously aimed at his waistcoat, would undoubtedly have penetrated that frail defense had not the massive lid of the box stayed the point ! A trade which now increased greatly between the Brit- ish and the Brazilians was that in Bacalhao, or dried cod — a flattened and completely desiccated fish which re- sembles a board in substance and a polecat in odor ! The taste for these had originally been acquired by the early Portuguese navigators, and cargoes of the odorous deli- cacy have continued to be brought over to Portugal by British vessels from the Newfoundland Banks from that period right down to the present day. Among the early British navigators this dried cod was known as *'Poore John," and as early as 1585 it is mentioned that Drake's fleet on the way to South America captured a Spanish 320 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA vessel laden with it — to the no small advantage of the tables of the English ships, as it was described as ''new and good." A certain quantity of this had always been consumed in Brazil; but the great influx of Portuguese, of course, who arrived with the court, tended for the first time to swell this trade to important proportions. Among the failings of the Brazilian cannot be counted a lack of shrewdness and intellectual agility. Yet on one occasion at least did the officials of the new kingdom of Brazil display a certain want of commercial astuteness which they must doubtless have subsequently regretted. For years, the large and ponderous copper coin of the Brazils was cut in Rio from sheet copper sent from Eng- land. As it happened, owing to the want of proper appli- ances in the Brazilian capital, the curved triangular inter- stices of the circles were left over, and the result was a most monumental waste of copper. An Englishman, noticing this, purchased all the waste pieces for a song, and made a practice of sending them back to England in order that they should be made up into fresh sheets of copper. After a very long time it occurred to the Eio authorities to have their coins sent out from England already cut — a resolution the wisdom of which was heartily applauded by the English middleman, who had already made a large fortune! In Brazil of the early nineteenth century the English shopkeepers do not seem to have shared the solid repu- tation earned by their wholesale merchant brethren. "The worst shops," complains Hadfield, "are kept by English, and this will be found a general rule in these foreign towns. The merchants are good and honest ; but if one wishes to be well taken in, go to a shop kept by an Englishman." But this was undoubtedly written in an unduly pessimistic moment. Nevertheless, the majority of contemporary writers agree concerning the excessive charges made by the Brit- THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 321 ish shopkeepers. It is likely that these had an easy time of it so far as Brazilian competition was concerned. For the Rio shopkeeper of the period loved his ease better than his trade. Were he engaged in a friendly game of cards, he would refuse to cease on the entrance of a customer : it required something more, too, than so insig- nificant an entry to interrupt a friendly chat with a crony. It is true that at times he would yield to impor- tunity to the extent of requesting the customer to find the article for himself and to lay down his money — but he usually found it simpler to explain that he had nothing of the kind in his shop ! But beyond those who took part in the stereotyped branches of trade there were occasional free lances of industry. One of their number, a British sailor who resided at Praya Grande in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, must have had as enterprising a mind as his brother mariner who first set up bathing machines in the strug- ling infancy of that now fashionable Argentine seaside resort. Mar del Plata. This other shellback, finding that race meetings were being held on the Botafogo beach in the early 1820 's, used to cross over in a boat, laden with refreshments, furniture, and a tent, and would set up a booth for the occasion. The benefits of this were fully appreciated by those attending the race meetings. Indeed, so solid were the profits that the sailor's negro crew, on his last home- ward passage, murdered him in order to rob his body. It was estimated that the British community in Rio de Janeiro in 1830 amounted to some seven hundred people. They had already established a circulating library, and had founded their first newspaper — an ephe- meral publication that, lacking not only a public but an actual population, soon withered away! To the credit of these British let it be said that as early as the first quarter of the nineteenth century they had already devoted themselves to private theatricals for 322 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the cause of various charities! As it was then, so it is now. After all it would seem that a box of properties and some of French's slender pink volumes are as much a part of the empire as the cricket bat, the football, the springy driver, and a sense of fair play. Indeed, the vessels themselves that fly the white ensign on the South American station have done their share in these theatricals, and of quite recent years there was a gallant light cruiser — so gallant has she proved herself since in the matter of powder and shot that she may take with equanimity any jest concerning mere powder and paint — whose officers, as soon as she dropped her hook in a harbor, were reputed to a man to sweep the shore with their glasses in search of a suitable private theater! It was even alleged by her critics that a local revolution was once nipped in the bud by a threat of a performance of the ''Mikado"! To revert to the early nineteenth century, many enter- prising publicans in Eio had made it their business that the ordinary British sailor should feel at home when he landed. "There are plenty of English pot-houses," says Mrs. Graham, in her "Journal of a Voyage to Brazil," "whose Union Jacks, Eed Lions, Jolly Tars, with their English inscriptions, vie with those of Greenwich or Deptford." When the British community had fairly settled down in Rio de Janeiro, its members began to ask themselves a not unnatural question. Why was there no mutton in Brazil? The prejudice against this meat, as a matter of fact, was as deep in that country as it was in Spanish- speaking South America. The carcass of a sheep might serve as tallow, manure, or even fuel — but, as for any portion of it gracing the meanest table — the Brazilian of the early nineteenth century would as soon have con- templated breakfasting on his grandmother ! A Mr. Duval gave a dinner party with the daring object of introducing the mutton to the Brazilian. The THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 323 Rio guests came, saw, and made a polite attempt to conquer their aversion. Some reached the point of just tasting the despised flesh of the sheep, but there the matter ended. Nevertheless, this must have been the thin end of the wedge of mutton, for the intense antipathy afterwards began to lessen. It may be added that at this experimental banquet champagne was supplied as an antidote to the mutton. Many of the Brazilians, not previously acquainted with the vintages of Rheims, drank the champagne under the impression that it was an unusually pleasant species of beer — until an unexpected giddiness in their heads warned them that this strange new beer had a stranger bite ! Numbers of the early British travelers who penetrated into the Arcadian simplicity of the interior of Brazil bear witness to the remarkable hospitality of the landowner, the Fazendeiro. In those expansive three-bottle days the average British reputation for sobriety was a thing of no particular weight — not substantial enough, alas! to crush an ordinary Brazilian firefly ! The more ascetic of these British travelers had, of course, to submit to being tarred with the same brush of excessive joviality as the rest, and to have their persistent sobriety thrown in their faces in friendly reproach. No man, it was commonly alleged in the primitive backwoods of the country, could remain sober after dinner and at the same time be a good Englishman — a Bern Inglez! In the course of time, when these simple folk in the interior grew to know more of the British, their ideas concerning the behavior of these curious islanders grew less rigid, and they became accustomed to sitting down with him at table — where the dried cod and beef, chilis, mandioca, garlic, and the numerous other ingredients lay in the common dish at the mercy of fingers as well as of knives and forks — without necessarily counting on a single hiccough ! The ethics of most of these establishments were patri- SM BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA archal, but occasionally, in those very primitive house- holds that lay at the "back of beyond" this simplicity — although it did not in the least interfere with the hospi- tality extended — assumed a form of frank distrust of the stranger which was embarrassing. Hadfield, for in- stance, states that after retiring to bed for the night, the overhearing of a conversation such as the following was no uncommon experience: ''Wife. Zuza, have you bolted the stranger in? Planter. No, I forgot it; but never mind. Wife. Never mind, indeed! But I do mind. Ger- trude ! Black Girl. 'Nhora! (meaning senhora). Wife. Get up, and bolt the door in the passage leading to the stranger's room." And then would follow the drawing of the bolts, and with the sound of this unusual serenade in his ears the stranger would have to compose himself to sleep. Mr. John Mawe, who wrote in 1825, relates a curious experience which he underwent in Brazil. He obtained permission to explore the diamond mines of Cerro do Ffio. This was by way of being a considerable favor, which had so far been granted neither to any foreigner nor Portuguese. That which made his trip all the more interesting was the somewhat extraordinary happening which occurred on the eve of his departure. An African Negro of the Villa do Principe, about nine hundred miles from Eio de Janeiro, wrote to the Prince Regent. He possessed, it appeared, an astonishingly large diamond, which he begged the honor of presenting to his Royal Highness in person. As may be imagined, the offer was accepted, and an escort of soldiers was sent to guard the fortunate man on his way to Rio de Janeiro. His procession across the country was something in the nature of a triumph. His entourage already saw him a blaze of crosses and decorations, and his escort rejoiced THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 325 in the certainty of promotion. In fact, the Negro and his diamond proceeded on their way in a flash of glory. When the time came for him to be admitted into the royal presence, the dusky donor flung himself at the feet of the Prince, and handed over his gem. The gasp of astonishment with which this was viewed must, in one sense, have repaid the poor man for all his travels. The thing was, apparently, a marvelous round diamond, of nearly a pound in weight! Therefore the stone was worth millions of pounds sterling ! A tremor of rejoicing filled the room in which it shone, and presently the astonishing gem was sent to be locked up under a strong guard. Presently also, alasr! sus- picions as to the genuineness of this gargantuan jewel became aroused, and Mawe himself was asked by the Conde de Linhares to view it. The visitor was led through apartments hung with scarlet and gold until he came to one abounding in strong chests, each of which possessed three keys, held by three different personages. From the recesses of one of these the great jewel was produced, and Mawe, who appears to have been some- thing of an expert, was obliged, somewhat to his embar- rassment, to announce the thing a mere worthless crys- tal ! The shining bubble had burst, and so had the fame of the Negro! The unfortunate black returned to his home minus his escort of soldiers, and without a single decoration. He was doubtless an honest man, who re- gretted the day he had dabbled in supposed jewelery ! This Mr. Mawe, it may be mentioned, experienced some sufficiently amusing adventures on his travels into the unsophisticated interior of Brazil. Thus in 1809 at the small town of Barbacena he found himself an object of intense curiosity. The shops of the place were stocked with British goods — articles which the inhabitants had already learned to regard with admiration. But never before had they had the opportunity of gazing upon an Englishman — one of those curious creatures capable of 326 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA manufacturing these marvelous objects which of late had lit down upon them from the skies — and they were deter- mined to make the most of their time ! In this respect Walsh utters some remarks concerning the town of Villa Rica, which I much doubt could be repeated with the same fervor to-day. The place, he says, had shops ''filled with a great variety and good assortment of all kinds of ware ; cotton goods from Man- chester, broad-cloths from Yorkshire, stockings from Nottingham, hats from London, and cutlery from Shef- field, actually sold in the heart of the mountains of South America, as abundant and almost as cheap, as in the towns where they were manufactured; and when I saw about me everywhere the produce of the labor of our hands, I could not help exclaiming with ^neas, and with a more literal application. Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris." Returning to the topic of the Brazilian mines, it may be said that some seventy miles to the north of this town of Villa Rica were the Gongo Soco mines, which, together with some other properties of the kind, were purchased in 1825 by the Imperial Brazilian Mining Association, of London. At one time no less than one hundred and eighty British miners were working at the spot, which, it was hoped, would soon expand into a regular Cornish village in the interior of Brazil. The enterprise was under the supervision of a Mr. Tregoning and a Captain Lyons, the latter presumably a mine- captain. A church was begun at the place, and the Bishop of London appointed a chaplain to proceed there. But the expectations to which the venture gave birth do not seem ever to have been realized. CHAPTER XVn THE BRITISH IN BKAZILi (iv) Establishment of the Brazilian regular army — Arrival of British officers — The introduction of the Irish soldier-agriculturists — Enthusiasm with which the proposal was received in Ireland — The voyage to the South — Arrival of the Irish in Brazil — Disappointment which awaited thsm there — Bitter experiences of the newcomers — Friction between the Irish and the negroes — Aggressive attitude of the latter — Affrays in the streets of Rio — The species of Justice meted out to the Irish — Their impossible siuation — The Emperor Pedro and the Hibernian immigrants — Curious incident at Mass — Rising of the Irish — Scenes in the streets of the capital — Attitude of the authorities — Panic-stricken officials — Work of the rabble — End of the insurrection — A number of the Irish return to their own country — Ultimate success of those who remained — Walsh's description of an idyllic homestead — Experiences of some foreign officers in the Brazilian regular army — Admiral Grenfell — His early days and career in South America — He joins the Brazilian navy — His services against Argentina and the Southern rebels — As rear-admiral, he becomes Consul-General to Great Britain — Further services in Brazil and England — Impetuosity of the Emperor Pedro I — His eccentricity in private life — How he pro- vided a new constitution for Portugal within a week — The fount of his knowledge of the English language — The imconscious linguistic solecisms of the royal couple. THE reorganization of the Brazilian forces on the withdrawal of the European troops had been no light matter. On the departure of the Portu- guese battalions the sole national force of Brazil was the militia, a very moderately efficient body. Strenuous efforts were made, and with unusual promptness a bat- talion of artillery was formed of freed blacks, while a body of a thousand men was collected and sent to Bahia. In the province of Minas GeraBs a cavalry regiment of six hundred men was equipped, and thus was established the beginning of the regular army of Brazil. In many respects, the Brazilians themselves, that is 327 328 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA to say, the descendants of the European Portuguese, were fiery enough when roused; but the inevitable indolence brought about by the climate did not tend toward enthusi- astic volunteering and to smartness in manceuvering or drill. Pedro himself took a very active interest in the matter, and he is said to have been almost childishly pleased at the formation of a small corps of cavalry. A Colonel Bacon and a few other officers arrived from England for the purpose of organizing this, and very soon the nucleus of a cavalry regiment was established which was called the ** Queen's Lancers." The chief ele- ment, nevertheless, from which the Brazilian army was constituted was that of the negro, whose black battalions and officers have already been referred to. It was not long before trouble arose with the neigh- boring Spanish-speaking republic of Argentina. The old Spanish province of the Banda Oriental constituted the bone of contention. Hostilities broke out, and in order to increase the prestige of the Brazilian army the min- isters determined to offer inducements to Europeans to enlist. A considerable number of German troops were secured in this fashion, but the most dramatic, and, in- deed, tragic, of all the episodes of the kind was pro- vided by the unfortunate Irish who were induced to come out to Brazil in 1828 in the double capacity of agricul- turists and soldiers. The terms of the experiment certainly sounded alluring to the poverty-stricken Irish peasants. The Brazilian government proclaimed that every man was to receive pay equal to one shilling per day, as well as one pound of beef and one pound of bread as rations. In return, the immigrants were to be employed four hours each day in learning military exercises. They were to be ready to act as soldiers at any time, but should not be sent out of the Province of Rio unless in the time of war and in- vasion. At the end of five years they were to be dis- charged from military service and each was to become a THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 329 farmer, pure and simple, and to have fifty acres of land assigned to him. However generous may have been the intentions of the Brazilian Government it is probably un- necessary to explain that fifty acres sound, and mean, far more in Ireland than in Brazil ! This proclamation, affixed to chapel doors in Cork, was received by the poor folk with exuberant joy, and the Irish peasantry said good-by to their pigs and peats, and prepared to flock to Brazil. Many even sold their farais and bought new agricultural implements with the pro- ceeds, imagining that their military service was to be something in the style of the local yeomanry, and that their farming operations might begin at once. There may have been a few undesirable characters among them, but the majority of the two thousand four hundred who proceeded to Bl-azil, and to an unfortunate fate, were decent and admirable folk, willing to work and, in fact, an excellent type of colonist. Among their num- ber, too, were skilled mechanics, who carried their tools with them; most desirable immigrants, these. These honest folk from the emerald isle took up the invitation of the Brazilian Government, and set out across the ocean, prepared to carry out every ounce of their share of the contract. Doubtless the news sent home from time to time from their flourishing kindred in the pastures of the river Plate had increased their confidence, and had made them bold enough to uproot themselves and their families for this momentous venture. So this great company of agricultural Irish set sail. Their spirits rose when they found that the vessels which awaited them were as well found and as bountifully pro- visioned as could possibly have been expected. So it was with high hopes that they sweltered in the tropics, braved the terrors of the doldrums, and eventually sailed between the peaks which guard the entrance of the beautiful har- bor of Eio. They had arrived, and with their arrival sounded their 330 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA tragedy! They had been better off in the most storm- tossed hour of the voyage than in the calm and fairy- like beauty of the Bay of Rio. Briefly, nothing had been prepared for them. The fields that they were to till were — hidden somewhere or other beneath those enormous waves of virgin forest! The timber of the homesteads that should have awaited them was in the forest too, alive and verdant, and quite innocent of the ax ! The despair of the immigrants may be imagined when little by little it dawned on them that, not only had the stipulated accommodation not been prepared, but that it was highly unlikely that it ever would be. A fit of en- thusiasm had induced promises of energy; but in the calmer succeeding months the fulfilment of this had expired — stillborn! As it happened, too, Barbozo, the minister for war at the time of their landing, was vio- lently hostile to the foreigners and to the scheme in which they were involved. It was no doubt the influence of this man which went far towards creating the unbearable situation in which the immigrants subsequently found themselves. In the meantime, explained the courteous officials, here was Rio, very much at the service of the Irish. Nothing remained for them but to make them- selves at home ! The rest of the story makes pitiful reading. The help- less Irish, humble and forsaken strangers in a strange land, were soon reduced to the verge of starvation. Thus these guests of the Brazilian Government — the victims of sloth rather than of conscious malice — ^were to be met with at the street corners of Rio, huddled in unkempt and miserable groups. In the end most of the men were pro- vided with wretched quarters and worse food. To crown the whole business, the very Negro slaves of Rio, rejoicing in the rare spectacle of a set of human be- ings in a more lamentable condition than their own, took to shouting insults at the hapless immigrants, and many a jeer ofEscravos hrancos!" — white slaves — came from THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 331 the grinning African lips. From this point to that of ac- tual assault, the way was as easy as that favored by any other mob. Moreover, the blacks began to enter into the atfair with a vastly increased zest as soon as the attitude of the minor officials of Kio grew clear. These had no sympathy whatever with the agriculturalists wrecked in the middle of a town ! This was made evident enough by their conduct after each of these affrays when the Irish had been set on by a horde of blacks. Then, they would snatch at every pre- text of imprisoning the Irish and of letting the Negro go free. Where they considered it unavoidable to im- prison both, they afforded the townspeople in general the edifying spectacle of witnessing these honest Irish peasants and yeomen — many of whom had actually sold their properties in order to take up land in this new coun- try — chained side by side with Negro prisoners, and thus set to enforced labor in the most degraded fashion. The inevitable results of this policy were not long in asserting themselves. After a time none of the Irish agricultural recruits, nor even their officers, could walk the sun-bathed streets of Rio without being assaulted by crowds of negroes. As for the people of the town, they seem to have looked upon the affair rather in the light of an amusement. Walsh was present in Rio at the time, and remarks that ' ' The people of the town looked on with satisfaction, and were frequently seen setting on the Negroes, as I have seen Turks hallooing on their swarms of dogs on Christian passengers." All this makes anything but a pleasant picture to dwell on. Of course it must not be imagined that the reputable inhabitants of Rio were concerned in these outrages, nor that those who perpetrated them received encouragement from the high officials. The Emperor Pedro himself ap- pears to have been very well disposed toward these Irish on their first arrival. He made a point of attending mass in their company, and of kneeling down in their midst. 332 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA In connection with this a somewhat embarrassing inci- dent occurred, which illustrates the utter simplicity and credulity of these Irish. By some means or other a re- port was circulated among them that if the Emperor per- formed this ceremony in their midst three times in succession they would be bound to him for unlimited mili- tary service for the remainder of their lives. Strange as it may appear, this childish rumor received full credence, and when the Emperor made his third ap- pearance at mass, the chapel was empty of all but the officers of the Irish regiment, who had to put the best face they could on the matter. It was almost certainly ignorance on the Emperor's part of what was going on which prevented him from intervening in the cause of the Irish. But this treat- ment was not to be indefinitely continued with impunity. It is surprising enough to find that it was allowed to last for six months ; doubtless the only reason lay in the con- tinued hope of the Irish in a more equitable state of af- fairs. Then all at once the patience of the strangers came to an end, and some wild scenes ensued. Common cause was made with some German soldiers who had suffered a somewhat similar catastrophe to that of the Irish. The mutiny now spread rapidly. Two hundred of the Irish were now actively involved in this. The houses of several Portuguese and Brazilians were plundered, and some of the owners only just escaped with their lives. One of the most hated officers was a major, an Italian of the name of Teola, who, it was stated, had originally been a waiter in a hotel of the capital, but through the influence of a comely wife had obtained a commission in the German regiment. Since punishments were fre- quently brought about by fining the men, their oflScers had often enough been able to embezzle the greater part of their pay ; but none, it appears, had been so active in this form of transgression as Teola. LANDING STAGK, RIO UE JANIiIKO (liARLY XIX CENTURY) PUBLIC GARDENS, RIO DE JANEIRO (1835) J THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 333 When the mutiny broke out, he it^was who was the first set on by the German soldiers. As he rushed to make his escape over the wall of the barracks, he was caught and pulled down; he was then stabbed by the bayonets of the men and finally crushed to death by large stones, thrown on him by the enraged men. Two other oflBcers who attempted to take his part, were badly hurt. Rio de Janeiro was now thoroughly alarmed. The Brazilian troops were ordered under arms, and the min- ister of war gave instructions to the commandant, the Conde de Rio Pardo, *'to destroy every man: to give no quarter, but to exterminate the strangers" — a feat more easily ordered than done, now that the blood of the Irish was up. In the meanwhile the blacks and the rabble of the city were given permission to take up arms and to work their will upon the mutineers. That such a meas- ure as this should have been put into effect shows the depth of the hysterical terror to which the officials had been reduced ! The mutineers by now had been wrought into a condi- tion of complete fury. They sacked entire streets, and fired with enthusiasm into the ranks of the blacks and the rabble, who were attacking them, and, charging, paid off many old scores — while the streets were rapidly filling with dead and wounded. By this time, indeed, the mob had begun thoroughly to repent of its temerity. Seeing that the situation had got beyond them, the Brazilian Government applied to the British and French warships which lay at anchor in the harbor for landing parties of their respective marines, while the Portuguese troops, cooperating with these, displayed humanity, and endeav- ored, as far as was possible, to reason with the insurgents. These latter, in the end, submitted, and on the eve of the 12th of June everything was tranquil once again. In the meantime the scenes which had occurred in the streets had been terrible. The Negroes, mulattos, and a heterogeneous rabble had taken advantage of the license 334 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA to kill granted tliem by the authorities, quite regardless of the nationality and status of their victims. They had set upon every stranger they met, and the savagery com- mitted was as awful as the death roll itself. After these wild occurrences the Irish were released from the dungeons and other prisons into which they had been thrown to linger neglected, and were sent on various ships to their native land, where they had, perforce, to endeavor to take up again the broken thread of their lives. The unfortunate folk were accused of carrying away much plunder; but a search through their boxes revealed no evidence whatever of this. As a matter of fact, if ever circumstances justified plunder, they were surely those in which the Irish found themselves ! Some four hundred of the total number remained in Brazil, and, living their lives as private citizens, gradually accom- modated themselves to their surroundings. Two hundred and twenty of these were sent as a colony to the province of Bahia, and at Taparoa in the Comarca of Ilheos they were said to have become a thriving com- munity. All of the four hundred who remained, in fact, did well for themselves and for the country of their adop- tion, as would undoubtedly have been the case with the entire number, had they received the faintest encour- agement. Here is Mr. Walsh's description of his visit to one of those families who had taken up land in the Organ Moun- tains : * * The way led through the wildest scenery ; and on the bank of a river, in the center of a forest, we found these colonists. They had built a large and comfortable house with a rustic portico, and thatched it very neatly with palm branches, whose regular fronds formed a tasty roof, the stems and pinnate leaves of which were very elegantly disposed in the thatch. On the other side of the river, which we crossed by two trees forming a rustic bridge, was a large shed for cattle, and other conveniences ; and THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 335 rising up the hill was an extensive plantation of coffee, behind which, descending into a glen, was a rich field of Indian corn in high health, with gourds, mandioca, and a variety of other produce of Brazilian agriculture. On our return the good woman had prepared for us a plenti- ful dish of bacon and eggs, with fried cakes of maize; and our entertainment concluded with w^hisky, which our host had contrived to distil from his coffee plantation. When I contemplated this comfortable house and abun- dant farm, rescued from the heart of a Brazilian forest, cultivated by persons who in their own country could not make out a scanty livelihood in a miserable hovel, I could not help feeling the deepest regret, that 2400 who had left their homes were not, as they might have been, so located." Decidedly this is a picture of intelligent peace after the storm! About this period, as a matter of fact, the treatment of even the regular officers in the Brazilian service was not always marked by consideration. On one occasion a number of foreign officers, among them some British, were dismissed from their posts on parade, and they were hastened on board a European-bound vessel with such precipitation that they were unable to take even an over- coat with them! This savors of the kind of treatment accorded to unmasked conspirators, but apparently no charges of this kind were brought forward. That this kind of episode was the result of a petty tyranny on the part of the officials seems to be proved by the uncompromising manner in which leave was re- fused to many of the British officers in the Brazilian navy, even when this was asked for reasons of health. As a corrective to the depressing picture afforded by these unfortunate Irish, the case of Admiral Grenfell presents itself. Grenfell 's exact place in South Amer- ican history is a little difficult to locate. Beginning his career on that continent on the Pacific coast, he assisted 336 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA in achieving the independence of the Spanish colonies, and subsequently shared in the vicissitudes of Brazil both as kingdom and empire. Admiral Grenfell, this British sailor who made his mark in South American history, jumped into his man- hood's calling when he was little more than a child! He was born in 1800, and at eleven years of age he began his career as a midshipman in the service of the Honorable East India Company. This service he left — when a veteran of nineteen ! — to take up a lieutenancy under Lord Cochrane in the Chilean navy. Here he distinguished himself in the strenuous naval combats of the Pacific, and when, the independence of the west coast achieved, Lord Cochrane proceeded to the At- lantic to assume command of the Brazilian squadron, Grenfell accompanied his chief. As commander in the Brazilian navy Grenfell per- formed notable service in the capture of Para from the Portuguese. When the separation of Brazil from Por- tugal had become an assured fact, Grenfell remained as post-captain with the forces of the southern empire, and soon found himself, in command of an 18-gun brig, as one of the units opposed to the Buenos Aires naval forces commanded by that very gallant Irishman, Admiral Brown, whose extraordinary personal force went far to- ward counterbalancing the actual inferiority in strength of the Argentines. In the naval battle off Buenos Aires fought in July, 1826, in which Admiral Brown's vessel, after the fiercest resistance, was driven ashore a complete wreck, a cannon ball shattered Grenfell 's right arm, which was subse- quently amputated. In the operations attending the rebellion of the South- ern state of Rio Grande do Sul between the years 1835 and 1837, Grenfell, now Commodore, distinguished him- self not only in the campaign on the lakes and rivers, but in his relations with the rebels, the influence that he even- THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 337 tually acquired over these being one of the chief factors in the cessation of a very serious rebellion. For these services Grenfell was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and in 1840, hoisting his flag in the 50- gun frigate Constitution, he was placed in command of a squadron which — attended by warships respectively of Great Britain, the United States, and Portugal — carried the Emperor and Empress of Brazil for a tour of their southern provinces. In 1846, shortly after this, he sailed to England in the Constitution, and there took up the duties of consul-general of Brazil in Great Britain. In 1851, however, an outbreak of hostilities between Brazil and Buenos Aires called Grenfell from his con- sular duties to the scene of action in the river Plate, where he again hoisted his flag on the Constitution, and played a notable part in the war which ended in the down- fall of the Argentine dictator Rosas. At the end of the war Grenfell, having now attained to the rank of vice- admiral, returned to England to resume his appointment of consul-general. Grenfell 's career is not the only one which goes to prove that the Brazilians of that period were fully capable of rewarding meritorious service. There is no doubt, however, that considerable inconvenience, and occasional hardship were frequently caused by the sudden impulses of the Emperor, which tended to bring schemes into being without sufiBcient forethought. The Emperor Pedro I of Brazil was in many respects a most impetuous person. Of what other temperament could be one who would walk about his palace at daybreak, discharging his shotgun to wake up his family ! When he flung himself in medias res it was with the fury of a Prussian guardsman charging into a neutral country! Here is one of the most striking instances of this. The official news of his father's death in Lisbon reached Rio on the 25th of April, 1826. This, of course, left the crown of Portugal in the hands of Pedro, and he forthwith 338 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA plunged into as strenuous a week as any king or emperor could desire. Within that period he had created new peers for a brand-new chamber, had framed a new code of laws, and, in fact, had provided Portugal with a new constitution ! When he had achieved all this, he abdicated in favor of his daughter. Dona Maria, on the 2nd of May. So on this occasion at least Portugal might boast of a king who had scarcely wasted an hour of his entire reign — of six days ! There can seldom have been a more complete antithesis of the mountain which was in labor and which produced a mouse! The exigencies of the political situation had caused Sir Charles Stuart, the British ambassador to Lisbon, to be in Eio just then and he was on the eve of his return to Portugal. His amazement may be imagined when Pedro sent for him, and produced a bundle of papers, which he begged him to take back with him to Lisbon. The package contained the new constitution of Portugal, he explained, to which he had devoted the greater part of the past week ! This feverish feat was all the more remarkable in an age that knew nothing of the bustle of the present day. When royal mails and messengers lay at the mercy of any freak of wind and tide, a delay of some weeks might well cause less comment than an unpunctuality of some hours in the twentieth century. It is said — and there seems no particular reason to doubt — that the first news of one of the revolutions in Para in the early days of the Brazilian Empire was brought to Rio de Janeiro from Para in sixty days by a British sailing vessel hy way of England. The reasons for this extraordinary occurrence were, in the first place, the utter want of land communications ; and in the second, the unusual strength of the ocean current running north- wards from Bahia, which, further impeded by a spell of southerly winds, no vessel could stem. The Emperor Pedro I, it may be remarked, had taken THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 339 some pains to learn the English language, and in his younger days he studied this under Father Tilbury, an English priest resident in Rio. At a later period he re- sumed his acquaintance with the language in less academic circumstances. His fount of knowledge then was an Eng- lish groom, whose linguistic specialty most unfortunately consisted in a liberal stock of expletives and adjectival Billingsgate ! Thus it would happen that not only the Emperor, but the dainty and charming Empress as well, would inter- lard their English conversation with the most appalling oaths and the most vulgar solecisms under the impression that these were mere colloquial amenities! The story sounds almost too humorous to be founded on fact, but it is given on good authority, and is, I believe, perfectly true. But the sensations of such British as listened to these strings of unconscious oaths without daring to ex- plain their real meaning to these royal victims of a groom's tongue must have been curious! CHAPTER XVIII THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL (v) The British fleet and Portuguese royalty — The abdication of Pedro I — His relations with his subjects — Movements of the diplomatic corps — Attitude of the United States minister — Arrival of the royal mes- sengers on board H.M.S. Warspite — Description of the occurrences by one of the Warspite's oflicers — Conferences vi^ith the French admiral — Portuguese merchants and officers seek the protection of the Brit- ish vessel — The Braganga family arrives on board the Warspite — Their reception — Humorous account by a spectator — Impression made by one of the Warspite's officers — Conferences with the French admiral — Incidents attending the arrival — Pedro's philosophy — How he oc- cupied himself with his courtiers — What his trunks revealed — Epi- sodes on the deck of the Warspite — Pedro's speech at a lev^e — A dramatic interlude — The Emperor exhibits the remnant of his army — Account of the abdication by Kidder and Fletcher — The guests of the Warspite — Duties of some members of the crew — The royal fam- ily is dunned by creditors from the shore — Methods by which Pedro comforted his consort — The Emperor attends to business — Some finan- cial transactions — Scenes in Rio — Triumphal entry of the Child- Emperor Pedro II — Some details of the procession and of the decora- tions — Proclamation of an actor — How the Empress learned of what was happening on shore — Pedro's remarkable behavior on the War- spite — Further dramatic episodes — Uneasiness in Rio — Fatal riot- ing — The royal family prepare to sail — Manner in which the Emperor parted from the remnant of his army — An imperial packing up — Some ludicrous incidents — Complications of etiquette — Transfer of the imperial party from the Warspite to a French frigate — Episodes of the leave-taking — Departure of the royal family from Brazil. WHETHER from mere intuition, or from a policy of profound foresight, the British fleet seemed to be invariably at hand when any question arose of the conveyance of Portuguese or Brazilian royalty! So it happened in 1831 when the Emperor Pedro was about to abdicate his throne in favor of his infant son and to shake the dust of Brazil from his feet, he turned to Mr. Aston, the British charge 340 THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 341 d'affaires, and, indicating the British fleet at anchor in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, exclaimed, *'Let us send to Admiral Baker for some boats ! ' ' This was easier said than done, for a wide breach yawned between Pedro and his subjects, and Pedro's few adherents that remained at the palace regarded with dismay the turmoil in the streets, where the populace had taken matters into their own hands. Pedro was now in a fever to leave the town which had shown itself so un- appreciative of his somewhat mixed virtues. He impa- tiently waved aside the suggestion of the British charge d'affaires that there was no need for so very hasty a departure. At length a young captain of artillery and a chamberlain of stronger nerve than the rest came for- ward to solve the difficulty, and the message was sent. Pedro had his faults, but a lack of personal bravery was not among them. On more than one occasion he had displayed high physical courage, but now the situation seemed to inspire him with a sudden species of panic, and scarcely had the messengers left when he ordered carriages to be in readiness to convey himself, his family, and his suite to the beach. In the meantime the ministers of the European powers met in a body in order to impress the need for public order upon the revolutionists, and to wait upon the Em- peror to find out from his own lips if he had really ab- dicated. Mr. Brown, the American charge d'affaires, held strictly aloof from all interference with the move- ment, and his abstention gained him a wide popularity among the Brazilians. In the circumstances it was but natural that the mon- archy of Brazil should have been regarded coldly by the United States. Seen through North American spectacles, Brazil of that period was a royal weed intruding in a gaVden of republics. The United States minister, in con- sequence, was in search of no metaphorical earth with which to bank up its loosening roots! 342 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA After this the scene may be transferred to H.M.S. War- spite, on whose trim deck in the middle of the night a gi- gantic master-at-arms was holding a lantern to the faces of two uniformed Brazilians who had come out from the shore in a boat. They delivered a message from Dom Pedro, begging that boats might be sent, if possible before daylight, for the conveyance of the royal family and the remnants of the court from the shore to the Warspite. After some unavoidable delay, owing to the fact that Admiral Baker was on shore at the time, and that it was diplomatically essential to communicate with the French flagship which lay at anchor near by, the Warspite awoke to action. For the remaining events of that notable flitting we may rely on the description of one of the Warspite' s offi- cers whose services as interpreter were brought into requisition. It will be seen from his account that our naval spectator was endowed with some humor as well as with a keen gift of observation. It is fortunate for posterity that he was present, for his remarks show the closest appreciation of the tragedy as well as the lighter vein of the situation. He says : ''The dead silence in which our good ship lay buried was now suddenly broken by a shrill call. . . . The Ad- miral sent an order to despatch two armed boats and to inform the French commander-in-chief of it. The latter was also to be asked whether he was going to San Chris- tavao himself or how he intended to arrange matters; since according to the latest agreement both were to act in strict accordance. I was desired to accompany the acting lieutenant for the purpose of translating the mes- sage and the answer. When we came on board the Dryade, a large double banked 60-gun frigate, ... we found all the Frenchmen on their legs. Although rather early (2 a.m.) they were dressed as for full parade, and in high glee. The flattering idea of seeing a new edition of their own glorious trois jours published in the New / THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 343 World evidently filled them with the utmost delight. We perceived this plainly enough even in speaking to the Contre-Admiral, the Captain Le Tourneur, from whom we learned that they were likewise sending two boats now, and after that their ' chaloupe montee plusieurs cannon- ades' in order to protect the embarkation of their majes- ties, if by chance it should be opposed by the mob. ''When we returned to board the War spite we met our Commander-in-Chief, accompanied by the Captain. Both repaired to the French flagship, where a nocturnal naval and diplomatic cabinet council was held. ''I now stood leaning on the poop-nettings and listened to the violent dashing of oars produced by the four allied boats, which were hastily pulling toward the Ilha dos Ratos, until they were lost in heaviness and darkness. . . . ''The imperial palace of Boa Vista or San Christavao was lying half an English mile from the beach and four miles west of the city. The latter was situated in a straight line between it and our ship. It was a round- about way by water, and more than seven miles pulling with a strong ebb running. "The arrival of our expected illustrious refugees was long preceded by that of several Portuguese merchants and officers, who came to seek an asylum against assassin- ation. But the Admiral desired me to explain to them that he and the ministers had agreed to remain perfectly neutral in any struggle that might ensue between the Lusitanian and Brazilian parties, and he requested them to leave the ship instantly. They went away amid much lamentations and loud requests to Heaven to protect them. I became affected by these painful transactions and ad- vised the poor fellows to keep themselves quietly in their boats at a short distance from us ; assuring them that they were secure for the moment lying under the guns of the British flagship. ..." At daybreak on the 7th of April, when the thunder of the morning guns had scarcely died away, four boats were 344 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA seen pulling toward the fleet from the shore. A rapid survey convinced the fleet that this was the actual arrival of the royal party, and both the British and French admirals prepared to receive their distinguished guests. The Royal Marines were turned out and stood on guard, while every oflBcer stood smart and resplendent. The barge which contained the Braganca family now came sweeping alongside the Warspite. Everything was prepared for their reception. The sailors stood at the salute and the marines presented arms. Admiral Baker, with respectful cordiality, descended the accommodation ladder to assist the Empress out of the boat. At this point I must retire in favor of our naval chronicler, who has indeed depicted the scene with a humorous frankness which no doubt fits it very well, and which, in any case, relieves the present writer of all responsibility! Here is his account: '' Admiral Baker went down the accommodation ladder to assist the Empress out of the boat; but Dom Pedro, with his usual presence of mind, pulled her back, saying in Portuguese : 'Recollect my dear, you have no breeches on.' He then turned to our captain who was with them and called for a chair to have her Majesty hoisted in. That officer touched his cocked hat in regretting that such an article was not to be had, and assured him that the ladder was quite safe. Dom Pedro exclaimed, very an- grily, 'Mais elle n'a point de pantalon.' His sister, the Marchioness de Louie, now respectfully scolded her ' cJier frere,' for making a noise about such a bagatelle, and swore she had been herself the other day 'sans calecons' up and do\\Ti this very ladder, and never experienced the least inconvenience. The Empress, upon this, took the Admiral's arm, and ascended it, whilst her careful and august husband kept grumbling about the catastrophe." It is obvious that Pedro's periodical troublesome lack of dignity was at the moment asserting itself somewhat strongly. Indeed, it would be absurd to attempt to es- THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 345 timate his conduct as an emperor by the grotesque scenes in which he participated on board the Warspite. The finest men have their weakest moments, and this crisis in his affairs seems to have caught Pedro in an almost clownishly ridiculous and fussy mood. Nevertheless the solemnity of the occasion was impressed in various ways. The Portuguese national anthem was struck up by the bands as the Empress set foot on the Warspite, and the sight of the distress of this charming lady moved the en- tire ship's company. Indeed, the soft-hearted tars gave audible signs of their feelings, and on all sides, from the young officers to the hardened quarter-masters, handker- chiefs were freely displayed. Scarcely eighteen months had gone by since they had seen her, a happy and wel- comed bride, entering the harbor she was now so sadly leaving. Leaning on the arm of the British admiral, her face was deadly pale, and she was unable to restrain the tears from dropping from her eyes. She passed along the front of the Eoyal Marines, her fair hair shining on her bowed head, side by side with the silvery locks of the Admiral. When she arrived at the door of the cabin which had been prepared for her, the French admiral ad- vanced to play his part. It had been his British con- frere's duty to receive the Empress Amelie at the foot of the ladder — it was his to escort her to her cabin. As it happened, the French admiral was a very old friend of the Empress. He had been aide-de-camp to her father during the expedition to Moscow. By a curious coincidence this amphibious warrior had actually held her in his arms on many occasions when she was a small child. The Empress tottered toward him with hands out- stretched, and the old sailor was himself somewhat over- come at meeting her in such tragic circumstances. Tak- ing her hand he shook it heartily, saying, *' Courage, je vous en prie. Courage! Resignation!" But for once the unfortunate empress's resolution failed her. She 346 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA burst into sobs, sank down on the sofa, and, hiding her fair face in her handkerchief, gave herself up to bitter grief. The next to board the Warspite was the young Queen of Portugal, Dona Maria. She, although less moved than the Empress, as was natural to her twelve years, was sufficiently sad of face, and appeared miserable and frightened. It was the Emperor himself who supplied the other side of the picture. He wore a brown frock coat, a round hat, and came jauntily up the side of the ship, much as though he were starting on some chance picnic. He was, indeed, per- fectly tranquil but somewhat absentminded, since he had much to attend to and was apparently anxious not to lose any opportunity of carrying through his final financial transactions in the comparatively short time which re- mained to him. Entering the cabin, he came upon his sorrowing wife. He embraced the recumbent form en passant and ejac- ulated in somewhat trite consolation, ''Be tranquil, you will see your mother again very soon. ' ' But Amelie was not to be so lightly comforted. She was grieving less for herself than for the child whom she was expecting and who was thus to be cut off from the honors of Pedro's lost, or rather rejected, empire. A study of Pedro, just at this period, reveals how many sides to his nature it is possible for a man to possess. Although he had shown no little fussiness concerning the embarkation of the luggage, he seems to have retained his presence of mind in all other respects, notwithstanding the fact that a small hostile crowd had assembled in the neighborhood of the palace of San Christovao, and had burst out into yells and hisses. It was the Admiral's barge which had been prepared for the reception of the royal party, but at the sight of this the Emperor made an unexpected protest. This barge had a gun mounted in its bows, and he feared that. THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 347 should tie depart in this, it might be said that he had fled in an armed boat, fearful of the Brazilians. He chose, therefore, the second barge, which was without any such significant weapon. Thus with an eye to the verdict of futurity, Pedro left the shores of his surrendered em- pire. Eoyal families, even in adversity, are seldom unen- cumbered with adherents, and this the Warspite was now destined to find out. Her decks soon became crowded to suffocation by members of the suite and other refugees of all descriptions, who for some reason or other — in this particular case usually an interested one — clung to the imperial family. Dom Pedro, himself, now became extremely busy after his own fashion. He went ceaselessly to and fro, in- specting and overhauling his countless chests and boxes. He frequently ran up the ladder in order to carry one of these boxes with his own royal hands. According once again to our naval chronicler, ''He ran to and fro, quarreled with the chamberlains, scolded his domestics, hailed people alongside, and made a great noise." It is sentences such as this that incarnate our royal traveler in a joyful ecstasy of fussing. The great heaps of baggage, as a matter of fact, told their own tale ; they were fitted with new frames fastened to the sides, and fresh pieces of wood were attached to the bottoms of the leather trunks. Thus was revealed the preparation which had doubtless been effected by Pedro himself, whose talent as a joiner was considerable. If ever there were straws which showed in which direction the wind had blown, surely none were more accurately represented than by this huge mass of carefully pre- pared portmanteaus and trunks ! About noon Pedro was awakened from his preoccupa- tion concerning his luggage by the sound of guns fired from the shore : he ran hurriedly to the side of the vessel. The noise created considerable consternation among the 348 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA fugitive Portuguese. Presently it was discovered that these were salutes being fired in honor of little Pedro — the little Pedro who had been largely overlooked by his father in the course of the past few strenuous hours, and who had now been brought from Sao Christovao and shown to the people. The inhabitants of Rio had lost no time in offering their devotion to the first and only white monarch ever born on American soil! Even after this interlude it was some time before Pedro found leisure to return to the inspection of his baggage, for ambassadors, envoys, ministers, and other officials now came off in flocks to the War spite. Pedro, seeing that the ceremony was unavoidable, now prepared him- self for a species of levee. He took his stand between the two scuttles on the quarter-deck, and here he received all those officials who came trooping up from the com- panion-ladder. His attitude appears to have been de- cidedly casual, for he returned their deep official bows merely with a slight nod. The only person whom he favored with anything like a profound inclination was the papal legate, the Archbishop of Tarsis. Presently a formidable circle of diplomats and others surrounded the ex-Emperor, and he began to deliver an unofficial speech, holding one hand in his breeches pocket, and twirling his bushy mustachios with the other. The scene must have been curious, for Pedro spoke in jerks and casual conversational tones. The following is rep- resented to be more or less the actual wording of some of his phrases : *'I expect there will be a revolution in this country such as took place in France last year. I have been be- trayed for a long while. The Brazilians do not like me : they look upon me as a Portuguese. But I have never been afraid of them : I went down to the mines. I went into the streets the day before yesterday, when they were fighting on all sides. What on earth could I do, when the people assembled in the Campo de Santa Anna had THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 349 the impudence to tell me to dismiss my ministers? I had n't enough troops to disperse a mob like that. I was quite ready to put myself at the head of my guard, but — it had left me." Having concluded this portion of his oration, Pedro apparently felt himself somewhat at a loss. As a mat- ter of fact, he had very little to say and was striving for as many words as possible to cover as few facts as pos- sible. At this point he was seized with an inspiration. His eye had lit upon four soldiers, who were lying in a state of torpor, stretched on the deck in the neighbor- hood of the mainmast of the Warspite. These he hailed, and, seeing that they responded with inadequate alac- rity, he ran to them, hauled them with considerable dif- ficulty on to their legs, pulled, and straightened them into a line, and then seized them by their shoulders and en- deavored to give them a martial appearance, which seemed quite foreign to their nature. The spectators had by this time become somewhat em- barrassed, for the scene was, to say the least of it, unex- pected. Pedro was determined to see it through to the bitter end. He pointed out the four unhappy men with a dramatic gesture. The unfortunate beings, as a mat- ter of fact, had been left behind at Sao Christavao by their comrades, who had not troubled to wake them: hence their presence on board. But of this Pedro was either ignorant or careless, very probably the former. '^Yes," continued the Emperor, ''all my troops have left me except these brave gargons." He turned to the men. "Joao, Antonio, Manoel, Luiz, you indeed, have now reason for pride!" Seeing that this left the four martial beings comparatively cold, he turned again to the spectators and continued: ''Here are the re- mains of my army. What could I do against the popu- lace?" The diplomats preserved a discreet silence. It was, indeed, not their metier to reply to questions such as 350 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA these. Pedro, at this tacit acknowledgment of his help- lessness, added with much satisfaction, ''So I abdicated in favor of my son who was born in Brazil, and they have this morning proclaimed him emperor. ' ' Pedro had finished. With a curt bow he dismissed his audience and withdrew to his cabin. I give the Emperor's words on the authority of our naval chronicler. It is just possible, of course, that his sense of humor has urged him to overcolor the picture just a little here. It certainly bears little resemblance to the vision conjured up by the words of Kidder and Fletcher, who say of Pedro at this juncture that ''at length, like the noble stag of Landseer, singled out by the hounds, he stood alone. Deserted, harassed, irritated, and fatigued beyond description, with sadness, yet with grace, he yielded to the circumstances, and took the only measure consistent with his convictions and the dignity of his imperial office." Messrs. Kidder and Fletcher, of course, had not been on board the Warspite. But, if they had, their verdict might well have remained unaltered. They might with entire justice have attributed these totally unstage-like moments to the surprisingly wide sweep of the human temperamental pendulum! It seemed that there were times when the further Pedro swung himself into the heroic, the more rapidly he came tumbling back, head over heels, into the ridiculous — and vice versa. All this time the ship's carpenters of the Warspite had been busy, and tremendous efforts had been made to accommodate the crowd of uninvited guests that now thronged the vessel. The least concerned of all seemed Pedro's daughter, the young Queen of Portugal, who very soon after her arrival on board obtained some fish- ing lines, and spent a considerable portion of her time in angling from the stern-walk of the vessel. But the poor girl was evidently tiring of her surroundings, and of the incessant bustle which pervaded them. THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 351 For a really racy description of these circumstances I must again refer to the naval chronicler several times previously quoted : "It would have been confusion worse confounded," says that observant person, "if that smart and true- blooded British officer (the Warspite's captain) had not kept such excellent order among the multitude of stran- gers, which amounted to upwards of one hundred and fifty persons of all ranks, ages, and sexes. His own cabin consisting of two partitions assumed the char- acter of an Eastern harem, filled as it was with Por- tuguese, Brazilians, Germans, French and Negro females, who were holding the offices of ladies-in- waiting, governesses, handmaids, and chambermaids, dry and wet nurses or washing women, to all the differ- ent majesties, highnesses and excellencies. The oldest sergeant of the Royal Marines got promoted to the rank of acting 'Kislar Aga' or quasi-chief of eunuchs. He was ordered to keep a sharp eye upon the door of that floating seraglio, where moreover, a vigilant sentry was posted, who, with his ramrod, fended off the male part of the community. ' ' It will be seen from all these circumstances that as a handy-man the British sailorman proved himself as ef- ficient on this occasion as he has proved on many other occasions. While all this was occurring on the Warspite, there were many citizens ashore who viewed the departure of the royal family with concern and even with active dis- may. Among these were trades people who had claims on some of its members. Dom Pedro and his sister, the Marchioness de Louie, are said to have been keenly mourned by these interested citizens ! This unfortunate lady, indeed, had been living on credit for some time, and now shore-boats laden to the gunwale with credit- ors and duns floated about the harassed Warspite, and clamorous and importunate traders demanded that Dom 352 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Pedro and his family should concede them their rights on the subject while there yet remained time. The Empress Amelie herself, notwithstanding her sor- row and her condition, was plagued almost to distraction by these clamorous creditors. Time after time the un- fortunate lady appealed to her husband. But Pedro was ever better at collecting money than at disbursing it, and now showed himself reluctant in the extreme to sign the necessary bills. From time to time the Empress's feelings completely overcame her, and when pestered more than usual she would endeavor to withdraw to her private apartment. On such occasions, to do him justice, Pedro's affections overcame his financial considerations. He would re- strain his afflicted spouse, and, drawing her back, impress upon her a hearty kiss before all the spectators, and then yield to her desires and satisfy one creditor more. On the following day Pedro held a levee of an entirely different kind to that previously attended by the politi- cians. Once again I quote from the naval authority: **The ex-monarch held a sort of levee in the course of the following day, where he received a parcel of money- brokers, Jews, slave-dealers and stock-jobbers, who came on board to see how the wind was. . . . When he per- ceived Mr. Buschental, a German Israelite, among the crowd, he exclaimed with much vivacity, 'Oho, Senhor Buschental, you are here too ! I assure you if I had not been absent in Minas Geraes, you would never have suc- ceeded in that job with the copper money of the bank.' The Jew did not blush but he looked blue, to the great amusement of the bystanders." While these curious scenes were occurring on board the Warspite, Rio de Janeiro had given itself up to re- joicing. "The King is afloat: God save the King!" was the cry of the townspeople, and the streets, festooned with coffee branches, were made to glow with colored silks, while the balconies were thronged with senoritas THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 353 in all their finery of brilliant dresses, garlands, fluttering fans, and feather flowers. The officers of the Warspite whom I have already quot- ed had gone ashore with a number of his brother officers to see the sights. He witnessed the triumphal entry into his capital of the new emperor, Dom Pedro II, the little lad of five and a half years of age. At this period it seems to have been willed by the gods of the ridiculous that no event, however fateful, should occur in the capi- tal of Brazil unless it were accompanied by some mar- ring touches of unconscious humor. The opening group of the procession of the child-em- peror was composed of justices of the peace bearing green flags in their hands. Alas! many of the worthy justices were in acute and unstable trouble with their mounts, and when the cavalcade surged uncomfortably past, there rose an irrepressible titter from the British naval officers, more especially from the midshipmen, who recognized with no little malicious glee the livery stable steeds from whose tricks their own equilibrium had fre- quently suffered. As for the poor child, Pedro II himself, what a figure was this ! A tiny infant in a huge state coach, dragged by four strings of excited mulattoes! He cried, prob- ably because weeping was part of the routine of his ten- der years, and at the same time waved a white handker- chief, doubtless instigated strenuously to this by his nurse, who sat opposite him. The tender hearted Brazilians, every man and woman of their number a child-adorer, were altogether over- come by the sight, and even the choir that accompanied the procession was by no means immune. Its trium- phant chant occasionally died away to an emotional quiver. Can one conceive a stranger medley of events, when all the while the mob of blacks were thronging the Emperor's palace and shouldering their way more or less where they would? 354 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Even the walls were eloquent. According to the same writer, on many of these were pasted posters advertising a piece to be performed at the imperial theater of Sao Pedro de Alcantara that night. This had been written in feverish haste for the occasion, and was entitled, "The Downfall of the Tyrant." Could London with all its "cinemas" produce an instance to beat this for rapidity of production ! That an entire drama should be written, dramatized', cast, and performed all in the space of twen- ty-four hours is surely a breathless triumph — a thun- derbolt enterprise! Nor was this all. The actor who was cast for the part of the tyrant evidently had some well-grounded fears concerning the nature of his reception when on the boards. Perhaps his confidence in his histrionic powers justified his doubts. Perhaps, on the other hand, he dreaded lest the mere part in which his lines had been cast should bring outrage upon him. At all events he had attached to the poster the following advertisement: Gentlemen, Allow me to call your attention to the circumstances of my performing to-night the character of the tyrant. Heaven is my witness that there is nothing tyrannical about me ; my heart has always beat for liberty, and our glorious Constitution. The atti- tudes which I shall be called upon to assume on the stage are in direct opposition to my real feelings. The more perfectly I shall have the honor of representing the monster to you, the more I beg to disclaim any similarity between me and the despot. Your most humble servant, Jose de Baeros. What species of reception Jose de Barros actually met with on his appearance in character I have no means of knowing. Let us trust for his cautious sake, that it was as unenthusiastic as he desired ! These scenes appear to have been carefully noted by the chronicler from the Warspite. He had been ashore and this is what he said on his return : THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 355 ''The Admiral's eye caught me as I came upon the quarter-deck. He asked what news I brought from the shore. On my relating what I had seen, he took me into the cabin, where he introduced me to the Empress, say- ing, 'Voila Monsieur X, qui a tout vu!' She nodded gracefully, and replied, 'Monsieur, parle-t-il francaisf Upon this hint I spake French, and gave her ex-Majesty a circumstantial account of the whole turn-out, which she frequently interrupted by putting to me various ques- tions about the appearance, demeanor, and dress of the juvenile emperor and his three elder sisters, the Prin- cesses Francisco, Paula, and Januaria. She enquired re- specting the attitude and behavior of the new regency, the officers, troops, armed people, and spectators. ' ' I told her that the public had been swimming in tears, and the scene proved 'tout a fait touchante/ especially when the young sovereign was carried out of the chapel in the arms of an old chamberlain. I assured her that he then looked quite 'comme un ange car esse par des demons/ considering that a phalanx of black women made a loyal attack on him, in order to kiss the seam of his garment, etc. She was evidently much interested and moved, and 'gave me for my pains a world of sighs,' as Othello would say. My vanity was not a little flat- tered by the effect which this extempore speech of mine produced on the nerves of the august personage before me. I was just going to continue with increased elo- quence, when Dom Pedro I, with a boxful of silver spoons and forks under his arm, rushed in and briskly asked, 'What is the matter, what is the matter?' (Que tern, que temf) On my stating that, by order of the Admiral, I was relating to her Majesty the events of this day, he exclaimed impatiently, 'I know already! I know every- thing! J a sei, ja sei tudof He then put his precious burden on the table and added, turning toward the Em- press: 'N'importe, mon chere! prenons garde a nos affaires ici!' Upon this I bowed to her, and withdrew. 356 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA very much pleased with Amelia and my own insignificant person, but very little with Pedro." On the Warspite, many of the events continued to be of the comic opera order. When events of state were to the fore, Pedro's energy was not found lacking, it must be admitted ; but when time lay more idly on his hands, he comforted his restless spirit by a ceaseless sequence of poses. Thus on the first Sunday of his board-ship life, he de- sired to see the Royal Marines drilled. This corps was accordingly mustered, and was drilled on the quarter deck. Dom Pedro together with his family and his suite seated themselves on the poop and constituted a most appreciative gallery. Dom Pedro, as usual, was inimit- able. He had borrowed a telescope, a yard or more in length, and with this held to his eye, he was gazing with intent rapture at the manceuvering men. When the per- formance was over, he laid down his spy-glass with a deep sigh, and said with dramatic emphasis, "A sover- eign who has such troops must be happy." All this while it must not be thought that the coy ex- Emperor was being neglected by the people on shore. It is true that very few Brazilians showed themselves on the Warspite; but a great number of Portuguese and many foreigners came to pay their respects to the royal family. The sovereign received the Portuguese with effusion. Some he embraced, and on the shoulders of others he wept. The bystanders remarked, however, that although in some cases these tears might have been genuine, in others they were only with difficulty squeezed to the surface, and perhaps occasionally did not make their appearance at all. A little later Dom Pedro 's former field marshal, Count Rio Pardo, arrived on board the Warspite, having fled from the shore as he had reason to suspect a plot to as- sassinate him. Dom Pedro employed the circumstance in order to engineer another demonstration. With one THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 357 arm he held the General closely embraced ; with the other he surrounded the shoulders of his intimate friend and valet-de-chamhre, Carlota. Thus supported he stood be- tween them absolutely motionless and silent for more than ten minutes! During all this while his large dark eyes were alternately fastened on the deck at his feet and on the sky above. He was now beginning to take no little interest in the affairs of the Warspite, and he soon became so accus- tomed to his surroundings that his restless spirit could no longer keep itself tranquil. Thus one night at eleven o'clock he hastened all round the ship and blew all the sentries' lights out! He explained the reason for this when he returned, happy in the consciousness of duty done, to the quarter-deck. This procedure, he said, was necessary on a man-of-war where such large quantities of gunpowder were stored ! What was one to do with a guest such as this? Surely never was a being who indulged in such a pure debauch of good intentions gone astray! Doubtless some of the oflScers of the Warspite after a few experiences of the kind began to sympathize somewhat with the restlessness of the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro. The capital, as a matter of fact, instead of being tran- quillized, was suffering from another panic of alarm. It was rumored ashore that Dom Pedro had already re- pented of his abdication. Groups of citizens gathered again in consternation in the famous Campo de Santa Anna, or, as it was now termed, Campo da Honra. From there the reported tidings spread like wildfire. The ex- Emperor was determined to come into his own again! He proposed to land at the head of the entire marine force of the British and French squadrons ! The crowd heard with growing anger that the Portu- guese inhabitants of Eio had banded together to assist their monarch! The result was a more serious bout of rioting than before, and a number of the unfortunate 358 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Portuguese were murdered on the night following this wild statement. However baseless were these rumors, it was becoming evident that their bare existence was causing much mischief, and both the British and French admirals now came to the conclusion that the sooner Dom Pedro left Brazil the better it would be for that country and for himself. After much talking over arrangements with the august emigrant, it was finally decided that he and his royal wife should sail for Europe in the British frigate Volage, and that the young Queen of Portugal, Dona Maria, and her aunt, the Marchioness of Louie, should depart in the French frigate La Seine on the Wednesday following. No sooner was this resolution arrived at than the Ad- miral saw to it that it was posted up in the public build- ings of the capital, and notified in the leading news- papers. The effect of this measure was to pour oil on the troubled human waters. The shedding of blood ceased forthwith, and tranquillity and peace returned at length to Rio de Janeiro. Seeing that his many tasks were very nearly at an end, the ex-Emperor turned to a matter which lay near to his hand. This was the disposal of the four men whom he had introduced to the ministers and officials as his army ! He appears to have been unwilling to carry the quartette with him to Europe. Nothing remained then but to pen- sion off these apparently devoted and loyal beings — since with a certain lack of consideration they had con- tinued to remain on board the Warspite. Pedro handed them their pensions in a lump sum which amounted to the equivalent of seven shillings and sixpence apiece! He then sent them ashore to enjoy this somewhat modest reward of a faithfulness — which in itself was more moderate than he had known ! Pedro had written his farewell letters: he was now occupied in packing up his goods for transshipment from THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 359 the Warspite to the Volage, which was being held in readi- ness for his reception. So here we have Pedro once again breaking into another outburst of his unconscious clowning. He would bustle into his cabin and would re- appear laden with all kinds of ornaments and domestic implements. Everything which he seemed specially to cherish, and this included a considerable proportion of his total possessions, he insisted on carrying down to the boats himself. One can imagine the faces of the officers and the crew, and the hardly concealed grins of the latter as his burdened Majesty passed fussily through their midst. Occasionally when Dom Pedro had unearthed some ob- ject which he considered of special interest he would in a good-natured but quite ludicrous fashion exhibit it to the officers on the quarter-deck, and thus make a halt in his journeying. One of these treasures was a cumbrous clock which he insisted on winding up and causing to strike for the edification of the officers of the Warspite, who no doubt endeavored to show as much delight and interest as was possible under the circumstances. After which, having exclaimed that it was a dear keepsake from his blessed grandmamma, the Queen of Spain, Pe- dro hastened down the gangway with his clock and re- turned in search of further objects for removal. The British and French diplomatic corps now came off from the shore and arrived on board the Warspite in order to be present at the departure of the Queen of Portugal, whom the French admiral Grivel was going to escort to his frigate the Seine for conveyance to Europe. This, it is said, was the ship which carried Charles X the previous year to England. Moreover, by a very curious coincidence there were anchored together in the harbor at this time the British frigate Undaunted which took Napoleon Bonaparte to the Island of Elba, and the French brig Inconstant in which he escaped from his 360 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA captivity at that place. There were, indeed, as the mate of the signals on board the Warspite observed '' plenty of royal mails and imperial coaches" in the harbor. The abdication of Dom Pedro had caused some diffi- culties in the matter of etiquette. One of these was con- cerned with the ethics of the salute. Thus, although young Queen Dona Maria of Portugal was entitled to her full number of guns, her father could no longer lay claim to any considerable expenditure of powder. It is possible that Pedro's own hand may be traced behind the note which the principal lady-in-waiting of Dona Maria had written on the morning of the day of departure to Admiral Grivel: M. Admiral, Her Majesty the Queen of Portugal desires me to ask you to be good enough to abstain from giving her the honors due to her station when she leaves the ship to embark on the Seine. Her Majesty does not wish to receive such demonstrations in the pres- ence of her father who can no longer be given them, and she asks you to communicate her feelings on the subject to Admiral Baker. I take this opportunity to express my esteem. . . . Eleonore de Camara. In reply to this the gallant French admiral expressed his admiration for her Majesty's delicate sentiments and filial piety, and assured her of his obedience to her com- mands in this matter. As fate would have it, he had no option but to break his word within a very short time. When the moment of the departure of the young Queen Dona Maria de Gloria arrived, the officers of the Warspite seem to have done their best to mark the occasion with as much polite pomp and ceremony as possible. The ship's band played the special hymn of Dona Maria de Gloria, as the admiral conducted that young monarch to his French comrade's boat, which was waiting at the foot of the gangway. From the mainmast of the Warspite flew the standard of Portugal, and alas! just as the royal child of twelve stepped into the small craft there thun- THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 361 dered out the first of the ^ns of the royal salute. This, of course, was in direct contravention to the desire ex- pressed, and the mistake was put down to the absent- minded enthusiasm of the gunner, although this latter swore roundly that his original orders had never been countermanded. The most embarrassing feature of the situation was that, while the Warspite was banging and blazing away her salute, the French frigate had of necessity to remain silent, and apparently cold and unsnoved. The gallant French admiral was flabbergasted. Only one thing re- mained for him to do. Instead of pulling direct for the Seine he ordered his men to row his barge to the frigate Driade. Here he shouted hurried instructions, and as a consequence this vessel, too, began to bellow forth her homage, and thus, having by two wrongs righted the mat- ter, the Admiral continued to escort the young Queen to the Seine. The ceremonies of the day were not yet over on board the Warspite. The Queen of Portugal having departed, it was now the turn of Dom Pedro and his wife to say farewell. The entire ship's company appears to have been on the qui vive when the youthful Empress made her appearance on deck, and admiration and homage glowed in the eyes of officers and men. Indeed, this beautiful great lady maintained a justly deserved popularity to the last. She apparently had but to be natural in order to charm. She advanced to where the Admiral stood waiting, shook hands with him cor- dially, and gave him her plain and sincere thanks for the hospitality extended to her and for the various atten- tions she had received. She then took his arm, bowed to the Guard of the Royal Marines, and made a graceful courtesy toward the crowd of officers. She then drew out a white handkerchief and waved it kindlj^ toward the wildly enthusiastic groups of middies. Thus, ha\dng pleased all hearts, she passed to the side under the escort 362 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA of the Admiral, and rapidly descended the accommodation ladder. A moment or two later Dom Pedro emerged from his cabin, and on this occasion he showed himself in perhaps the most unfortunate of his moods. His chief commer- cial agent, a Polish Jew, had come on board some time previously, and had been awaiting his Majesty's ap- pearance with an eager and anxious countenance. There were last messages to be given, final instructions to be taken, and doubtless a good deal to be managed to the profit of Pedro, and incidentally to his own. Catching sight of his agent, Pedro halted abruptly on his way to the accommodation ladder and soon the two, forgetful of all else, were deep in matters of slaves, goods, and landed property which Pedro had no choice but to leave behind. That his agent was a trusty speci- men of his kind was evidenced by the fact that he pro- duced some leather bags filled with gold dust. These Pedro grasped while a smile broadened on his counten- ance as he came out with his favorite proverb : '^ Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur." The two remained for over twenty minutes while the officers were grouped in ceremonial attire, the men were standing at attention, and the Empress was waiting in the boat at the foot of the ladder! The situation, of course, could not be allowed to endure forever. The Captain of the Warspite, doubtless under instructions from the Admiral, approached Dom Pedro, and reported officially that the Queen was in the boat waiting. But Pedro did not mean to have the profitable and interesting interview terminated in so abrupt a fash- ion as this. He seized hold of the Polish Jew and walked off arm in arm with him. "Well then," said Pedro, "come along with me on board the frigate!" In order to give the full effect of this final scene I must again quote the words of the invaluable naval chronicler of the Warspite. , THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 363 **The last words which that legitimate Champion of the Constitutional Rights of Man — that Imperial Tom Paine of the age — was heard to utter in the gangway with emphasis were, 'To sell my slaves ! — so very cheap — The paper money exceedingly low ! — eleven pence in cop- per — ' Credite posteri! While the staunch boatswain was piping him over the side, I turned towards the numer- ous naval spectators in order to observe the expressions of their countenances. Most of them laughed: some looked tired, and others quite disgusted. . . . ' ' The ship 's company of the War spite were rather dis- appointed not to receive from Dom Pedro the slightest remuneration for all the uncommon heavy boat's duty, and the troublesome hoisting in and out of the immense luggage. But our excellent Commander-in-Chief, with his usual quickness and sound judgment, anticipated their feelings : he allowed them some extra grog, and an hour's longer light, fiddling and dancing on that eventful evening. ' ' This was the last that Rio de Janeiro saw of its one- time emperor ; for the final exit was achieved in the early hours of the following morning in silence and darkness. Then, towed by a great number of boats supplied by the various men-of-war, the Seine and the Volage crept over the still waters toward the narrow mouth of the inlet, passed under the giant guardian peaks of the Sugar Loaf and so out into the open street of the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Europe. So far as the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro were con- cerned, on one evening these two ships had been ; on the next morning they were not ! A simple and not inappro- priate epitaph on the power and reign of Pedro himself in these flowery regions ! CHAPTEE XIX THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL (vi) Expiration of the original commercial treaty between Great Britain and Brazil — Scenes at the custom-house — Anglo-Brazilian Trade — The slave-trade in Brazil — Comparative welfare of the Negroes — The con- ditions of their existence — Slave-dealers — Revolting circumstances of their occupation — Result of an attempted restricting in the human commerce — Some gipsy specialities — A glut of human flesh — General Miller's visit to a slave ship — His indignation aroused — His visits to the slave-markets — Walsh's remarks on the Brazilian slave — Some astonishing revelations — A revolting circumstance at Tijuca — Visit of two Quakers to Rio — Their interview with Negroes — Embarrassing incident at the Rio exchange — Opinions in the British press — The first railway journey in Brazil — Extract of the proceed- ings from the Journal do Commercio — Description of the train and of the trip — The Sugarloaf Mountain at Rio — Some climbing feats — British hotels in the Brazilian capital — Boarding houses — "Jolly Heath" — A notable character — His retreat. THE original commercial treaty between Great Britain and Brazil expired in November, 1844, giving way to a new condition of affairs, which was naturally of less marked benefit to Great Britain than the old, seeing that this latter came into being sim- ultaneously with the somewhat experimental separate ex- istence of Brazil. It was naturally to the interest of the British merchants to get their goods through the custom-house while the old and peculiarly favorable rates of duty were still in force, and as the last day of the old regime was more nearly ap- proached, the more strenuous and wonderful grew the feats of the Eio custom-house. Certain it is that as the hour itself drew near, the smiles of the pleasant custom officials broadened, and the boxes, bales, and barrels shot clean through the official building with a rapidity only 364 THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 365 equaled by the body of a small boy propelling himself on a frozen slide ! It is unnecessary, I suppose, to explain that the interests of the custom officials had been made identical with those of the British merchants — a type of cosmopolitan achievement which is performed all over the world. But in this instance the gigantic scale of the procedure was for years afterwards the theme of many awe-inspiring anecdotes. The affair may be regarded with calmness, as leaving no particular slur in any special direction. Every-day morality seems to be no more con- cerned with a custom-house building than it is with a horse-dealer's stable! The expiration of this treaty, however, did not result in the diminution of the Anglo-Brazilian trade. On the contrary, the establishment of steamer communication between the two countries less than a decade later gave a remarkable impetus to commerce. In 1853 it is recorded that there was an average annual amount of £13,600,000, of British capital engaged in Bra- zil. This was made up of credit for British goods in Brazil which just then averaged £7,000,000, for the twelve months; a national debt to England of £6,000,000, and bonds amounting to £600,000 of the internal debt held by Englishmen. It was just about this period that the British began to take up with increasing earnestness the question of the slave trade in Brazil. Far be it from the author to at- tempt the faintest excuse for so inhuman a traffic: at the same time it must be said in justice to the Brazilians that its conditions here were milder than is generally imag- ined. British visitors to Brazil, lay and clerical, civil and military, provide a nearly unanimous testimony to the comparative welfare of the Negro slaves in Brazil. Now and then we are shown revolting pictures of the slave- markets, and in the same way we occasionally meet with terrible instances of individual cruelty. But these latter 366 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AIVIERICA were undoubtedly rare, and those concerned in such out- rages were of the type that is given to ornament the police-court dock in countries and times where men have the right to protect their own skins. Speaking generally, it is abundantly clear that the average African slave obtained the full benefit of the Brazilian's natural benevolence. For it is a fact that though his friends may accuse him of a want of energy, not even his enemies can charge the Brazilian with a lack of easy kindliness. In Brazil, as in the Southern States of North America, slave-owning was taken as a matter of course. How could it have been otherwise in a society which had never known what it was not to possess these human conveniences'? ''I sometimes," says an English eye-witness of the period, "saw groups of well-dressed females here, shopping for slaves, exactly as I have seen English ladies amusing themselves at our bazars." Nevertheless, in Brazil the African sang, danced, and his body swelled in size and stoutness to enormous pro- portions such as could never have been attained by those oppressed by an unhappy or brooding mind. This benevolent attitude applied, of course, to the or- dinary slave-owning population of Brazil — the merchant, tradesman, official, and landowner. It did not hold good in those whose livelihood depended directly on the traffic in the bodies of the Africans. Here, indeed, was the seamiest side of the slave trade. It is likely enough that, if the bulk of the slave-owning population could have wit- nessed its more nauseating details slavery would not have continued for so long as it did. Certainly those who per- sisted in the traffic at first hand in the enlightened eight- eenth century must have had dispositions of the kind such as the hyena and the carrion crow would have fought together to claim. As frequently happens, some honest steps taken to re- strict the slave-trade had precisely the opposite effect. Thus, when in 1826 a limit of three years was put on the THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 367 permission given to Brazilian subjects to carry slaves in ships, the importation of Africans increased so rapidly that for a period three times as many slaves as usual were introduced into Brazil. Walsh has some interest- ing remarks on this point : "When a cargo of slaves arrives, it is generally pur- chased by people who are called Ciganos, or gipsies, and who nearly resemble all the individuals of the race which I have seen in different parts of the world. ' ' This is instructive when one considers the great num- bers of Portuguese gipsies, more especially in the prov- ince of Alemtejo, whose instincts cause them to devote themselves to horse-dealing ! ''There is now, however," says Walsh again, "such a glut of human flesh in the markets of Rio, that it has be- come an unprofitable drug. Ten years ' credit is allowed to the purchaser ; and you will not be displeased to hear, that many speculators have been ruined by their unholy importations." General Miller, when stopping at Rio de Janeiro on his way home to England from Peru, had an experience on a slave ship which undoubtedly impressed him for the remainder of his life. He was breakfasting on board a Brazilian frigate with the Commander, a Captain Shep- pard, when he observed a slaver, of 320 tons, which had come into the port a few hours before. Obtaining the loan of one of the frigate's boats, he boarded the slave ship, and the Captain, mistaking him for a Brazilian offi- cial, received him courteously enough in the first instance, and showed him over the ship. But when Miller, ap- palled by the sights he witnessed, and driven from below by the incredibly nauseous odor of the hold, found his breath, he gave full vent to his warm and righteous in- dignation. When the slave captain recovered from his astonish- ment he, in turn, abused the British for their meddling habits, upon which Miller, with unabated warmth, heaped 368 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA another volley of unwelcome truths upon the wretch's head, and departed in disgust from the tainted atmos- phere of the slaver. He subsequently visited the slave markets of Rio, where he upheld his humane views with the same deter- mination and boldness. The slave dealers banded them- selves together to yell at him, but their resentment did not exceed this wordy pitch, and thus left the intruder unconcerned. During his short stay in Rio there was probably no man in the town who could rival Miller's unpopularity in the slave quarters — but it was a species of unpopularity in which that fine soldier thoroughly rejoiced. Some of Walsh's remarks concerning the Brazilian slaves are so interesting that I must quote them in full : ' ' The circumstance that particularly struck me in Bra- zil was the interminable period to which the offspring of a slave is doomed to bondage, from generation to genera- tion. It is a taint in the blood, which no length of time, no change of relationship, no alteration of color, can ob- literate. Hence it is that you see people of all hues in a state of bondage, from jet black to pure white. On the ecclesiastical estates, every precaution is taken to pre- serve the original color ; and when, from an intermixture of white blood, the complexion of the children is becom- ing too light, they endeavor to restore its darkness, by obliging the fair slaves to intermarry with those who are blacker than themselves; the good fathers being alarmed at the prospect of keeping, in a state of slavery, human faces as fair as their own. ''I one day stopped, with a friend, at the house of a man on the road to Tijuca, to obtain some refreshment. In the garden, at the back of his venda, we saw some young Negroes playing about, and among the rest a very pretty white boy. He had a soft fair face, light curling hair, blue eyes, and a skin as light as that of a European. Attracted by the very engaging little fellow, I caressed THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 369 him, and inquired of the man of the house, if he was his son. He said not ; but that he was the son of an English- man, and his slave, and he mentioned the name of his father. Shocked and incredulous, I denied the possibility of his father's knowing that the child was in bondage; but I was then informed that the father not only knew it in this instance, but that, in other cases, he is known to sell his own white child along with its mother. ' ' This inexpressibly revolting circumstance of the trade does not seem to have continued beyond the first half of the nineteenth century. Long before it was finally abol- ished, considerable alleviations had entered into the con- ditions. In 1852 two earnest Quakers, John Candler and Will- iam Burgess, traveled to Brazil in order to assist in the anti-slave trade campaign, and, incidentally, to present the Emperor with an address on this subject. It appears that the costume of the Society of Friends, in which they invariably appeared, caused a certain sensation in Rio de Janeiro, but it was frequently enough the turn of the worthy Quakers to be surprised. They were, for instance, considerably taken aback when they were waited on by a deputation of Benin Negroes, who had purchased their freedom, and had already paid a considerable sum for their passage back to West Africa. They had no favor to ask. All they desired was to put a plain business question: they were anxious to know if the West African coast were now reasonably free from slave ships. The amazement of the Quakers was great when they learned that a number of these men's com- panions had already proceeded safely back to their own country. The human units of no free nation, I suppose, can ex- pect to be consistent or homogeneous in their views on politics and people. This was proved toward the end of 1853 in a rather embarrassing fashion, on the occasion when the Brazilians were doing honor to a black sailor 370 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA who had heroically distinguished himself in saving the lives of passengers of a wrecked vessel of the Brazilian Steam Packet Company. He was taken to the Commer- cial Exchange of Rio de Janeiro, and there the proceed- ings were brought to a lamentable close, for the director for the month, who happened to be an Englishman, re- sented the entrance of a black, and caused him to be ejected without ceremony. This occurrence, at a time when Great Britain with genuine and disinterested fervor was explaining that the black was really and truly a man and a brother and that the traffic in slaves should cease, was the cause of com- siderable consternation. Several indignant letters ap- peared on the subject in the English press, containing such sentiments as these: ' ' This arbitrary proceeding has called forth articles in the public papers, and it is provoking that one of us who pretend to so much philanthropy for the race should have showTi so much prejudice against the color. This heroic fellow, with whom the Emperor of the Brazils expressed himself proud to shake hands, was driven from the ex- change because he was an African ! And by an English- man ! ' ' Whatever may be said for and against the action on moral and material grounds, it must be generally agreed that it was completely lacking in tact ! We have now arrived at that fateful period which her- alded the modern industrial era. The first official railway journey accomplished in Bra- zil took place on the 5th September, 1853. It was made on part of the line which was being built to connect the capital with the summer-residential, mountain city of Petropolis. Among the party to make the venture w^ere the British and Austrian ministers, and Mr. William Hadfield, who translates as follows some extracts of the proceedings from the Journal do Commercio. After a THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 371 description of the passage of the bay and of the landing on the opposite shore, the correspondent continues: * ' A few paces distant we saw a single graceful-looking locomotive, with a certificate of the year of its birth, and the name of its worthy papa engraved on the central wheels. The letters, in yellow metal, were as follows: 'William Fairbairn & Son, 1853, Manchester.' The proper carriage was not yet attached; they substituted for it a rough wagon, used for the conveyance of materi- als, and without further delay we squatted ourselves at the bottom of this impromptu vehicle. Suddenly a pro- longed and roaring shriek, a whistle with the force of fifty sopranos, screamed through the air, deafening the hearers, and causing us to raise our hands to our ears. It was the signal for departure; the warning to those who might be on the line to guard against a mortal blow ; an announcement made by a tube attached to the locomo- tive itself. Swifter than an arrow, then the flight of a swallow, the locomotive threaded the rails, swung about, ran, flew, devoured space, and, passing through fields, barren wastes, and affrighted animals, it stopped at last breathless, at the point where the road does not yet afford a safe passage. The space traversed was a mile and three quarters, and the time occupied in the transit four minutes. It is just that we should here record the names of Messrs, Trever and Bragg; the first, for having had the boldness to undertake the enterprise; the other, for executing with zeal and skill the respective works. ' ' Had these worthy folk been able to get a glimpse of the cars that now soar giddily through the upper air on their steel ropes to the summit of the Sugarloaf Mountain above Eio Harbor, their astonishment would have been considerably increased ! This famous Sugarloaf Mountain which pricks upwards like a threatening canine tooth to guard the entrance to Rio Harbor is already hung about with a certain amount 372 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA of climbing legend. There are some who say that its steep rock sides were first climbed by a British midship- man. This bold spirit is supposed to have left on its summit a Union Jack, to the dismay of the town author- ities, who could induce no one else to scale the smooth peak in order to remove the patronizing bunting ! The United States and Austria, I believe, each make a similar claim for their respective midshipmen. But I feel strongly inclined to back the British pretensions. How could any one who makes the faintest appeal to logic and mathematics do otherwise? Let us admit — for the sake of this argument only! — that the British midship- man is possessed of only just the same amount of initi- ative as those of any other nation! This concession would equalize the chances of all three in the matter of the likelihood of the accomplishment of the feat. But then, considering the great superiority in numbers which the British warships of those days enjoyed over any oth- ers visiting Rio Harbor, the weight of probability in fa- vor of the British, immediately becomes overwhelming, and our case is won! Can you conceive a simpler and more convincing method ? The records of some of the later ascents are less nebu- lous. It is certain, for instance, that on the fourth of July, 1851, a very cosmopolitan party made the perilous ascent. This consisted of an American dentist — stirred by the date, and also, perhaps, by the tooth-like shape of the spur, his wife; a French hair-dresser and his wife; and a young Scotswoman. They celebrated their advent on the summit by a bonfire and by a flight of rockets, con- siderably to the astonishment of the people of Rio far be- low. The illumination was justified, for the peril of the climb is undoubted. By the middle of the nineteenth century British hotels had become something of an institution in Rio de Janeiro. Johnson's Hotel on the Caminho Novo is said to have been the most comfortable. The chief rival of this was THE BRITISH IN BRAZIL 373 the Hotel dos Estrangeiros, an establishment conducted on French lines. Several English boarding houses had been in existence at this time for a considerable period, and one of the most notable of these, situated at Constantia, was kept by a Mr. Heath, the son of a Kentish farmer. Heath himself was a sufficiently remarkable character, who spent an unbroken half century or so in Brazil without apparently suffering at all in health. How little his natural abun- dance of spirits were affected by the atmosphere of the sub-tropics may be gathered from the name of ''Jolly Heath" by which he was known wherever English was spoken in Central and Southern Brazil. When Jolly Heath gave up his boarding house he re- tired to a delightful sylvan resort near Theresopolis. There he grew all species of European and tropical flow- ers; shot jaguar, tapir, and the other species of local game; entertained, doctored, and cared for British and Brazilians alike, and enjoyed a celebrity that was as well earned as it was wide ! Messrs. Kidder, Fletcher, Hinch- liff, and other writers of the period, all have a hearty word of praise for Jolly Heath. CHAPTER XX THE BRITISH IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN INTERNAL WARS Position of the foreigner in South America — Situation of some who had fought in the War of Independence — The Chilean navy and the At- lantic — Admiral Brown assists in the formation of the Buenos Aires navy — Heterogeneous recruits for the fleet — The period of Rosas — Reputation of the Dictator — Murder of the Kidd family — Action by the British minister — The autocrat's humorous side — Circumstances of the blockade of Montevideo — The Anglo-French blockade of Buenos Aires — Curious strategical situation — Brown's naval action with Garibaldi — A theory concerning the latter's choice of red uniform shirts — Futility of the blockade of Buenos Aires — The Anglo-French expedition up the Parana — The engagement at Obligado — Objects achieved by the venture — Engagement at San Lorenzo — Strategy of the British — Some episodes of the blockade of Buenos Aires — Cock- ney Sam in Montevideo — Gallantry of a humble adventurer — ]\Ieth- ods by which he supported his men — Abandonment of the blockade of Buenos Aires — Rosas proceeds to his retirement in Southampton — A queer naval battle between the fleets of Buenos Aires and Entre Rios — How a victory was arranged beforehand — Composition of the river fleets — British among the heterogeneous elements of the crews — Hinchlifi'e's unexpected meeting with Urquiza's soldiers — Formidable warriors — Experiences of the British in Paraguay — Caspar Rodriguez de Franeia — Experiences of Messrs. J. P. and W. P. Robertson under this autocrat's rule — A passing description of the siege of Mon- tevideo by the British Life in Paraguay — Francia's character, pur- suits, and deeds — Robertson's final interview with Franeia — Suggested mission — Francisco Solano Lopez — Some unfulfilled expectations — Madame Eloisa Lynch — Lopez plunges his nation into war — Merciless treatment of his soldiers — Suff'erings of the British — The "Uruguay- ana" torture — End of the war — Situation of foreigners in South American revolutions — Unexpected question by a British minister — Experiences of an English clergyman in 1868 — An episode in which the late Admiral Hart Dyke was concerned — An adventurous boat expedition. IT is a widely understood aifiom in the Latin con- tinent that the foreigner who has taken up his residence in South America should refrain from in- terference with the politics of the land which shelters 374 BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 375 him. No more reasonable precept than this was ever laid down, and it is one which need not confine itself to the affairs of South America. To bring the matter home to ourselves, we should surely feel inclined to regard with merely lukewarm charity foreigners who, having made an uninvited sojourn in our midst, concerned themselves in an endeavor to alter our laws and regnila- tions to a pattern more nearly approaching that to which they themselves had been accustomed ! During the first half of the nineteenth century, how- ever, this attitude of aloofness was not always easy to maintain on the part of the resident foreigner. This applies especially, of course, to those who, having taken service with the patriot forces in the War of Independ- ence, remained in the continent after the battle with the Spaniard had given way to the period of internal unrest which followed. It is true that the number of these was, comparatively speaking, not large, but among them were several sufficiently remarkable personalities. The ma- jority of these had originally been concerned with the wars on the Pacific coast. The naval situation of Chile after its fleet had freed the Pacific from the Spaniards, was rather peculiar. For some time it seemed to act as a reservoir of men and ships for the Atlantic States. The Pacific war at an end, Chile had freed Cochrane, Grenfell, and many others for the service of Brazil, and, at a later period, when Brazil and Buenos Aires were at loggerheads, Chile sold a number of her then unwanted vessels to the Buenos Aires Government. In order to take charge of these. Admiral Brown traveled over the Andes to the Pacific, and brought the vessels back by way of Cape Horn. After this he set himself to strengthen the sea power of Argentina, or rather of the State of Buenos Aires; for Argentina as a concrete republic had not yet come into full being. Before that desirable condition was attained, the young nation had to undergo a lengthy and remorse- 376 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA less schooling at the hands of General Rosas, its famous dictator. The composition of the personnel of Brown's navy was heterogeneous. The most experienced members of his crews were, of course, the cosmopolitan groups of seamen who, finding themselves at a temporary loose-end in Buenos Aires, hastened to enlist under the blue and white flag. Indeed, the appeal of Admiral Brown's per- sonality and of the assured adventurous career went far beyond the ranks of professional sailors. An astonish- ing number of British residents, who had established themselves as shopkeepers, moved by a wave of enthusi- asm, made fast the shutters behind the iron bars of their shops, sallied down the narrow streets of Buenos Aires, and set out in small boats on the yellow waters of the river Plate to join Brown's flotilla at anchor in the roads. Even the pastures yielded their toll to the young Ar- gentine navy. It happened that just at that period a Mr. Barber Beaumont had caused a number of settlers to be sent out from England. On realizing the situation in the Rio de la Plata a number of these dropped the handle of the plow before they had well had time to grasp it, and went on board Brown 's ships to handle ropes and cannon instead. These events have brought us down to the period of Rosas, the Argentine dictator already referred to, whom Brown served with a loyalty that was praiseworthy enough, since, as a sailor, it was not his business to con- cern himself with the rights and wrongs of politics. It is probable enough that much has been heaped upon Rosas for which he was not responsible. Considering the sheer autocracy of his rule, and the amount of crime which occurred in it, this was almost inevitable. The notorious Mazorquero club — an association which in- dulged freely in murder — was supposed to work at his instigation. However that may have been, British vie- BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 377 tims were not numerous ; but one or two terrible tragedies occurred, nevertheless, to these. The murder of every one of the nine members of a respected Scottish family of the name of Kidd, who owned an estancia in the neighborhood of Buenos Aires, was regarded with practical certainty as the work of the Mazorqueros — an instance of '' f rightfulness " designed, as it was alleged, to strike terror into the resident for- eigner, and thus to prevent inconvenient diplomatic claims. However that may have been, the British min- ister. Sir W. G. Ousely, immediately issued a proclama- tion offering ten thousand dollars as a reward for the discovery of the murderers. He then took this to Rosas, asking the Dictator to append his signature to it. Whether Rosas were actually implicated or not in this policy, will, of course, never be known, but in any case the request was one which he could not refuse ! But, if this particular official scored off Rosas, another British minister — whether Ousely 's predecessor or suc- cessor, I am not certain — was less fortunate. In the course of a friendly argument, the autocrat turned to him with a laugh: "Senor Ministro," he exclaimed, "within a day or two you will be doing menial work within my house ! Would you care to wager that you will not ? ' ' The minister accepted a bet with alacrity. A day or two later he entered one of the patios of the Palermo palace, and found Rosas' charming daughter. Dona Manuelita, hard at work pounding maize, and bedewing the yellow mass with tears of chagrin. Her father had cruelly forced her to the task, she explained; would not the Senor Ministro assist? The minister, scandalized, rushed forward to take the pestle from her. A few sec- onds later he was pounding vigorously, an apron already cuimingly hung about his body. Simultaneously the en- try of Rosas and one or two friends, laughing consum- edly, explained to the diplomat that he had lost his bet! 378 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA This incident is familiar throughout Argentina. It dem- onstrates a sense of humor in Rosas which tempts one to give him the benefit of the doubt in many of the vaguer charges against him. It was in the service of Rosas that Admiral Brown in 1843 blockaded the pleasant Uruguayan capital, Mon- tevideo. It was undoubtedly only the arrival of the in- tervening British and French squadrons which saved the town. These forced the Buenos Aires squadron to with- draw, and Admiral Purvis, the British commander, de- tained Brown and his officers for a time as prisoners of war. The main objects of the Anglo-French naval expedition which blockaded Buenos Aires in 1845 were two: the opening up of the river system which Rosas had closed to Paraguay and the northern province of Corrientes, and the relief of Montevideo. This latter port had long been threatened by Rosas, and, as we have seen, was ac- tually being blockaded by Admiral Brown's Buenos Aires squadron, when the arrival of the Anglo-French fleet forced that tough old sailor to relax his grip. In the meantime a few companies of British infantry had been landed in Montevideo, but the absence of any important land forces prevented the allies from interfer- ing with Rosas' troops that were investing the Uruguayan capital from the interior. Thus at the same time that the allied fleet was blockading Buenos Aires by sea, the troops of the latter town were besieging Montevideo by land! A little later Admiral Brown was brought face to face with Garibaldi, who had taken service in the cause op- posed to Buenos Aires. Garibaldi, with a couple of im- promptu war vessels, had succeeded in running the gaunt- let of Brown's squadron further up the river. Then en- sued a long stern chase up the river'Parana, the vessels of both sides sailing and warping vigorously up the rapid stream. But Garibaldi had penetrated as high up the BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 879 yellow flood as the province of Corrientes, where the banks were already assuming their subtropical aspects, before Bro^vn came up with him. A fight ensued in which both sides might with some reason have claimed the advantage. For although Brown drove the hostile vessels ashore and riddled them with shot, Garibaldi, be- fore he abandoned them, succeeded in landing their car- goes of arms, which had been one of the principal objects of his expedition. This, by the way, was Brown's last naval action. He retired shortly afterwards to Barracas, a suburb of Buenos Aires, where he ended his days in a respected peace. There is one rather interesting circumstance concern- ing Garibaldi, to which I have referred casually in an- other book. Being unacquainted with the minor details of his Italian campaign, I do not know if any explanation is given of the origin of the famous red shirts worn by his volunteers. But, if none has been forthcoming, it would seem probable enough that Garibaldi obtained the idea of this uniform from the red-ponchoed warriors of the river Plate with whom he had previously been brought into contact. After this Italian excursion we may return to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, where lay the British and French fleets. After a time the allied ministers pleni- potentiary and the naval commanders began to be ob- sessed with a grave suspicion that, so far as any serious consequence to the inhabitants was concerned, the block- ade of Buenos Aires from the sea resembled the punish- ment of shutting up a child in a richly-stored larder ! All that it effected was to hem in a land already possessed of a superabundance of all that it required for its existence. An up-river expedition was determined on. Her majesty's ships Gorgon, Fulton, and Firebrand set out on this venture, accompanied by a large number of mer- chant vessels laden with goods for Corrientes and Para- guay. Several French war vessels operated in conjunc- 380 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA tion with the British, and helped to convoy the important mercantile fleet. The first engagement of importance occurred at Obli- gado, a narrow point in the river Parana at which power- ful shore batteries had been placed, and where vessels, fastened together by a powerful chain, had been sunk in the stream. So warm was the engagement here that a British and a French vessel each received over a hundred shots in their hulls. But for the gallantry of Captain Hope, of the Firebrand, who, dashing forward with a boat's crew, succeeded under a terrific fire in destroying the chain and thus opening a passage, the losses to the fleet must have been serious. After this, however, the action was soon concluded, although the British casualties had become sufficiently numerous before the batteries were silenced. After this the squadron proceeded up the stream, and the merchant vessels disposed of practically all their produce at Corrientes, scarcely any being left over for the Paraguayans still farther up the river! Having achieved its object so far as clearing the river was concerned, the force returned downstream. But in the meantime Eosas had prepared another warm corner for the expedition at San Lorenzo, where some batteries had been mounted in a commanding position. Again the resourcefulness of the fleet, which was now accompanied by H.M.S. Alecto, saved the situation. A rocket brigade was secretly landed on an island opposite the position, and just as the fleet and convoy, numbering together over a hundred vessels, were about to pass the spot, the rockets played on the battery in so startling and unex- pected fashion that the vessels were enabled to run the gauntlet comparatively unscathed. After this the blockade of Buenos Aires continued in a somewhat stagnant manner. Major operations of any kind were conspicuous by their absence. Smuggling, however, was rendered easy by the great areas of shallow BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 381 waters over which small craft, knowing that the block- ading vessels could not follow them, sailed with im- punity. It was only such irregular forces as these, whether by land or sea, that had an opportunity of showing their dar- ing. The same may be said of the investment of Mon- tevideo, which was proceeding simultaneously. One of the most notable figures in this respect on the Monte- videan side was an Englishman known as Cockney Sam. How Sam came to find himself in Montevideo does not seem to be related. In London he had been a coal heaver, an occupation which in itself would scarcely seem to possess any particular driving power toward the warmer shores of the Rio de la Plata. However, there he was at the time when the Allied fleets were lying in the river, established as a lighterman and as a dealer in bones. In his own humble fashion Cockney Sam, who was a well-spoken and civil-mannered fellow, appears to have been a very popular character in Montevideo. So that, when the martial spirit of the period spurred him away from his mercantile bones in quest of wilder and less dry adventures, he had no difficulty in obtaining a follow- ing. Then in a wild daylight charge or a stealthy night at- tack he would sally out to where Rosas' troops kept watch about the outskirts of Montevideo. There were times when very few of Cockney Sam's devoted band would return alive from one of these charges of theirs. Then Cockney Sam would busy himself about the streets of Montevideo, recruiting men and money for his next expedition, with a ridiculously mild and ingratiating smile. In fact, it is said that he was as punctiliously grateful for any subscription toward his fighting force, as he had been in his commercial days for an order for bones! Considering the utterly reckless daring with which he led his band, it is not a little remarkable that Cockney Sam should have survived the war, as he did. 382 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA All this time it was becoming increasingly evident to the blockading forces that the amount of inconvenience which Rosas was suffering from the blockade was imper- ceptible. A renewed attempt to make terms with the Dictator met with failure — as, indeed, it could scarcely fail to do when the only weapon the allies could employ was a threat to continue this very blockade ! This threat having been treated with a not unnatural scorn, the allies took the only step which was left to them. They raised the blockade ! The fleets sailed away, and the river Plate was once again left to its own devices. Some five years later, however, it was the lot of H.M.S. Locust to shelter Rosas — then fleeing from the victorious armies of a country which his iron rule could no longer keep in chains — and eventually to bear him to Southamp- ton, in the neighborhood of which, much respected — re- tired despots seem to differ curiously little from any other folk! — he passed the remainder of his days. So curious a working of fate could have been foreseen by none when the blockading British fleet lay off Buenos Aires ! Even after the fall of Rosas, however, differences be- tween the river Plate provinces led to further naval ac- tions in the great river. It was now the turn of Urquiza, the rival of the fallen Rosas, to blockade Buenos Aires with the forces of Entre Rios. In the course of this a naval engagement was fought which was principally re- markable on account of its humorous side. Some vessels of Urquiza 's fleet, commanded by an Admiral Coe, when off the low island of Martin Garcia, fell in with a Buenos Aires squadron, the most important vessel of which was an eighteen-gun brig commanded by an Englishman of the name of Turner. The action that followed had something in common with the less reputa- ble race-meetings: its result had been arranged before- hand. Coe blazed away some round shot at Turner's brig, con- BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 383 cerning whicli Turner did not experience sufficient curi- osity even to go up on deck. It was now the brig's turn to fire. Simultaneously with the first hangings of the shots the guns reared up and turned turtle! The rope lashings had been saturated with sulphuric acid ! After this — since it was clearly impossible to defend a brig whose guns littered the deck like autumn leaves — the battle was over. The brig, together with a three-masted schooner and a steamer, hastened to strike the colors that had been sold, while three small schooners which had remained loyal, made off in dismay toward Buenos Aires. At this period the river fleets of neither Buenos Aires nor Montevideo presented an imposing spectacle. The most important vessels of which they were composed were merely small passenger steamers fitted with such gTins as were available. Urquiza 's ships, moreover, were manned principally by his scarlet ponchoed soldiers, fa- mous as cavalrymen, but totally out of their element on the deck of a steamer ! Probably the only really appro- priate asset of this fleet of Urquiza 's was the chief engi- neer, who even here did not fail to be a Scotsman ! The Buenos Aires squadron, on the other hand, con- tained a number of British. Mr. T. W. Hinchliff, who, when descending the Parana in H.M.S. Ardent, had an opportunity of inspecting the two squadrons as they lay at a more or less permanent anchorage within a league of each other, remarked this on the visit of a boat from the Buenos Aires flagship. *'We were rather struck," he says, ''with the smart appearance of two or three of the crew, who looked very like Englishmen, and the sus- picion was soon confirmed. The officer gave them the word in Spanish, and one of them at once remarked to the man next to him, 'Shove off, Bill. All right!' No doubt they had been victims to some of the Buenos Aires crimps, who liked nothing better than inducing English and American seamen to run from their ships." 384 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Having gone so far with Hinchliff we may accompany him a little farther, to a spot near Santa Fe, in fact, by an old ruined fort, where he unexpectedly fell in with some of Urquiza's soldiers. It must be explained that a surprise attack to which many of their number had fallen victims on the previous night was chiefly responsible for their demeanor. Says Hinchliff : "We had hoped to explore this curious old edifice, but on coming up to it we were surprised to find a consider- able number of soldiers hanging about in the much- dreaded red ponchos of Urquiza. Some of them were lying at full length on the ground, some were smoking paper cigars under a species of veranda, and others were lounging sulkily with their backs against the wall, star- ing at us silently. The Santafecinos are considered the finest of the natives, and certainly these were the most formidable-looking men I have ever seen, with the excep- tion, perhaps, of the Life Guards. Many of them must have been several inches over six feet, and there was an appearance of dangerous ferocity about them which was anything but pleasant. I saw that our Italian friend, who knew the country well, was not only surprised but greatly alarmed at finding himself in such company about a mile from the town: he whispered hurriedly that we must pass without taking notice of them, and turn as soon as we could. We passed many fierce faces, but no one said a word to us. . . ." It was in the hermit-kingdom of Paraguay that many sufficiently terrible experiences were undergone by the British who, having once penetrated into the inland re- public, found themselves entirely deprived of the op- portunity of receiving assistance from the outside world. This condition of affairs was introduced in 1816 by Paraguay's first autocrat, Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia. To live in Paraguay under the rule of Francia was to know all the sensations of an unbroken sojourn above a powder mine! The terrible uncertainty in which even BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 385 foreigners were kept is testified to by Messrs. J. P. and W. P. Roberston, as well as by others. Mr. J. P. Robertson was one of those who in 1806 followed in the wake of the first British expedition to the river Plate. On the arrival of his vessel at the mouth of the river the voyagers were met by the somber tid- ings of the capitulation of the British garrison of Buenos Aires. They were, however, enabled to watch the siege of Montevideo, the scene of which he thus describes : "Brigs of war were running close under the walls, and bombarding the citadel from the sea; the guns were leveled with deadly aim at the part of the fortification selected for the breach ; and the mortar was discharging, in fatal curve, the destructive bomb. Thousands of spec- tators from the ships were tracing, in breathless anxiety, the impression made by every shell upon the town, and every ball upon the breach. The frequent sorties made by the Spanish troops, and repulses invariably sustained by them, gave an animating, but nervous interest to the scene. ' ' Roberston witnessed the capture of Montevideo, and remained in South America, until the final fiasco of the expedition forced him to depart with the rest. After a few months spent at home the desire to see more of South America overcame him, and, setting sail again for the Rio de la Plata, he managed to make his way into Para- guay just as Francia was preparing to take upon him- self autocratic power. Thus Robertson, who was shortly afterwards joined by his brother, witnessed the first founding of the despotic rule in Paraguay, the frontiers of which it soon became impossible to cross without a license from the Supremo, by which title Francia became known. No Paraguayan ever wittingly crossed Francia 's will: merely to dis- please him in all unconsciousness meant imprisonment or banishment into the distant forests at the best, torture and death at the worst. 386 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Two or three deeds and characteristics of Francia will show the medley of traits of which this extraordinary man's character was made up. He kidnapped the French naturalist Bonpland from across the border in Argentina with no more compunction than he would have plucked a stray plant out of his own garden; he decreed that every one of his subjects, however poor, should wear a hat — even if it were only a brim — in order that he should be able to salute his ruler with proper reverence ; he was ascetic to the point of austerity in his tastes; and he was much addicted to the study of astronomy, algebra, and natural science ! When engrossed in these pursuits and in that of literature, he at one period gave orders that any one who approached inconveniently near to his window should be shot. It was not astonishing that a certain ingenuousness should have characterized Francia. Almost the whole of the despot's life was spent in a remote country that his own laws ended by rendering completely secluded. Thus when Robertson, who had the autocrat's permis- sion to that end, was about to depart for England, he was summoned to Francia 's presence. Behind the dic- tator were stationed four grenadiers laden with samples of tobacco, cigars, spirits, sugar, and other Paraguayan produce. These, explained Francia, Robertson was to bear to the British House of Commons, and, having ex- hibited them, he was to announce that Francia was ready to enter into a commercial alliance with England. The mission itself was essentially practical; but the method suggested for its completion was not without its uncon- scious humor! But the arch-tyranny of Paraguay did not attain to its zenith until, Francia and his immediate successor Carlos Antonio Lopez having died, Francisco Solano Lopez came to what was virtually the throne of Para- guay. The sheer despotism which was latent in Fran- cisco Solano Lopez did not make itself apparent until BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 387 after he had attained to the dictatorship of the inland state. In 1861 Hinchliff, referring to the death of Carlos An- tonio Lopez, wrote: ''His son General Lopez began to reign in his stead; and it is supposed that the interests of Englishmen will be favored by the circumstance that the honors of the presidential throne are shared by an amicably disposed English woman. ' ' Lopez had spent some time in England, where he had made a favorable impression, and the hopes expressed by Hinchliff were very generally shared. But they were realized neither in himself nor in Madame Eloisa Lynch, the handsome Parisian-Irishwoman who shared his throne in a somewhat irregular fashion. The latter, it is true, appears to have been directly re- sponsible for none of the atrocities committed by Lopez ; but she does not seem to have moved a finger to prevent one of these outrages. It is true that Lopez, when thwart- ed, revealed the instincts of a beast of prey ; nevertheless, adventuress though she was, Madame Lynch retained her influence over the tyrant to the end, and there is no doubt that she might frequently have interposed her merciful offices without the faintest danger to her own interests, such as they were. When Lopez flung his brave and devoted army against the combined forces of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, he had embarked both himself and the nation in a suicidal plunge. As one of the results of this, the standard he set for his men was above the limits of human possibility. Officers who had given way when only a tenth of their men remained in action were executed, and their wives were tortured to death. Men who were overheard to cast a single doubt upon a complete victory all along the line were shot out of hand as for a heinous crime. There were Paraguayans captured by the Brazilians, who might well enough have accepted the excuse of having done with the inhuman hardships of the war. Instead of 388 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA this they made their escape, and with the warmest loy- alty rejoined their ragged and worn comrades. As sole reward they were led out before a firing party, and fell as an example to the rest ! Lopez did not approve of his men being taken prisoners. Unfortunately for themselves, there were a certain number of British in Paraguay when the war broke out. The majority of these were mechanics and engineers, and the experiences of nearly all of them were of the most terrible description. Confined in noisome dungeons haunted by reptiles and rats, driven from time to time in a starving condition from one place to another — this constituted only a part of what they were obliged to suf- fer. A special torture, known as the "Uruguayana" had been invented by one of Lopez's most favored creatures, and more than one of the British captives has related his experiences when sutfering under this. The victim's limbs were firmly lashed together with hide ; he was then placed in a sitting position, and a number of muskets at the back of his neck were made fast with thongs, the effect of this being to bend the sufferer's body into an un- natural and agonizing curve. In the end when, the Paraguayan army having been re- duced to little more than a half-naked collection of old men and boys, the war came to an end. Such Englishmen as survived owed their escape rather to Lopez's death than to any care that he had taken for their preservation. Indeed, to serve Lopez was as fatal as the traditional din- ner with Borgia ! His short, but very red, rule provides one of the grimmest chapters in South American history. Fortunately for foreigners these dark days in Para- guay are not typical of the history of the southern con- tinent in general. The policy of the South Americans in almost all the numerous revolutions which have oc- curred from time to time in the past has been to refrain from molesting the persons of resident foreigners. In the instances where one of these has suffered it will al- BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 389 most certainly be found that the foreigner has interested himself in the affairs of one or the other of the belligerent parties. But this applies only to life and limb. The circum- stances affecting property have by no means been the same, least of all in stock-raising countries when armies of men, short of horses and hungry for beef, have been on the march. On such occasions the amount of live- stock commandeered would depend largely on the tact and popularity of the breeder. These proceedings, although annoying enough, were seldom of serious consequence, and were generally taken in fairly good part. Indeed, in an era of political storm the estanciero was inclined to lump this risk in with that of locusts, drought, flood, and other visitations of the kind which it is necessary to endure with philosophy. So the shrewd ones made so signal a virtue of necessity that on more than one occasion their livestock was returned to them a hundredfold — in the shape of a concession or some similar privilege ! Diplomatic representations were seldom of much avail, and appeals to this effect were frequently resented by the ministers, resident or plenipotentiary, of the aggrieved persons' country — diplomats who complained that it was beneath their dignity to assist in the chase after lost cat- tle! Perhaps this explains the answer which a British estanciero in Uruguay received from his minister in the early 1860 's, on his explaining the fact that he had just suffered the loss of sixteen commandeered carriage horses, the claim for which he desired should be placed officially before the Uruguayan Government. The elderly representative of Great Britain eyed the estanciero for a time in surprise, whether real or feigned. "Why, Mr. ," he asked at length, "what on earth can you require sixteen carriage horses for ! ' ' And there the matter remained. An English clergyman who landed in Montevideo in 390 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA 1868 certainly obtained a glimpse of the traditional spe- cies of South American revolution. Here is his expe- rience as related by himself : ''Noticing from the house where I lived, several per- sons peeping round the corner of the street, I went out to see what was the matter. The balls were coming up this street from the soldiers who were advancing; and just then a gentleman on the opposite side of the street, was shot through the thigh, and taken into a house. A peon crossing the street at this spot was shot dead, picked up, placed on a shutter, and carried away. On this I thought it prudent to retire into the house." And at this period, to add to the political tragedy, a terrible epidemic of cholera was sweeping away the in- habitants of Montevideo by the thousand! It is this sort of incident that many people in Europe have accepted as being all in the normal South American day's work! This chapter may be concluded by an episode which, having received it from the late Admiral Hart-Dyke's own lips, I have already narrated in "The Eomance of the Eiver Plate." Nevertheless, the incident falls so completely within the scope of this book that it cannot well remain absent from these pages. The admiral — then a junior officer — was stationed in a British warship off Buenos Aires during one of the revolutionary outbursts at a period long before the pres- ent era of prosperity and peace. The Argentine fleet was likewise at anchor off the capital. As it happened, the naval force of the republic was opposed to the land pow- ers which were in possession of Buenos Aires. Owing to this, the Argentine admiral suffered no little anxiety on account of his wife and two daughters, who were cut off from him in the city. This he confided to the officers of the British warship, with whom he appears to have been on friendly terms. Hart-Dyke volunteered to bring the ladies off from the shore, and set himself to prepare a BRITISH IN SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 391 somewhat daring plan. In fact the episode, modestly and simply as it was told, savors strongly of the genuine romance of the British sailor, and suggests Henty at his best. Behold, just before the fall of night, Hart-Dyke setting out for the shore in command of his boat 's crew, two mid- shipmen 's uniforms tucked comfortably away in the stem ! On this point my memory does not serve me well ; but it appears that the Argentine admiral was less anx- ious concerning his wife than his daughters. It is likely enough that the elder lady was very well able to look after herself. In any case she would have found it diffi- cult to disguise herself as a midshipman. Hence the provision of two uniforms only. The boat reached the mole in the ordinary course of events, and a short time afterwards the young naval offi- cer found himself at the Argentine admiral's house. His advent caused no little flutter, as may be imagined; but the admiral's wife appears to have been a lady of re- source, who lent herself readily to the plot. So, after an interval, we see Hart-Dyke sailing along the street, ac- companied by two very smooth-cheeked midshipmen. It was dark now, and the illumination in the thorough- fares sufficiently scanty. All went well for a while, and the trio, without exciting suspicion, passed by the side of the low square houses with the lamps shining from their patios on their way to the mole. At the foot of the steps waited the boat with its British crew ; it was merely neces- sary to descend and to enter it. But there's many a slip — and in this case the slip was no metaphorical one. As ill fortune would have it, the steps were greasy. One of the admiral's daughters lost her foothold, and bumped down on the unsympathetic stone. She did what nine women out of ten would have done under the circum- stances : she emitted a treble scream. The sound electrified the officials and the loafers on the pier. Amid the hubbub arose urgent commands to halt. 392 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA This was the very last thing that the trio desired. The genuine officer bundled his two spurious juniors into the boat ; the sailors bent lustily to their oars, and the small craft shot out into the night amid a wild fusillade from the mole. Fortunately no one was hit, although the boat itself was struck, and an oar or two splintered. But the adventures of the night were not yet at an end. In order to distinguish friends from foes it had been ar- ranged that, as the party neared the Argentine admiral 's ship, a flare should be burned in the boat. In the cir- cumstances which had intervened, such a proceeding would have revealed the fugitives' whereabouts to those on shore who were still blazing away into the darkness. So the boat approached the Argentine vessel unan- nounced by its flare. The sentries were on the alert, and welcomed the suspicious craft with a volley almost as fu- rious as had been those from the shore. But the shouted warning proved effective, and in the end the party stood in safety on the deck of the Argentine warship. Here they were received with profound thankfulness by the admiral, whose feelings may be imagined when he discov- ered that it was upon his own daughters that his men had fired! PAET IV SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY OBSERVERS CHAPTER XXI SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS IN SOUTH AMERICA Tropical forests — Life and torments in the South American jungle — Two sides of the picture — Qualities essential to the naturalist — Charles Waterton — Some salient characteristics — VVaterton's home life — His eccentricities and pursuits on his own estate — Waterton in the Guiana forest — Raleigh's description of that country — Stoicism ex- hibited by Waterton — Unenterprising vampire bats — Some instances of the naturalist's enthusiasm — Adventures with giant snakes — How he rode an alligator — His own account of the encounter — Methods by which he fought fever — Waterton's death — ^Charles Darwin — The voy- age of the Beagle — Scope of Darwin's travels in South America — His experiences in the south of the continent — Some notable fossil dis- coveries — Intercourse with the Fuegians — Narrow escape of a mis- sionary — Darwin on the Pacific coast — The country dealt with by Bates and Wallace — Mystery of the Amazon Valley — Henry Bates as a naturalist — His work and enthusiasm — Tale of a gigantic spider — Imaginary perils and real dangers — The noises of a tropical forest — The menace of nature and its creatures — Various diseases, including yellow fever, undermine Bates's health — His departure from South America — Regrets on sailing — Expression of his subsequent views — A. R. Wallace — His experiences on the Amazon — Incidents during the canoe voyages — Perils of the streams — Difficulties with Indian crews — Insect plagues — Encounter with a jaguar — Ultimate triumph of the climate — Wallace's homeward voyage — Loss of the vessel by fire — Destruction of the naturalist's collections — Richard Spruce — Adventures of a keen botanist — His early career — An adventure at Pard — His experiences during an attack of fever — Murderous Indians — An uncomfortable British assistant — Encounter with a condor — Botanical excursions in Venezuela, the Orinoco basin, and the Ecua- dorean Andes — Long-lived Englishmen — Other naturalists. THERE is something unusually seductive in the mental picturings of a tropical forest. That these tremendous hotbeds of vegetation possess an extraordinary charm of their own is undeniable. Nev- ertheless their greatest glamour probably haunts those who have never trodden them. 395 396 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA No doubt there are many who picture the tropical for- ests much as the hothouses at Kew Gardens, with the glass walls abolished and the interior continued indefi- nitely ! In some respects they might not be far wrong — provided that in their mind they raised the roof indefi- nitely, increased the size of most of the growths a dozen fold, and flung one and all close into each other's leafy arms, thus making a most gigantic tangle, the lianas winding themselves everywhere in clinging confusion. But there are many objects which the stay-at-home dreamer — probably lounging in placid and secure ease on a wholesome and shaven lawn — would have to add to this. There are the hidden pitfalls of the ground ; there are the leaf-concealed stumps and branches which wound and bruise the shins and ankles, and there are the great thorns which lie in wait to tear the flesh remorselessly. This is not all. By no means ! There are many worse things. There is the poisonous snake which lurks in the undergrowth; there are the great and little ants on the boughs which resent the approach of an unconscious hu- man hand by a bite as painful as living fire; there are innumerable flies whose vicious little fangs draw blood. After all this it may seem an unnecessary piling up of horrors to add to the list the droning song of the intol- erably active swarms of mosquitos, the burrowing atten- tions of the unpleasant '* jigger," which loves to lay its eggs in the flesh under the human toe-nail, and — the most fateful curse of all — the malaria; the beri-beri, black- water, and yellow fevers, whose dreadful shadows sit brooding all the time over the jungle. But it is impossible to pass any of these by. For they — all the foregoing, and many more — are there, as large as life and as grim as death, in the tropical forests of South America. They constitute the netherworld of the jungle; they show the reverse of that picture which is made up of quaint monkeys, brilliant birds, wonderfully gorgeous butterflies, luminous insects that glow at night SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 397 like lighthouses at sea, and blossoms of a size and shape that have to be seen to be believed in by the average per- son brought up in northern Europe. It is only the possessor of rather a special tempera- ment who can take up with success the calling of a natur- alist in a tropical country. There are certain qualities essential to the life, and he who does not possess them might as well dig his grave as soon as he enters the forest and so save himself further trouble ; because he will want it soon enough. Without a doubt the first of these qualities is enthusi- asm. Perhaps one might say that it is the last as well; because that particular virtue seems to cover all the rest. Decidedly enthusiasm here includes fearlessness, unceas- ing optimism, limitless patience, the keen power of ob- servation, and that wondering love of creatures and things which is characteristic of all children, and which so often atrophies and dies when childhood itself is fading into a mere memory. In no one have these various qualities been more marked than in Charles Waterton, the first notable British natur- alist to tread the tropical forests of South Ajnerica. But in addition to these ordinary and essential qualities of the naturalist, Waterton possessed many more. He was in the first place an all-round sportsman; he possessed a keen sense of humor, a wide knowledge of the classics, and a peculiarly genial temperament. Had not the term been so abused, one would have rejoiced to call Charles Waterton *'a fine old English gentleman," as indeed he was. Waterton 's wanderings were entirely unconnected with any pecuniary benefit to himself. The squire of his neighborhood and the owner of that fine place, Walton Hall in Yorkshire, he could have lived a luxurious life had he wished. But though Waterton rode hard to hounds and played very thoroughly the part of a country gentleman, he utterly despised a life of ease. His sleep- 398 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ing room at Walton Hall possessed no carpet, not even a bed ! When the Squire of Walton felt inclined to sleep — which he usually did in summer as soon as it was dark, rising again at three o'clock in the morning — he wrapped a blanket round him, lay down on the bare boards, and placed his head on the block of oak which always served him for a pillow. This habit will give some idea of the peculiarity of Waterton's temperament. His sympathy with the bright hues of nature was such that on no occasion what- ever — even when convention most strongly demanded it — was he prevailed on to wear so somber a thing as a black coat. From his boyhood he had proved himself de- voted to the study of wild creatures of all kinds, but es- pecially to that of birds, and, later, he undertook many experiments in the way of protection and refuges for these creatures. One of these was the nailing of dummy wooden pheasants to the trees of his preserves, having persuaded the live and genuine birds to roost nearer home. So when of a night on these occasions he would hear the distant shots of the poachers, he would chuckle to himself, knowing well enough that the marauders were getting more and more dumbfounded at the sight of those dimly seen sitting pheasants which obstinately refused to drop from their branches, even when pumped full of lead ! But it was in South America that Waterton was able to give his nature-loving propensities the fullest play. The Guiana forest was his favorite hunting ground, and there he roamed, perfectly at home with all the creatures, beloved by the Indians, and very much respected by the Portuguese when he happened to cross the border into Brazil, the fact of his being a Roman Catholic no doubt assisting him in this latter intercourse. His roamings took him over much of that very country that had so enchanted Raleigh more than two centuries previously, and of which the Elizabethan had said: ** There is no country which yieldeth more pleasure to the SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 399 inhabitants, either for those common delights of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, or the rest, than Guiana doth. It hath so many plaines, cleere rivers, abundance of Phes- ants, Partriges, Quailes, Railes, Cranes, Herons, and all other fowle : Deere of all sorts, Porkes, Hares, Lions, Ty- gers, Leopards, and divers other sortes of beastes." But there was a wide difference between the fortunes of the two travelers. Raleigh sought gold, and found disillusion and death, while Waterton strolled to and fro in placid content — notwithstanding the mosquitos ! — seek- ing nothing beyond the acquaintance of the forest crea- tures. It is an extraordinary thing to one who knows the na- ture of these forests that Waterton should have been able to accustom himself to walk them barefooted. He never wore foot-covering, although the absence of this once caused him to be so severely staked as to be laid up for some weeks. But an accident of this kind never seemed of any real consequence to Waterton. In his enthusiasm to dive deep into the arms of his mother nature he seemed actually to succeed in making it a matter of indifference to himself whether he sustained any bodily hurt or not ! An eloquent instance of this is to be met with in his in- vestigation of the habits of the vampire bat. Now this vampire bat is a most unpleasant creature, many times bigger than any bat we know in England. Its most nota- ble predilection is to bore a small hole in the skin of sleep- ing animals or men, and through this to suck up as much blood as it can conveniently hold. The process, to say the least of it, is unpopular among human beings. For some reason or other, best known to the vampire bats, but probably owing to the natural- ist's habit of bleeding himself, Waterton had never been submitted to it. This appeared to him as something in the nature of an oversight, and in any case as a slur upon his enthusiasm as a naturalist. As it happens, the big toe 400 BRTTTSH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA is the favorite source in human beings from which this demoniacal visitor is wont to draw its sanguinary meal, and in a vampire-bat-haunted neighborhood these mem- bers are seldom willingly exposed. But night after night Waterton would hang out his big toe — invitingly uncov- ered — ^in order that the bats might relieve him of a pound or so of his blood. They never did. So Waterton had to go without his experience. He lamented the fact with a good deal of feeling, and ever afterwards bore these vam- pire bats a grudge for the poor compliment they had paid him! There is no doubt that Waterton 's enthusiasm was of a type which frequently proved most embarrassing to any assistant less devoted to the science than himself — and there surely could have been no assistant who was any- thing else. Such incidents as those attending the capture of a great Coulacanara snake — a creature of lesser length than the boa-constrictor, but of even greater girth, and enormously powerful — must have remained engraved for a very long time afterwards in the minds of the two Ne- groes who took part in it. The great snake was discovered fast asleep, and Wat- erton determined to attempt to pin it behind the neck with a lance, and so to capture it alive. The Negroes were terrified at the idea, but Waterton, having been for years searching for a specimen of this snake, was not to be turned from his purpose. In his own words : *'I could now read in the face of the Negroes that they considered this a very unpleasant affair; and they made another attempt to persuade me to let them go for a gun. I smiled in a good-natured manner, and made a feint to cut them down with the weapon I had in my hand. This was all the answer I made to their request, and they looked very uneasy." One can hardly blame them for that ! It was clear to them that the condition of any mere human skin was about to be a matter of supreme indifference to Waterton, pro- SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 401 vided that the snakes were secured uninjured ! But even Waterton admits that his own heart was beating quicker than usual, and that he felt the sensations of a passenger on a merchant vessel when, on the approach of a strange vessel under suspicious colors, the captain orders all hands on deck to prepare for action. However, Waterton struck accurately. The giant snake was pinned by the neck, and the next second the three daring assailants were being flung to and fro as they clung desperately to its coils. In the end victory lay with the human beings, and, its wicked mouth strapped about with the naturalist's braces, it was taken to a hut nearby. There, as it was too late for it to be killed and dissected that day, the great creature spent the night in a sack within a yard or two of Waterton 's hammock! '*I cannot say that he allowed me a good night," complains the Squire of Walton; '*he was very restless and fret- ful." The temptation to quote Waterton is almost irresisti- ble. Here is his account of his meeting with a smaller snake of the same species a week after he had secured the giant, and at the same spot : ''I observed a young Coulacanara, ten feet long, slowly moving onwards ; I saw he was not thick enough to break my arm in case he got twisted round it. There was not a moment to be lost. I laid hold of his tail with the left hand, one knee being on the ground ; with the right I took my hat, and held it as you would hold a shield for defense. "The snake instantly turned, and came on at me, with his head about a yard from the ground, as if to ask me, what business I had to take liberties with hi^ tail. I let him come, hissing and open-mouthed, within two feet of my face, and then, with all the force I was master of, I drove my fist, shielded by my hat, full in his jaws. He was stunned and confused by the blow, and ere he could recover himself, I had seized his throat with both hands, in such a position that he could not bite me; I then al- 402 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA lowed him to coil himself round my body, and marched off with him as my lawful prize. He pressed me hard, but not alarmingly so." On his way back Waterton occupied himself — of a cer- tainty in his own inimitably jocular fashion — in scolding an old Negro who had fled in a panic at the terrifying sight of a mingled man and snake approaching ! His interludes between these strenuous occurrences were devoted largely to what he himself would probably have termed lighter recreation. Thus half an hour after the capture of this lesser Coulacanara he would in all probability have been strolling along one of the less en- cumbered forest paths, spouting Ovid or Livy to the won- dering parrots. For the Squire of Walton took his fa- vorite authors with him everywhere, and lived with them in the depths of the forest, thus himself giving out a curi- ous atmosphere of ancient Rome to his world of endless leafage, where the monkeys chattered and unintentionally mocked his words. Of his daring encounters, the most famous is that with the alligator, but since very little has been heard of Wat- erton 's feats of late I will take upon myself to repeat it here. An alligator had been caught by the Indians on a baited hook. The Indians proposed to make an end of the monster by sending a flight of arrows into it, but Wat- erton was determined to bring it ashore alive so that its hide might not be injured. The Indians were terrified at the idea of so rash an un- dertaking, but as usual Waterton had his way. He ex- plained that no one but himself need come into contact with the saurian. This explanation dispelled the reluc- tance on the part of his assistants, whose faces showed un- mistakable relief. *'I then," relates Waterton, ''mustered all hands for the last time before the battle. We were, four South American savages, two Negroes from Africa, a Creole from Trinidad, and myself a white man from Yorkshire. SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 403 In fact, a little tower of Babel group, in dress, no dress, address, and language." Then Waterton, having finally exhorted his motley army, went down to the water's edge to be the first to welcome the alligator on land. The quaint group of his assistants began to pull on the rope, and presently the great jaws of the creature made their appearance. Wat- erton himself confesses that he saw enough not to fall in love at first sight. But he urged his assistants to keep on pulling, while he himself waited to see if the beast would make for him. The alligator was too alarmed to attempt anything of the kind. So Waterton, moved to one of his wildest freaks, decided that he would become the aggressor. He made a run at the alligator, leaped into the air, and alighted on the animal's back. Then, before the alligator had time to resent it, he seized its forelegs, and twisted them over its back. After that, seated astride the crea- ture, and hanging on to its forelegs as a bridle, he awaited developments. They were not long in occurring. The alligator plunged and heaved in all directions, lashing furiously with its powerful tail. Waterton observes that it must have been a fine sight for an unoccupied spectator. This was evidently the opinion of the four Indians, the two Negroes, and the Creole, for they cheered and applauded so frenziedly that they forgot all about hauling on to the rope, and for a moment or two there seemed an uncom- fortable possibility of Waterton and the alligator disap- pearing backwards into the water in company. But in the end the alligator was drawn up safely, Wat- erton still keeping his seat on his strange buck-jumper with a success that none but a really good liorseman could have hoped for. '*It was the first and last time," he says, "I was ever on a cayman's back. Should it be asked how I managed to keep my seat, I would answer — I hunted some years with Lord Darlington's foxhounds." 404. BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Is it to be wondered at that a man like this had a hold over those Indians, Negroes, and Creoles such as very few men of whatever complexion have possessed before or since? Mingled with the love and amusement with which the most free-hearted and free-handed of men in- spired them, was an almost superstitious sense of rever- ence for the being who knew no fear, and whose next action was no more to be foretold than was the track of one of their own forest jaguars. To have seen this singular man curing himself, strictly after his own fashion, of malarial fever must have been alarming enough in itself. He had an implicit faith in the lancet, followed by doses of calomel and jalap. He seemed to think nothing of draining himself of sixteen ounces of blood at a time, and continued this latter treat- ment even when attacked by what was apparently yellow fever ! It must have been a remarkable sight, too, that of Wat- erton walking, barefoot, the tremendous forests of Gui- ana, completely at his ease, absorbed in the loves, the habits, the catastrophes of the creatures, and in fact, in every feather, hair, and habit of the birds and beasts. It must be admitted that the accidents ^\dth which he met were innumerable, being only rivaled by the number of his recoveries! Nevertheless the time came when these latter fell one behind, and when Charles Waterton, after a severe fall, died as pluckily as he had lived. But it was not in his beloved Guiana forests that the tragedy occurred. It was in his own park at Walton Hall that he met his end many years after he had ceased to wander in the tropics. For it was at the ripe age of eighty-three that Waterton 's life was ended — and that by an accident ! The next naturalist to visit South America was one of the most famous scientists that England has ever pro- duced. The general experiences of Charles Darwin — who sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 405 1831, in the ten-gun brig Beagle, commanded by Captain Fitzroy — were infinitely more varied than those of Charles Waterton. It was Darwin's lot to be brought into contact with cities and men as well as with nature. With the rest of the Beagle's company he circumnavigated the southern half of the continent — varying his voyage by long cruises on horseback ashore — from the Brazilian port of Bahia to Iquique in Peru. He saw the Gauchos at work among the cattle in the Pampas ; he rode for many hundreds of miles along the plains, which were infested by the fierce, marauding, mounted Indians of the South; he had some rough-and- ready encounters with the uncouth savages of Tierra del Fuego. He traveled by boat along the Parana and Uru- guay rivers ; when inclined toward geology he proceeded to the heart of the Andes, and subsequently made his ob- servations on the coastal desert of Peru. In the course of his wanderings, too, he visited the towns of Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, San- tiago, and Lima. He had the advantage, moreover, of speaking with many South American notabilities, includ- ing the famous General Rosas, who afterwards became the despot of Argentina. From a purely practical point of view, therefore, Dar- win's South American education was far more liberal than Waterton 's. On the other hand, where Darwin flit- ted from one point to another as a bird of passage, Wat- erton tramped his beloved forests as part and parcel of their familiar soil. Waterton was purely sylvan where Darwin was cosmopolitan. Nevertheless Darwin did obtain just one or two pass- ing glimpses of the Brazilian forests in the neighborhood of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. He must have fully appre- ciated their luxuriant charm, for he himself says that such days bring to a lover of natural history a deeper pleasure than he can ever hope to experience again. 406 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Walks in England, he continues, in amazement, are en- joyable because of their variety of attractions, "but in these fertile climates, teeming with life, the attractions are so numerous that he is scarcely able to walk at all." But these forest excursions, doubtless to his regret, were only rapid interludes in Darwin's mission. His most important work in the continent was achieved in the comparatively bleak South. But before he arrived in the lower latitudes he had already experienced one or two minor adventures. For instance, when learning to throw the "bolas" — the heavy stone balls fastened to the ends of hide-rope which, when accurately thrown, wind themselves round an ostrich, an ox, or any other prey of the Gaucho — Darwin continued to entangle his own horse's legs, to the uproarious amusement of the Gauchos. A little later he and an expert guide spent an anxious hour, dodging two figures whom the Gaucho sus- pected to be the advance guard of a hostile Indian force, but who afterwards turned out to be two local ladies hunting for ostrich eggs ! It is, after all, such lighter episodes as this that serve to illuminate travels such as Darwin's, which abounded in the most strenuous scientific research. Some of the chief results were obtained in the giant fossilized remains which the naturalist was so successful in lighting on. He had found such objects as the fossilized teeth of the mas- todon, toxodon, and prehistoric horse on the banks of the Parana Eiver, as well as the fossilized armor of the ex- tinct giant armadillo. But these results were trivial com- pared with those obtained in the neighborhood of Bahia Blanca, which he describes as a perfect catacomb for monsters of extinct races. At Port San Julian, too, he was successful in discovering further remains of the greatest interest. When the Beagle penetrated as far south as Tierra del Fuego, there can be no doubt that Darwin's study of the very primitive native races of those inclement shores as- SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 407 sisted in the maturing of his theories on the evolution of man. As a matter of fact, the Beagle had some rather special intercourse with these natives on this occasion. During the former voyage of the Beagle, which lasted from 1826 to 1830, Captain Fitzroy had been forced by the natives' behavior to take a couple of their number as hostages. He was now bringing them back in the Beagle in order to repatriate them. This was effected after a certain number of complica- tions. The returning Indians, having learned a kind of Pidgin-English in the interval, had forgotten their o^vn language! This sounds incredible, but was certainly a fact, and is to be accounted for by the exceedingly low brain power of these particular savages. When they first came into contact again with their naked, greasy, and tattooed relatives, there was a lack of enthusiasm on both sides. This is Dai'win's description of their meeting: "The next morning after our arrival (the 24th) the Fuegians began to pour in, and Jemmy's mother and brothers arrived. Jemmy recognized the stentorian voice of one of his brothers at a prodigious distance. The meeting was less interesting than that between a horse, turned out into a field, when he joins an old companion. There was no demonstration of affection; they simply stared for a short time at each other; and the mother immediately went to look after her canoe." An attempt was made by the Beagle to leave a mission- ary of the name of Matthews among the Fuegians. Dar- win describes Matthews as a man of quiet fortitude : but the experiment did not prove a success. The Beagle re- turned to the spot where they had left him just in time to save his life. Night and day the natives had endeavored to tire him out, so that he might become off his guard, when he would have met with his end. The Beagle took Matthews on board again, and the ship's company parted with some reluctance from their 408 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA own Fuegians, whom they left learning little by little to become savages again. After this Darwin cruised up the Pacific coast, landing at many places, and riding from point to point — notably crossing the Andes from Chile to Argentina, and returning — until the Beagle arrived at the Galapago Islands, whence she sailed for Tahiti and New Zealand. The country which was chosen by Bates and Wallace, the next two of the especially notable naturalists, lies be- tween Waterton's field in the North and Darwin's varied excursions in the South. Bates and Wallace chose the system of the great Amazon itself, the land where water and forest run side by side and intermingle, and where — as I have had occasion to say before — the landscape is painted in three unalterable colors, yellow, green, and blue — the yellow of the streams, the green of the forest, and the blue of the sky. The Amazon Valley is one of the few places left on earth which still retain their mys- tery, and even to this day the secrets held by many thou- sands of square miles of the densest vegetation on earth have still to be revealed. Henry Bates and A. R. Wallace arrived together in a small trading vessel at the mouth of the Amazon in May, 1848. So far as Mr. Bates was concerned, this was the prelude to ten years of practically uninterrupted wan- derings along the innumerable streams of the Amazon and through the jungle that covers its banks. The ex- tent of the work achieved by Bates may be judged from the fact that in one place alone he discovered no less than seven thousand species of insects ! As a forest naturalist Bates' enthusiasm rivaled Wat- erton's, and it seemed to him at times that he was in an enchanted country that held more and more surprises for a lover of nature the deeper he penetrated into its matted glades. Sometimes the wonders he was apt to encounter were of the kind which many people might consider of the nightmare order. For instance, he himself relates in SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 409 connection with the gigantic migale spider of the forest : ' ' One day I saw the children belonging to an Indian fam- ily, who collected for me, with one of these monsters secured by a cord round its waist, by which they were leading it about the house as they would a dog. ' ' Now of course this is the sort of story that the ordi- nary cautious person would not tell to every one ! It is the kind of episode for which you should choose your audience with extreme care, and even then you should un- cork its tale very gently ! This would apply, of course, to an ordinary man, addressing an audience unacquainted with the Amazon forests. Bates was not an ordinary man, and his mere word, like that of his brother South American naturalists, sufficed for the accuracy of any statement he made. As to an audience acquainted with the Amazon jungle : they would admit that it was a large spider, and there the matter would end ! Indeed, Bates, like every one else who has entered the vast country of the Amazon, was destined to find out that it contained a certain number of imaginary perils, but many more real dangers. The most appalling of the for- mer was undoubtedly the roar of the howling monkey, a small and quite harmless creature with a peculiarly formed larynx, which enables it to give out a most un- earthly bellowing quite as full-toned and terrifying as the roar of a lion. Even the enthusiastic Bates admitted that this terrible noise made it difficult to retain a buoyancy of spirit. I can do no better than employ some of his o'wn words in describing some of these noises of the tropical forest : ''Sometimes, in the midst of the stillness, a sudden yell or scream will startle one; this comes from some de- fenseless fruit-eating animal, which is pounced upon by a tiger-cat or stealthy boa-constrictor . . . often, even in the still hours of midday, a sudden crash will be heard resounding afar through the wilderness, as some great bough or entire tree falls to the ground. There are, be- 410 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA sides, many sounds which it is impossible to account for. I found the natives generally as much at a loss in this re- spect as myself. Sometimes a sound is heard like the clang of an iron bar against a hard, hollow tree, or a piercing cry rends the air ; these are not repeated, and the succeeding silence tends to heighten the unpleasant im- pression which they make on the mind.*' None of these things would tend to soothe the spirits of a person wandering about in the midst of a perfectly safe country — and by no stretch of imagination could the Amazon jungle be termed that. The dangers and dis- comforts with which Bates was surrounded were quite sufficient in themselves without having any imaginary perils added. There were the storms which worked up with lightning rapidity on the wide stretches of the great river, raising waves that over and over again all but wrecked the boat on which he was traveling. There were drunken and lazy canoe Indians, much given to deserting before they had worked out their pay. Ashore, the ja- guar, the boa-constrictor, and a dozen other most impor- tant enemies of man were ready to resent in the most un- pleasant fashion any unintentional disturbance of their forest rights. Most of the Indians were friendly, it is true, but not all, and in some districts it was never certain that a horde of painted and feathered savages would not rush in to the attack at any moment. There were whites, too, "bad men," who were notoriously handy with their bullets; there was the lack of wholesome food; there was the ordinary malaria, and, above all, there was the dreaded yellow fever. Bates did not escape this most terrible disease. Fail- ing medical assistance, he was his own doctor, and con- tinued to treat himself even when the attack was at its height, and it was to his own efforts that he owed his re- covery. But no danger or hardship could deter Bates. Year after year he went on, fighting the heat, the insects, and SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 411 all the other enemies of mankind, spending day after day in the study of a single species of ant, bird, or beast, and adding to his invaluable collections all the time. No European, however, can afford to despise the cli- mate of the Amazons for many years on end. Bates's health was undermined, and undoubtedly none but a man of his inflexible courage could have continued his work in the forests for as long as he did. In the end a serious attack of ague left him w^ith shattered health, and settled his business for good and all. Even then it was only with the greatest reluctance that Bates — after various desperate attempts to renew his ex- cursions into the jungle had resulted in nothing beyond further shivering fits — packed up his collections, and prepared to sail for England, the only course by which his life might be saved. Once on board the sailing vessel, it was with the keen- est regret that he watched the thick yellow of the Amazon waters fade into the clear blue of the open ocean. He had become a child of the Amazon by temperament. It was his constitution that had failed him, as must that of every European in such surroundings. He himself, admitting his gloomy reflections at that moment, says : ''A crowd of unusual thoughts occupied my mind. Recollections of English climate, scenery, and modes of life came to me with a vividness I had never before ex- perienced during the eleven years of my absence. Pic- tures of startling clearness rose up of the gloomy win- ters, the long gray twilights, murky atmosphere, elon- gated shadows, chilly springs, and sloppy summers; of factory chimneys and crowds of grimy operatives, rung to work in early morning by factory bells ; of union work- houses, confined rooms, artificial cares, and slavish con- ventionalities. To live again amidst these dull scenes I was quitting a country of perpetual summer, where my life had been spent like that of three-fourths of the people 412 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA in gipsy fashion, on the endless streams, or in the bound- less forests." At the moment of parting, as was natural enough, Bates seems completely to have forgotten that there was a very dark side to the tropical existence, and a very bright one to English life. But after a time this became clear to him, for he writes : ' ' It was natural to feel a little dismayed at the prospect of so great a change; but now, after three years' renewed experience of England, I find how incomparably superior is civilized life, where feelings, tastes, and intellect, find abundant nourishment, to the spiritual sterility of half- savage existence, even though it be passed in the Garden of Eden." The experiences of Mr. A. E. Wallace, who sailed out to the Amazon in the same vessel as Bates, were naturally of a similar nature. Wallace, however, undertook an even greater number of canoe journeys, and his adven- tures here were even more diversified than those of Bates. He passed many months in canoes which proved them- selves rotten and leaky, and sometimes in a strong wind squall it was a question of minutes as to whether the wind would die down or the frail vessel go to pieces. On one occasion in the midst of a stormy and pitch-dark night, Wallace's boat was laboring so much that all hope was abandoned. All at once, just as those on board were ex- pecting to find themselves in the waves, their craft be- came perfectly still. As the gale was still howling as loudly as ever, the thing seemed perfectly inexplicable, until the morning showed them that their cranky little ship had, most fortunately for its occupants, run into one of those enormous beds of floating grass which are fairly common on the Amazon, and which had sheltered the canoe from an otherwise certain destruction. All this is to say nothing of the cataracts ; for it was now and then Wallace's lot to have to undertake the passage of no SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 413 fewer than ten distinct dangerous rapids in the course of a single day! His Indian assistants, moreover, were no more satis- factory than those of Bates. Sometimes the local au- thorities pressed them very unceremoniously into the service, and once one of Wallace's Indians insisted on leaving him in order to return and kill a Brazilian who had ill-treated him! Another of the naturalist's assist- ants was a youthful but refractory character who wore a large chain round his body and leg as a punishment. This was concealed beneath his trousers, but it clanked with a sinister and disagreeable sound at every step he took. Even the people of authority in those regions of that day were by no means devoid of their own peculiarities. There seemed no reason in the least, for instance, why the commandant of a district should not be a murderer at the same time, providing he were powerful enough to maintain his authority. In many neighborhoods the most ordinary forms of morality were nonexistent, which is not surprising in view of the example set by a certain number of the local priests. One of these — who had pre- viously been a soldier — confided to Wallace that he had a great respect for his cloth, and never did anything to disgrace it — in the daytime! Wallace, in spite of every discouragement, including a frequent meagerness of rations, continued to drift about the countless streams of the Amazon, landing from time to time to make a fire and cook, and setting out along the bank with collecting net and shot-gun. Sometimes in the narrower streams the canoe became filled with ants, "of fifty different species," says Wallace, "each producing its own peculiar effect, from a gentle tickle to an acute sting." Then there were swarms of wasps, and of course the insatiable and inevitable mosquito, and last, but not least, the ferocious pium fly, from whose bites the blood ran freely. 414f BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Wallace's journeyings brought him more into contact with the forest Indian tribes than did those of the other naturalists I have referred to. He would often put in his appearance at one of the great maloccas, the tribal huts w^here many families lived together in a species of primitive socialistic existence. The appearance of many of these people, painted gaily and adorned on festal oc- casions with a wealth of most brilliant feathers, was striking in the extreme, and Wallace has given many excellent descriptions of their costume, dances, customs, rude rock carvings, weapons, and of the manner in which they contrived their curious blow-pipes. '" ' - As regards his interest in the wild creatures them- selves of the forest, it will be seen from the following that Wallace was a worthy comrade of the other three. One day in the depths of the forest he met that most fierce creature, a black jaguar, face to face. For a mo- ment the two gazed fully at each other, then the jaguar walked steadily on, and disappeared in the jungle. ''This encounter pleased me much," observes Wallace quite calmly. "I was too much surprised, and occupied too much with admiration, to feel fear. I had at length had a full view, in his native wilds, of the rarest variety of the most powerful and dangerous animal inhabiting the American continent." This was, of course, the view of a confirmed naturalist. The majority of us surely would have felt the fear first and w^ould have reserved the admiration for a later and more convenient occasion ! The Amazon climate was less merciful to Wallace than the jaguar. After many minor bouts of fever he found himself completely laid up by a violent attack and by sub- sequent fits of ague, while his Indians, joyously seizing so bounteous an occasion, made themselves drunk with the spirit which he had brought with him to preserve his specimens. Wallace's time had come, for a second hint of the kind would have been the last. Packing up his collections, SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 415 he made his way toward the coast, while the visions of glad English fare, and even of the intense luxury of sim- ple bread and butter, now rose up before him with a warmth and clearness that had been denied to Bates. Wallace succeeded in boarding the homeward-bound vessel in safety. But the ship caught fire, and was burned at sea. After many days in boats, the crew and the pas- sengers were saved. But Wallace had nothing but what he stood up in. All his collections, the fruits of his labors in the Amazon forests, were at the bottom of a tropical sea! The blow was a severe one. ''Everything was ^ 3," he complained, "and I had not one specimen to illustrate the unknown lands I had trod, or to call back the recollections of the wild scenes I had beheld." But after this he seems to have settled himself down to his writings, and to have made the best of it, as an Amazon naturalist could scarcely fail to do. The last member of this group of famous naturalists is Richard Spruce, who sailed from Liverpool to South America in 1849. Spruce remained among the tropical rivers, forests, and mountains until 1864, when, after a sojourn of fifteen years among surroundings the enchant- ment of which continued unabated, the climate obtained its inevitable victory, and sent him home to England in shat- tered health. Compared with his colleagues of this chapter. Spruce was a botanist rather than a zoologist. Nevertheless, although he paid special attention to the marvelous vege- tation of the Amazon and Orinoco basins, and the Vene- 'zuelan and Ecuadorian highlands, he has a certain amount to say concerning the habits of the local fauna, and a good deal more concerning the anthropology of the northern districts of the continent. It is no doubt to be regretted that on his death in 1893 at the age of seventy-six he should have left behind him no complete volume containing the records of his experi- ences and life work. Nevertheless this deficiency has 416 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA been made good by the veteran Mr. Wallace, who, with all the sympathy of friendship and knowledge, has edited Spruce's notes, letters, and numerous publications of lesser bulk. Richard Spruce was a Yorkshireman in whom the love of botany had burned since his earliest years. He had abandoned the scholastic profession for the career of a botanist for almost half a dozen years before an oppor- tunity came to him to transfer his researches to the great South American field — an opportunity which no man of his temperament could fail to embrace with enthusiasm. Spruce, having landed at Para, soon found himself amid the full wonders of the Amazon forest. Here is his account of one of the earliest adventures which befell him and a companion: ''On the second or third night of our sojourn at Caripi, happening to awake a little after midnight, I saw King lying with his head out of his hammock and nearly touch- ing the ground, while close by his ear sate a sooty imp, which from its size might be a big toad, like Eve's dream- prompter ; but the lamp which burnt dimly in a corner of the room gave too little light to allow me to see clearly what it was. I leaped from my hammock, seized my tergado, sprang across the room, and as I pinned the monster to the ground, he opened wide his wings and show^ed himself to be a young bat of the largest kind. I had scarcely performed this feat when the two parent bats sallied forth from the roof and attacked me; and when I beat them off, they flew round and round the room, attempting to strike me with their wings every time they passed me, and I them with my tergado. By this time King was wide awake, and seeing the odd com- bat that was going on, but not knowing how it had or- iginated, sat up in his hammock convulsed with laughter, in which I heartily joined." After various excursions Spruce set out from Para for Santarem in an eighty-ton brig owned by a Captain His- SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 417 lop, an old settler on the Amazon, and a sufficiently no- table character in his way. At Santarem he made the ac- quaintance of Wallace, and it is almost unnecessary to add that the friendship between the two kindred tem- peraments was instantaneous. It was in 1850 during Spruce's residence at Santarem, that the blight of the yellow fever descended suddenly upon the Amazon for the first time. On that occasion Santarem escaped — although whether the precautions adopted by the panic-stricken inhabitants of that town brought about the immunity is more than doubtful. One of these consisted of dragging field guns through the streets and of firing them at short intervals in order to clear the atmosphere of the fatal germs ! On the whole, Spruce's existence in tropical South America was very similar to that of his predecessors and colleagues. He suffered from the same perils of tempests, river rapids, disease, and occasional famine. In his relations with the Indians he underwent a greater number of narrow escapes than any of the rest. It is difficult to imagine a more depressing situation than, fever-stricken, to be lying at death's door in the charge of an old Indian hag, whose salutation would take the form of such adjurations as: "Die, you English dog, that we may have a merry night with your dollars ! ' ' Very little pleasanter can it be to lie in a hammock, straining one's ear to catch the whispers of the Indian attendants planning to murder the white man as soon as he should have fallen asleep ! On the one occasion, moreover, when Spruce obtained the rarest of all apparent boons, the assistance of an Eng- lishman in the lonely waters of the Upper Amazon basin, his good luck turned out to be far less pronounced than he had imagined. The man in question was a sailor who had entered the country in company with a number of other Englishmen and Americans who had been attracted to the spot by a false report of gold on the Upper 418 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Maranon. To all appearances a quiet and respectable man, his true nature became evident all too soon after Spruce had engaged him. The botanist discovered that it was the newcomer's intention to murder him on the first opportunity for the cash he carried, and, once put on the alert, he found out to his dismay that this seemingly honest sailorman had already been imprisoned in Peru for murder. The man's violence, combined with a deaf- ness which caused him to imagine that all laughter on the part of others was directed at his own person, made him a continual danger to all the Portuguese and Indians with whom he was brought into contact. Spruce was glad to get rid of his truculent assistant at a consider- able monetary sacrifice; but it was not without regret that he heard subsequently that the sailor had met his death at the hands of the Indians. Compared with these adventures, it was a minor ex- perience which befell the botanist when climbing the vol- cano Pichincha, near Quito, and which he thus describes : "I had only lately emerged from the sickroom, and got very much fatigued with the two hours of steep, rugged climbing. At the highest point we reached, we lay down to rest on the grass, and I had lain a few min- utes with my eyes closed when I suddenly felt as it were a flag waved over my face, and looking up saw an im- mense condor sailing over us at only a few feet distance. My companion sprang to his feet with a shriek, and prepared to defend himself with his staff. 'He thinks we are dead,' said he, 'and if we had lain a moment longer we should have felt his beak and claws in our faces!' The condor was immediately joined by two others of his species, but being baulked of their prey, they rose in slowly widening circles, and at length appeared only specks on the bright heaven." Occasionally a gleam of humor lightened Spruce's travels, but not often. Undoubtedly one of the rare in- stances of this was afforded by the trader who had been SOME BRITISH NATURALISTS 419 commissioned by Dr. Natterer to procure him some sarsaparilla seed, but, being, according to his own lights, a patriotic person, he dreaded the consequences to his country that would arise from its successful cultivation in a foreign land. So, in order to prevent any danger of the kind, he carefully boiled the seed before handing it over to the unsuspecting Doctor Natterer ! Spruce did not confine his wanderings to the Amazon forests. His botanical excursions included Venezuela, the Orinoco, and the Ecuadorian Andes, and frequently caused him to pay fleeting visits to the centers of civiliza- tion. The longevity of some of his countrymen whom he met with in the lofty mountain towns of Ecuador caused him no small amount of natural amazement. He mentions a Doctor Jervis, nephew of the first Earl of St. Vincent, who died at Cuenca at the age of a hundred and fifteen, and at Quito he met with a Mr. Cope, who, al- though he counted eighty-five years, trotted about as nimbly as a young man. Nevertheless the span of life of these very British naturalists — fever-riddled as they were — ^would in itself seem to shatter the ordinary theories concerning climate and age. I have no note concerning Bates's death; but all the others exceeded seventy years, and, indeed, the average age of the four would be somewhere in the neigh- borhood of seventy-five ! In the face of the quite excep- tional perils undergone by all of climate, reptiles, rivers, and fellow men, this is surely a most amazing record ! Much, of course, has been accomplished since these five splendid naturalists achieved their work. Among the later men who have distinguished themselves in the same field — though not necessarily in the same latitudes — is that fine writer, W. H. Hudson. But to attempt to refer to the deeds of the later British naturalists would be to require a larger volume than this. CHAPTER XXII SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PEINT Scope of the chapter — Periods of the literature dealing with South Amer- ice — Nature of the first works dealing with the continent — Difficulties of the early chroniclers in the face of the Spanish policy — Hakluyt and Purchas — Some salient passages from Hakluyt — Writings of Sir Walter Raleigh — Sir Richard Hawkins — Esquemeling — John Ogilby — Bucaneer authors — Sir John Narbrough — Raleigh and Mandeville — Eighteenth-century popular geography — Gordon's work — A paragraph from Guthrie — Methods of the early illustrators — Charles Brockwell — The voyage and adventures of Captain Robert Boyle — Anson's voy- age — Other sea-records of the period — Dr. Samuel Johnson on the Falkland Islands — Thomas Falkner's description of Patagonia — Robertson's history of South America — How "The Present State of Peru" was published — Volumes dealing with mission work and ship- wreck — Adventures of John Davie — Literature following the British expedition to the river Plate — Molina's work translated into English by Washington Irving — The various types of nineteenth-century Brit- ish writers on South America — The first travel books proper — Some examples — Captain Head's work — Curious preface to an anonymous book — Various volumes of the 1820's — J. P. and W. I*. Robertson's books — Early nineteenth-century works on Brazil and its new court — Robert Southey's history of Brazil — Henderson's history — Works by Mrs. Graham, John Luceock, G. F. Mathison, and the Rev. R. Walsh — Literature on the Pacific coast — Aquatints — Books on the Northern republics — Some impressions of Bolivar — Captain Cochrane's journal — Waterton and Darwin — Some records of salt and fresh water voy- ages — Armitage's history of Brazil — Travel books — Sir Woodbine Parish and Captain Allen F. Gardiner — Two curious publications — Volumes on the river Plate — Prescott's "History of the Conquest of Peru" — Various publications of the 1840's — Works of Sir Arthur Helps and Sir William Gore Ousely — Publications by the Naturalists, Wallace, Bates, and Spruce — Further travel books — Hinchliff's work — C. B. Mansfield — A notable personality — The charm of his relation of his South American experiences — Various extracts — His journey to Paraguay — Some United States publications — The work of Gilliss and Ewbank — Kidder and Fletcher on Brazil — The cruise of the Wateruitch — Admiral Cochrane's memoirs — Volumes by Bollaert, Hutchinson, and Latham — Some extracts from the last — Miscellaneous volumes — Books dealing with the Paraguayan war — Sir Richard Bur- 420 SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 421 ton — Indian adventure — Translation of a notable book — A long vaca- tion in the Argentine Alps — Modern writers whose fame is not con- fined to South America — Lord Bryce, R. B. Cunninghame Graham, W. H. Hudson, Sir Martin Conway — Sir Clements Markham — Books on British Guiana and the Falkland Islands. THE length to which this chapter has attained de- mands some explanation. Let its chief cause be put at the fact that while the scope of the topic of the British writers on South America is a large one, the scope of their writings must of necessity be consid- derably wider! And, in considering the authors, it is impossible to separate them from their work. I have tried to avoid the lengths to which an excur- sion into this latter tempts the student. Nevertheless, since so much of the subject matter of these books is directly concerned with the thread of this story, it would have seemed a waste of opportunity not to extract here and there some of the more salient features from the pages. In doing this, some authors must, of course, be led forward somewhat at the expense of others, whose work may be considered of equal merit. But even the possibility of such injustice as this is surely preferable to the tedious alternative of quoting the similar views or experiences of two authorities on the same subject. Occasionally I have quoted at some length — more espe- cially in the case of Mansfield — but this is only where it has seemed to me that the literary style of the writer, added to the value of the experiences, justified such wholesale gleanings. It must be explained that — up to the year 1870 — the books referred to here are in no way supposed to con- stitute a comprehensive list. But for the ordinary student of South American affairs they will, I hope, suf- fice as an index for a practical and efficient course of reading. In an attempt of this kind the great number of books which come crowding forward with legitimate demands 422 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA for attention have made it impossible to include pam- phlets or the numerous notable articles in the Royal Geo- graphical Society's magazine, and other publications of the kind. Indeed, considerations of space have prevented separate mention of many of the very large number of valuable works dealing with South America published by the Hakluyt Society. On the other hand, seeing that in subjects of this kind North American works appeal to much the same public as do the British, it has seemed advisable to include many of the most notable books by American authors pub- lished in the United States. Here the remark concern- ing the entire absence of any claim to a comprehensive list applies with greater force. The English literature dealing with South America naturally resolves itself into periods which correspond with the various historical phases of the southern con- tinent. Thus the first works dealing with the Spanish South American colonies were descriptive of the feats of our Elizabethan sailors — that is to say when the soaring imagination of the author did not carry him inland, to de- pict fabulous people, customs, natural phenomena, and such mythical spots as the city of Manoa, to which refer- ence has already been made. With the rarest exceptions, even among Englishmen of the Roman Catholic faith, the only English who caught a glimpse of anything beyond the coast-line of early Span- ish South America were prisoners. It was very seldom that one of these unfortunate captives ever sailed his way back over the broad ocean again. If he did, it might be taken for granted that the scope of South American vision permitted him had been very limited. If the chroniclers who dealt with Spanish South Amer- ica were betrayed into numerous errors, they had suffi- cient excuse for their mistakes. Every bit of such in- formation as they gleaned was only obtained in the face of the active opposition of the Spaniards, whose policy SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 423 it was to prevent any knowledge of the continent from reaching the foreigner. In the present day, even when assisted by railways, guide-books, and personally conducted excursions, the verdict of a globe-trotter on a foreign country is not in- frequently found to be at fault! What chance had the early navigators, then, who, when approaching a port, were welcomed by a roundshot instead of an hotel tout? Naturally, this system of withholding information ap- plied especially to maps and charts. The Spaniard took care to cover up his tracks, on sea and shore, to the ut- most extent that lay in his power. If a Spanish vessel gathered some useful information by driving her nose on to a hidden rock, the chart that marked the lurking peril was held secret from foreign eyes — to the extent of flinging it, weighted, overboard, should the ship that carried it be threatened with capture by an English vessel. At the same time, it must not be gathered from all this that the Spanish official in South America was necessarily as callous as this procedure would make him out. He was merely the instrument of a considered and callous policy. He himself had nothing to gain if a for- eign vessel foundered on that rock, concealed by nature and the Spaniard; it was his Government alone that supposed it gained some advantage from the disaster. Be that how it may, it is from the navigators alone that the first records of Spanish South America are ob- tainable, and they are to be looked for in such famous collections of voyages as those of Hakluyt and Purchas. Previous to these, no writers of any special importance would seem to have concerned themselves with the do- ings of their fellow-countrymen in South America. Nevertheless Hakluyt has a reference to the effect that: "That learned and painefull writer Richard Eden in a certain Epistle of his to the duke of Northumberland, before a worke which he translated out of Munster in the yeere 1553, called a Treatise of new India, maketh 424 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA mention of a voyage of discoverie undertaken out of Eng- land by Sir Thomas Pert and Sebastian Cabota, about the 8. yere of King Henry the eight of famous memorie, imputing the overthrow thereof unto the cowardice and want of stomack of the said Sir Thomas Pert." Of these two famous collectors, Hakluyt and Purchas, there is no doubt that the work of Richard Hakluyt is in- finitely the more valuable. One who has read through the books of that splendid and staunch old clerical travel- editor will have won for himself a priceless familiarity with the rovings of the early English seamen, and conse- quently with one of the most vital pages of English his- tory. The collector of ' ' The Principal Navigations, Voy- ages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation ... at any Time within the Compasse of these 1600 yeares" was a loyal Englishman who rejoiced in the awak- ening of his country's spirit, and who demanded in the first of his dedications : ''For, which the kings of this land before lier Majesty, had theyr banners ever scene in the Caspian sea 1 Which of them hath ever dealt with the Emperor of Persia, as her Majesty hath done, and obteined for her merchants large and loving privileges? Who ever saw before this regiment, an English Ligier in the stately porch of the Grand Signor at Constantinople ? Who ever found Eng- lish Consuls and Agents at Tripolis in Syria, at Aleppo, at Babylon, at Balsara, and which is more, who ever heard of Englishmen at Goa before now? What English shippes did heeretofore ever anker in the mighty river of Plate? Passe and repasse the unpassable (in former opinion) straight of Magellan, range along the coast of Chili, Peru, and all the backside of Nova Hispania, fur- ther than any Christian ever passed, travers the mighty bredth of the South sea, land upon the Luzones in des- pight of the enemy, enter into alliance, amity, and traf- fike with the princes of the Moluccas, and the Isle of Java, double the famous Cape of Bona Speranza, arrive at the SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 425 Isle of Santa Helena, and last of al returne home most richly laden with the commodities of China, as the sub- jects of this now flourishing Monarchy have done?" Richard Hakluyt, moreover, gives out more of this sterling enthusiasm, which is worth quoting here. Here is his ringing summary of South American affairs: ''Then in processe of yeeres ariseth the first English trade to Brasill, the first passing of some of our nation in the ordinarie Spanish fleetes to the West Indies, and the huge Citie of Mexico in Nova Hispania. Then immedi- atlye ensue 3. voyages made by Mr. John Hawkins now Knight, then Esquire, to Hispaniola, and the gulfe of Mexico: upon which depende sixe verie excellent dis- courses of our men, whereof some for 15. or 16. whole yeeres inhabited in New Spaine, and ranged the whole Countrie, wherein are disclosed the cheefest secretes of the west India, which may in time turne to our no smal advantage. The next leaves thou turnest,' do yeelde thee the first valiant enterprise of Sir Francis Drake upon Nombre de Dios, the mules laden with treasure which he surprised, and the house called the Cruzes, which his fire consumed: and therewith is joyned an action more ven- turous than happie of John Oxnam of Plimmouth written, and confessed by a Spanyard, which with his companie passed over the streight Istme of Darien, and building certaine pinnesses on the west shoare, was the first Eng- lishman that entered the South sea." One more extract from these preliminaries to the great- est work on travel extant will suffice. This shows Rich- ard Hakluyt, parson though he was, in a mood of right- eous defiance. For he is concerned here with the Queen's enemies, and he is, first and foremost, a good English- man. As such, these are his words : ''Moreover, because since our warres with Spain, by the taking of their ships, and sacking of their townes and cities, most of all their secrets of the West Indies, and every part thereof are fallen into our peoples hands 426 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA (which in former time were for the most part unknowen unto us,) I have used the uttermost of my best endeavour, to get, and having gotten, to translate out of Spanish, and here in this present volume to publish such secrets of theirs, as may any way availe us or annoy them, if they drive and urge us by their sullen insolencies, to continue our courses of hostilities against them, and shall cease to seeke a good and Christian peace upon indifferent and equal conditions." Who can deny that this is a revelation of an admirable spirit in that man of astonishing industry, Richard Hak- luyt. Beyond these, there are, of course, such separate works as that of Sir Walter Raleigh with its tragic associations, published in 1596: "The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa .... performed in the year 1595." Of special interest, too, is that rare book which contains: "The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knight, in his Voyage into the South Sea, Anno Domini 1593," published in 1622. And then, if you de- sire to follow further the exploits of some British among a host of cosmopolitan colleagues you may refer to Es- quemeling's "Bucaniers of America," the valuable first edition of the translation of which was printed in 1684-5 by "William Crooke, at the Green Dragon without Tem- ple Bar." In 1671 one of the first serious attempts at the general history of South America was made by John Ogilby, and the result is a handsome royal folio volume, curiously illustrated, entitled "America." The works of Dampier (1709), Ringrose, and the other bucaneer authors have already been so fully dealt with that it is unnecessary to refer to them again here. We may jump forward, therefore, to the details of some more legitimate cruising. In 1711 was published the relation of Admiral Sir John Narbrough's discoveries: "An account of several late SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 427 Voyages and Discoveries; Sir John Narbrough's Voy- age to the South Sea by the Command of King Charles the Second, and his instructions for settling a Commerce in those parts, with a Description of the Capes, Harbours, Rivers, Customs of the Inhabitants and commodities in which they trade, ' ' etc. Even at this period the knowledge of the interior of the continent was extraordinarily scanty. It is not neces- sary to turn back the pages of history as far as Sir John Mandeville to obtain some quaint description of men, beasts, and things. Perhaps one of the few re- proaches which can be held against the memory of that most admirable and chivalrous person. Sir Walter Ral- eigh, is that he allowed the glowing Guianas to set his imagination on fire, thus providing a somewhat reckless example in the drawing of the long bow on the Orinoco ! Indeed, Raleigh's confident reports of the nation of the Ewaipanoma — the nation that had their eyes in their shoulders, their mouths in the middle of the breasts, and a "long traine of haire" sprouting backwards from their shoulders — prepares his readers for his confession of faith in Mandeville: ''whose reports were holden for fables many yeeres, and yet since the East Indies were discovered, we find his relations true of such things as heretofore were held incredible." As late as the eighteenth century the ordinary geo- graphical work published in England on South America was notable quite as much for the curious quality of its statements as for what it left unsaid ! To take a single example quite at haphazard out of the great number available, ''Gordon's Geographical Grammar," pub- lished in 1702. Dedicated to the Archbishop of Canter- bury, it was an eminently respectable and weighty work, this — "Comprehending a general view of the terraque- ous globe . . . with a transient survey of the surface of the earthly ball . . . and a clear and pleasant pros- pect of all remarkable countries. ..." 428 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA But even Gordon found it a difficult matter to peer through the veil which the Iberians had drawn across South America. Even of "Terra Firma," which com- prised the northern part of the continent including the Guianas, there is little to be said. And such information as is volunteered is strikingly vague. Now and again we seem to be drawn halfway into the editor's confidence. We are told for instance that : "in one of the Branches of Orenoque River, in such a hideous Cataract, that the water falling down, makes as loud a noise as if a thousand Bells were knock 'd one against another." Now supposing that you had lived in the year 1702 and had wished to see and hear for yourself this hideous cat- aract with its thousand bells — well, there was the whole of the great Orinoco system to choose from, and you might have spent many years paddling to and fro before you heard even so much as a single tinkle! All this is subject to the further supposition that you had not made the discovery that the sentence had been lifted from Ral- eigh's description of his sixteenth century Orinoco trav- els ! And the neighborhood of another dreadful cataract — on the Amazon this time — must have been still harder to discover. For the only clue to its identification was that the canoes of the daring natives, when they fell down it, were accustomed to "turn topsie-turvy many times." Forsaking this topic of "rarities" for that of "man- ners," we find that the information is correspondingly slender. For instance, after a curt statement that the Guiana cannibals are hunters, and walk naked above their middles, we are torn away from the neighborhood of these interesting folk — to whom we have had time scarcely even to nod — with the following parting observa- tion: "The eating of human Flesh (especially that of van- quished Enemies) is so relishing to the pallate of those savages, that two Nations of them by mutual Devouring are now reduc'd to two Handfuls of Men." SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 429 Mr. Gordon has clearly missed an opportunity here of bringing his metaphor still more into line with the tastes of his enthusiastic cannibals, which he might so easily have effected by the substitution of Mouthfuls for Hand- fuls! ' The fact is that, thanks to the Iberian obstructive meth- ods, Mr. Gordon knew very little about South America. But he is at least frankly conscious of his limitations, for that which he says of the Amazon government applies to the rest: *'A further enquiry into the same, must be re- ferred to the better Discovery of future Ages." We have certainly no reason to complain of this when we consider the occasional European ignorance of the eighteenth century, as displayed, for instance, by the French map-maker, referred to by Charles Kingsley in **Hereward the Wake," who left all the Scottish country to the north of the Tay a blank, with the inscription: ''Terre inculte et sauvage, habit ee par les Highlanders." In later words such as Guthrie's ''Geography of 1788," the influence of a vastly increased number of mariners and travelers on the South American coasts is already evident. Even so, the greater part of the information is sketchy and vague to a degree. It is when we arrive at the problem of anthropology and natural history that the weak spots even in this more recent geographer's armor become most apparent. Thus we are told of the Moon-eyed Indians, a fair-skinned race, so called from the weakness of their blue eyes that, un- able to bear the rays of the sun, served them best by moonlight ! Among the matters of historical interest we are served up with the voluptuous and picturesque asser- tion that the inhabitants of Lima in order to provide a really efficient welcome for a certain viceroy had the streets paved with silver for his entry, to the tune of a cool seventeen million pounds sterling ! How deeply the contemporary readers must have deplored the extinction of bucaneering proper ! 430 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA But the most extraordinary blend of truth and imag- ination here is revealed in the description of the sloth. So quaint a piece of prose is this that I will give it in full. Guthrie dilates with much reason on the sloth's tardy movements : "When he moves, every effort is attended with such a plaintive, and at the same time, so disagreeable a cry, as at once produces pity and disgust. In this cry consists the whole defense of this wretched animal. For on the first hostile approach it is natural for him to be in motion, which is always accompanied with disgustful howling, so that his pursuer flies much more speedily in his turn, to be beyond the reach of this horrid noise. When this ani- mal finds no wild fruits on the ground, he looks out with a great deal of pains for a tree well loaded, which he ascends with a world of uneasiness, moving, and crying, and stopping by turns. At length, having mounted, he plucks off all the fruit, and throws it on the ground, to save himself such another troublesome journey; and rather than be fatigued with coming down the tree, he gathers himself in a bunch, and with a shriek drops to the ground." Surely the pathos of the last is only equaled by the ex- traordinary vision conjured up of the flight from each other at their respective speeds of the sloth's enemy and of the sloth! Of course I do not quote such fragments as these on account of their intrinsic interest or rarity. They are merely intended to exemplify the ordinary kind of in- formation doled out at these periods to the wondering public, and for this purpose I have merely taken up from my library such books as came first to hand. Other works, such as ''The Universe Displayed . . ." published in 1768, seem to have been given out in a spirit of self-complacency such as that which promised for this that it would be ''one of the most beautiful as well as most entertaining works that has yet been published. ' ' SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 431 The form in which this large claim materialized itself will be made clear to the reader by the following extract from the preface: '*We shall give our Account in the Way of a Dialogue between Sophron, a studious Youth, Sophia, his sister, fond of reading and improving her Mind, and Mr. Worthy, an intimate Friend of the Fam- ily, who had traveled over most Parts of the World, and is fond of improving the Minds of Sophron and his Sister, and of informing them of what he has seen or heard of most remarkable in his Travels." The pictorial illustrations of many of these seventeenth- and eighteenth-century volumes are sufficiently instruct- ive in themselves. This, moreover, does not apply only to the quaintly conceived beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes — grotesque and dreamlike creatures these appear to the modern eye. The conception of the South American In- dian was equally bizarre, although here and there the ex- aggeration leaned to the euphemistic side. Those worthy artists who drew to order in London seemed extraordina- rily loth to depict a South American native who was not possessed of a stately, noble, and handsome appearance. In this it must be admitted that they did not go to the lengths to which their French confreres proceeded. These, when imagining an Inca lady, had a weakness for depicting a demoiselle of Versailles — features, manner- isms, and smile — clothed in classic draperies. Indeed, generally speaking, the Grecian model served these Med- iterranean-minded souls for all the aborigines of the Southern continent, irrespective of type and geography ! At the same time there is no doubt but that many Eng- lish illustrations of the period were somewhat unduly in- fluenced by such accounts as that of Raleigh's description of the wife of an Orinoco Cacique : ' * In all my life I have seldome seene a better favoured woman : shee was of good stature, with blacke eyes, fat of body, of an excellent countenance, her haire almost as long as her selfe, tied up againe in pretie knots, and it 432 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA seemed shee stood not in that awe of her husband, as the rest, for shee spake and discoursed, and dranke among the gentlemen and Captaines, and was very pleasant, knowing her owne comelinesse, and taking great pride therein. I have seene a Lady in England so like to her, as but for the difference of colour, I would have sworne might have been the same." This description of Raleigh's, of course, was written from memory — and from the memory of a poetic temper- ament. Had he met the Guiana lady in the flesh in the neighborhood of St. James I feel convinced that some of Raleigh's reminiscences would have suffered an abrupt shattering. So much so that I doubt whether his cloak would have been at her service even on the muddiest day! After this we may proceed to enumerate a few works, more or less in chronological order. In 1726 Charles Brockwell produced a work, which does not seem to have affected later historians to any appreci- able extent : ' ' The Natural and Political History of Por- tugal ... to which is added the History of Brazil and all other Dominions subject to the Crown of Portugal," etc. In 1774 appeared a volume — I imagine not of the first edition — by "Captain R. Boyle," entitled, "The voyages and adventures of Captain Robert Boyle." Now the ad- ventures of this Captain Robert Boyle were acute and varied, and he appears to have come into contact with Dampier, and with other famous personalities of the age. I often used to wonder how it was that neither Dampier nor any one else referred to this very notable personality in return, since Boyle was clearly not the sort of man to be overlooked — until it was put to me — by Mr. Francis Edwards — that these cleverly constructed adventures were apocrj^Dhal. The work, as a matter of fact, is ascribed to W. R. Chetwood, although there are some who hold that it is from the pen of Benjamin Victor. H SOUTH AMERICAN CATTLE SOITH AMERICAN OXEN SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 433 Anson's voyage round the world has been described by- Richard Walters in 1748. Another volume was devoted to this by John Phillips in 1744 ; a third was given out by Pascoe Thomas in 1745, while '*A Midshipman on board the Centurion" published yet another account in 1767. The ill-fated British expedition to Carthagena, which was to have struck Spanish America from the east, while Anson was playing his part in the west, is described in "Authentic Papers relating to the Expeditions against Carthagena, being the Resolutions of the Councils of War, both of Sea and Land officers" etc. This is an octavo volume, published in 1745. It should be remarked, too, that Smollett, the novelist, accompanied the British forces to Carthagena, and pub- lished an account of the expedition. Various narratives concerning the wreck of H.M.S. Wager were published about the middle of the eighteenth century, among them one by Isaac Morris, midshipman: '^Narrative of the Dangers and Distresses which befel Isaac Morris and Seven of the Crew of the Wager . . . left on an uninhabited part of Patagonia." (1747.) An- other account was published by Alexander Campbell about the same time. In 1768 Commodore the Hon. John Byron gave an "Ac- count of the Great Distresses suffered by Himself and Companions on the Coast of Patagonia, 1740, with De- scription of St. Jago de Chili and its inhabitants, also relation of the Loss of the Wager/' one of Anson's squadron. This, as a matter of fact, followed the "Voy- age round the World in H.M.S. Dolphin, commanded by Commodore Byron, with a Minute description of the Streights of Magellan and the Patagonians, etc.," which had been published in the previous year (1767) by "An officer on board the said ship." In 1771, it should be said, Dr. Samuel Johnson gave out his "Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland Islands" — thoughts which — I admit the failure 434 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA with shame — I have never perused, taking it for granted that their sententiousness was no less weighty than that which hung about most of the thoughts of the worthy and tremendous doctor! The tenor of Johnson's thoughts seem to have been against the retention of the islands as a British settlement. In 1774, the Jesuit Missionary Thomas Falkner pro- duced from his very varied experiences a slim and ad- mirably printed quarto volume: "A Description of Pat- agonia and the adjoining Parts of South America: Re- ligion, Government, Customs and Language of the In- habitants, and some Particulars of the Falkland Islands." Falkner 's work, dealing with the provinces of the stalwart and warlike Indians, outside the zone of the contempo- rary Spanish influence, is peculiarly interesting. He con- tributes, moreover, some valuable ethnological matter in his description of the eighteenth century Nomad Indians of the Pampa, whose ceramic remains and stone weapons are still found in the sand and along the banks of the streams north and south of the Tandil Range. They were the predecessors of the ''Pampa" Indians of modern times, and were undoubtedly the link uniting the Pehuel- ches and Patagonians to the now extinct Querandies and Charruas of the river Plate estuary. The Spanish au- thorities appear to have regarded Falkner 's missionary efforts with a certain amount of suspicion, although, speaking from memory, I think that no hint of this ap- pears in his book. An important historical work is that of Doctor AVilliam Robertson's, "The History of South America" (of which the author's copy, second edition, is dated 1778). This is a notable milestone in the historical road of South Ameri- can literature, and even at the present time it may still serve in many respects as a standard work. In 1805 appeared, edited by Captain Joseph Skinner, an interesting book, "The Present State of Peru," in which were included twenty very curiously colored illustrations, SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 435 mostly concerned with the contemporary Peruvian cos- tume. The manner in which this pubHcation came to see the light is in itself quite out of the ordinary. On the capture of the Spanish galleon Santiago bound from Lima to Cadiz, in 1793, a number of copies of a Peruvian maga- zine — the existence of which had not been suspected until then — were discovered. Much of this magazine matter, translated and commented upon, made up the ''Present State of Peru," and thus in this rather strange fashion a good deal of light was thrown on a colony, the affairs of which the Spaniards were jealously endeavoring to keep concealed from Europe and North America. A somewhat remarkable publication of this period is Gregory's "Journal of a Captured Missionary," which takes in the adventures of the missionaries of the ship Duff in the years 1798 and 1799. These worthy folk, when on their way to the South Sea Islands, were cap- tured by French privateers in the neighborhood of Rio. Landed in Montevideo, they were brought into contact with the mutineers of the Lady Shore, who, convicts bound for Botany Bay, had overcome their guards and brought their vessel into Montevideo. Apart from the interest of the adventures it relates, this book is notable for the unusual self-complacency of its tone. A second volume on this subject was published in 1809, "Some interesting particulars of the second voyage made by the Missionary ship, the Duff.'''' Toward the end of the eighteenth century (the edition which I have come across, not the first, is dated 179-1-) was published an octavo volume, the lengthy title of which may be given nearly in full, since in itself it is not without its historical instruction: "Unfortunate Englishmen, or a faithful Narrative of the Distresses and Adventures of John Cockburn, and five other Mariners . . . who was taken by a Spanish Guarda Costa, in the John and Ann, Capt. Burt, and set on shore, naked and wounded, at Porto 436 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Cavallo, containing a Journey over Land from the Gulph of Honduras to the Great South Sea ; wherein are many new and useful Discoveries. ..." Between 1803 and 1806 was published an important contribution to the literature of southern navigation in Admiral James Burney's "Chronological History of Voyages and Discovery in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean." Two very curious and mystifying volumes are those published by John Davie in 1805 and 1819 respectively: ''Letters from Paraguay, Buenos Aires, Montevideo," and ''Letters from Buenos Aires and Montevideo." In the advertisement of the first volume the author is described as "a gentleman of liberal education and con- siderable property, having been disappointed of his hopes of happiness with a beloved female, to relieve the distress of his mind resolved to travel." John Davie was on his way from New York to Aus- tralia, when a storm forced the captain of his vessel to put in to Buenos Aires for repairs. There, Davie him- self, going ashore, was seized by a violent attack of fever. The ship in which he was a passenger had to proceed on its way, and Davie was left to recover in the exceedingly good care of the fathers of the Convent of St. Dominic. When quite restored to health he took the dress of a no- vitiate, and was afterwards known among the Dominicans as Father Mathias. A curious circumstance is that, al- though from the moment of his first entrance into the convent it had been taken for granted that he was a Ro- man Catholic, Davie never seems to have formally em- braced that faith ! Attending a superior, Father Hernandez, to whom he became devotedly attached, Davis traveled to some of the inland missions of the Uruguay River, and testified to the manner in which the Spanish soldiers interfered with the work of the mission. In the end the fierce Char- rua Indians rose against the military, and Davie was SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 437 present at a dreadful massacre. He himself, as a sup- posed Dominican, was shielded from the wrath of the victorious Indians. His adventures were of the strangest, and he was as- siduous in his observations, which, as the concluding words of the advertisement explain: "he took every op- portunity of communicating to his friend in this country through his agent at New York by means of the American captains trading to South America. After his return to Buenos Aires, it is certain that he went to Conception, in Chile, as he was last heard of from that place, in the year 1803; but whether he lost his life in any insurrection of the natives, or was imprisoned by the government in con- sequence of his correspondence being detected, is un- known. ' ' Decidedly John Davie was a romantic person, both in his personality and prose. His book tends to leave the reader in a rather doubtful frame of mind. He has no particular reason to suppose that events did not occur as they are set down in Davie's pages, yet he cannot refrain from a certain wonder, for all that ! The first important flood of English literature at first hand on the Spanish South American dominions, was let loose on the occasion of the British expedition to the river Plate. A volume which makes clear some of the reasons of the enterprise is James Biggs 's "History of Don Fran- cisco Miranda's Attempt to effect a Revolution in South America, in a series of Letters; to which are annexed sketches of the Life of Miranda and geographical Notices of Caraccas." Of the books on the subject which I have had the occa- sion to possess or to see, the following would seem the most notable : One of the first that apparently saw the light was a pamphlet, anonymous and undoubtedly inspired, in de- fense of the discredited General Whitelocke, This, enti- tled "Truth and Wisdom versus Calumny and Folly," ap- 438 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA peared in 1807. It is, of course, a piece of special plead- ing, and is a fairly worthless production. It was owing to these expeditions, too, that Samuel Hull Wilcocke published in 1807 his "History of the Vice- royalty of Buenos Aires." The next work in seniority was a publication of quite a different order. This, published in 1808, was "Notes on the Vice-royalty of La Plata, by a gentleman recently returned from it." This is undoubtedly the work of a joyous youth, a connoisseur of dames, in whose breast the disaster must have been to a certain extent compen- sated by the fairness of the Montevidean ladies. I have referred to this author in a previous work, but he is not to be passed by here. He gives a sufficiently graphic picture of the contemporary life of Montevideo, and renders to the Oriental ladies all the praise that should be theirs by right. But occasionally, it seems, there was a fly in the ointment. In his words : "Their fine figures and graceful carriage they retain, even after their other charms are fled. From this cir- cumstance, one is sometimes betrayed into unpleasant and ludicrous mistakes. After following through several streets a pretty figure with a well-turned ankle and a brisk and airy step, by a sudden inclination of the head you discern with mortification and horror, instead of the lovely features of youth and beauty which your fancy had pictured, the dusky visage of a lean and wrinkled hag. ..." Obviously the writer suffered from the impetuosity of youth. But, as I have remarked before, how unfair is the irritability of the last sentence! Why should a respect- able elderly lady be termed a lean and wrinkled hag just because her gait was daughter to her features'? Picture the scene! Imagine the dusty and ill-paved streets of the town, along which lumber the heavy chariots of the age, holding the fair forms of the Montevidean female youth, who have already turned the head of the fair- SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 439 haired, fresh-colored, uniformed stranger. And then, alone and on foot, appears the lady — the back of the lady — of anachronistic properties. With his brain in a whirl the stranger follows the fascinating ankles. Past street corner after street corner, each marked by its protecting cannon stuck in the soil, go the pair in the same order, the northern youth becoming more and more inflamed as he is drawn farther from the center of the town. At last the lady turns her head — and the world turns blank at the same time! Then follows the epithet! You will agree that he was well served. So much for the gentleman re- cently returned from the river Plate ! A book which deals more soberly with this important subject, and which is one of the most reliable of all in its details, is the "Authentic Narrative of . . . the Expedi- tion under Gen. Crawford . . . with . . . the operations under Gen. Whitelocke. By an officer of the expedition." This was published in 1808. Major Alexander Gillespie's ''Gleanings and Remarks ... at Buenos Aires" (1819) supply one of the serious historical sides to this tragic expedition. Another important publication is one by Lieutenant Robert Fernyhough published in 1829: ''Military Me- moirs of Four Brothers in the New World." This sup- plies an excellent description of the Beresford Conquest and capitalization, and of the adventures of the British prisoners when they were interned in the Condor Valley in Cordoba. Two further notable books on the subject are, "The Journal of a Soldier of the Seventy-first Regiment of Highland Light Infantry," (1822), which throws some interesting sidelights on the occurrences, and the "Me- moirs of a Serjeant of the 5th Regt. of Foot," a small undated book, bearing Masonic emblems on its frontis- piece, which gives a most spirited account of the opera- tions. Some further relations of the ill-fated expedition are 440 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA given in Sir George Mouat Keith's Voyage to South America, and the Cape of Good Hope in H.M's Brig, Protector, published in 1819. Having now finished with the literature concerning this expedition we must hark back a few years to 1808 when a very important work: "The Geographical, Natural and Civil History of Chili," written by the Abbe Don J. Ig- natius Molina, was translated into English by "An Amer- ican Gentleman," who was in reality no less a personage than Washington Irving. The accuracy of a certain number of Molina 's observa- tions on natural history have been occasionally challenged by later naturalists ; but the work is nevertheless a most invaluable one, and the scope of its information very wide. As an appendix the work contains notes on Alonzo de Ercilla's famous poem, the Araucana, "with copious translations from that poem, by William Hayley, Esq., and theKev. H. Boyd." There is one rather curious feature connected with the English literature on South America of the nineteenth century. The authors of the books which saw the light during this period belonged to various walks in life. There were diplomats such as Parish and Ousely; there were soldiers such as Head ; sailors such as Hall, Smythe, Lowe, and a score of others. Naturalists, headed hy Dar- win, Waterton, Bates and Wallace, have given us many books; and the volumes for which the clergy have been responsible are numerous enough, including those of Walsh, Murray, and a number of chaplains and mission- aries. Estancieros such as Latham, Hadfield, and — to come to the present day — Herbert Gibson, have given out valuable work. And then there have been the impres- sions of literary travelers such as Mansfield and Hinch- liff to light up for the benefit of the general public the scenes through which they passed, as well as the solid work of journalists and newspaper proprietors such as Mulhall. It is surely unnecessary to extend this cate- SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 441 gory further, else poet-historians like Robert Southey, and the great North American writer, Prescott, might be included. So much for the professions and occupations of the great majority of the British authors of the nineteenth century who dealt with South America. But what of the men who went out to that continent to occupy themselves in purely commercial pursuits — the great army of busi- ness men who outnumbered all these others put together very many times over ? Their voices have been strangely silent, so far as print is concerned. Yet their occupations have been varied enough. The man who has banked or insured in one of the great capi- tals of the continent ; the shipper of timber, cereals, and chilled meat; the dealer in hides, horns, and fleeces; the importers of agricultural and mining machinery, and, in fact, all those who make up the company of buyers and sellers, canvassers, creditors, and debtors — the ex- periences of very many of this great host must have been interesting enough to afford most instructive pe- rusal. In almost every case they remain to be written! The average British business man of South America is the very last person who can be accused of having rushed into print. He has doubtless found a more profitable use for his pen. A receipt is as easy to write as an essay; but he who writes many essays will write few receipts ! It was in the 1820 's that South America first came within the field of the travel-book proper. Curiously enough nearly every one of these works is concerned with the journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, or vice versa, and the passage of the Andes which was in- volved. Thus in 1822 was published "The Narrative of a Jour- ney from Santiago de Chile to Buenos Aires ' ' by Lieuten- ant Edward Hibbert. This was rapidly followed by sim- ilar publications by Gilbert Farquhar Mathison (1825), 442 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Alexander Caldcleugh (1825), John Miers (1826), Cap- tain Andrews (1827), Captain — afterwards Sir — Francis Head (1828), Lieut. Charles Brand (1828). All these books are descriptive of the long posting journey through the dust or mud of the Argentine plains — where the In- dian peril frequently lurked — and the strenuous and often dangerous passage of the Andine peaks. Of these books, mostly very slender in bulk, one of the most graphic and impressionistic is Captain Head's. Many of these fleeting impressions were no doubt faulty, but Head was a keen observer, blessed with a sense of humor, who interested himself in his glimpses of the local anthropology, and was not above laying stress on such topics as the remarkable independence of the Gaucho child, and the like. In order to show this author as he is I will pluck a few lines from his pages, not from those dealing with his more dramatic and Indian-haunted ca- reerings across the plains. This is merely an incident concerning a pig: *'I saw a man on foot select a very large pig from a herd, and throwing a lasso over his neck, he pulled it with all his strength, but the pig had no idea of obeying the summons: in an instant a little child rode up, and very quietly taking the end of the lasso from the man, he lifted up the sheep-skin which covered the saddle, fixed the lasso to the ring which is there made for it, and then instantly set off at a gallop. Never did any one see an obstinate animal so completely conquered ! With his tail pointing to the ground, hanging back, and with his four feet all scratching along the ground like the teeth of a harrow, he followed the boy evidently altogether against his will; and the sight was so strange, that I instantly galloped by the side of the pig, to watch his countenance. He was as obstinate as ever until the lasso choked him, and then he fainted and fell on his side. The boy dragged him in this state, at a gallop, more than three quarters of a mile over hard, rough ground, and at last suddenly SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 443 stopped, and jumping off his horse, began to unloose the lasso: — "Estd muerto!" (he is dead) said I to the boy, really sorry for the pig's fate. " Std vivo!" exclaimed the child, as he vaulted on his horse, and galloped away. I watched the pig for some time, and was observing the blood on his nose, when, to my great surprise, he began to kick his hind leg: he then opened his mouth, and at last his eyes ; and after he had looked about him, a little like Clarence after his dream, he got up, and very lei- surely walked to a herd of ten or twelve pigs of about the same size as himself, who were about twenty yards off. I slowly followed him, and when I came to the herd, I saw that, from the same cause, they had every one of them bloody noses." This extract seems to me to combine several merits. There is a subtle and indefinable porcine flavor about it which seems to suggest the atmosphere of Charles Lamb's famous essay on the sucking-pig — added to a sketch of a contemporary Gaucho child, and of the minor livestock operations of the period ! Beyond this I must not omit to mention a little anony- mous book published in 1824, the *' Narrative of a Jour- ney from Santiago de Chile to Buenos Aires, in July and August, 1821," which contains this curt and unpromising preface : "This journal is only the catalogue of vexations that assailed an individual passing the Andes in the midst of winter, and, subsequently, crossing the Continent of South America. ' '■ With his mind wholly intent on speedily finishing his journey, and sufficiently occupied in surmounting the dif- ficulties that obstructed it, he had little inclination and less leisure to profit by those few opportunities of remark which might have presented themselves during his rapid progress; still less was he disposed, or able, when the day's work was done, to devote any time to reflection. Fatigued to death, hardly awake, memory failing, he has- 444 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA tily wrote what first occurred, and frequently fell asleep whilst noting down the events of the day. ' ' Tempora mutantur. This is not the sort of book no- tice one meets with among the modern publishers' ad- vertisements ! But the reader must not judge this anony- mous and too modest an author's work by its preface. Notwithstanding this attempt at self-condemnation, the book gives a most interesting account of a perilous journey. It was at this period, too, that Mrs. Graham published her ''Journal of a Residence in Chile, during the year 1822-1824" — a work which deals shrewdly enough with the contemporary political situation in Chile, as well as with the local manners and customs, and the author's ex- periences. A book that is worthy of perusal is an illustrated three volume publication, "An Historical and descriptive Nar- rative of twenty-four years' Residence in South Ameri- ca," produced by W. B. Stevenson in 1825. In the following year was produced in New York ''A view of South America and Mexico by a Citizen of the United States," by John Milton Miles. Among other descriptive works is J. Thomson's ''Let- ters on the Moral and Religious state of South America, written during a Residence of nearly seven years in Bue- nos Aires, Chile, Peru, and Colombia" (1827). In this year, too, was issued Captain (afterwards Sir Francis) Head's "Reports relating to the Failure of the Rio Plata Mining Association, formed under the author- ity, signed by His Excellency, Don Bernadino Rivadavia ' ' • — a document that is not without its importance in the commercial world. One of the first volumes which dealt with Paraguay in its curious hermit phase was the "Narrative of Facts connected with the Change effected in the Political Con- ditions and Relations of Paraguay, under the Direction of Dr. Thomas Francia," etc. (1826). SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 445 This was in some sense a prelude to the '* Letters on Paraguay" by J. P. and W. P. Robertson, published in 1838. These letters are of deep interest, although they necessarily lose a great deal by the fact that they were written nearly thirty years after the events which they describe. The authors were fortunate in meeting nu- merous South Americans of distinction including the Paraguayan Dictator Francia, the Argentine General San Martin, and many others. So absorbing is the interest of the matter with which the Robertsons have dealt that there is no doubt that their strong sense of the dramatic has in the course of these letters more than once taken the bit in its teeth and run away with them. That much of their work was ac- cepted seriously by that fine Argentine historian, General Bartolome Mitre, is evidenced by the fact that he incor- porated a number of their pages into his "Historia de San Martin." Nevertheless here and there it seems clear that matters of history and hearsay have been promoted out of their rightful category to the rank of personal ex- periences narrated at first hand. Nevertheless, when such froth has been blown away a quantity of valuable matter remains. In 1839 these authors published a continuation of their letters, *' Francia 's Reign of Terror," and in 1843 they produced a third work: "Letters on South America." We may now turn to a few books on Brazilian topics. An insight into the annoying methods in which the Bra- zilian colonial officialdom often thought fit to indulge is given by Thomas Lindley's ''Narrative of a voyage to Brazil, terminating in the seizure of a British vessel, and the Imprisonment of the Author and the Ship's Crew," etc. It saw the light in 1805. This, however, must have been one of the last instances of such procedure on the part of a narrow-minded colonial government, for Brazil was on the eve of important changes and political pro- motion. 446 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA In 1810 Lieutenant Count Thomas O'Neill gave to the public ' ' A Concise and Accurate Account of the Proceed- ings of the Squadron under the command of Rear- Admiral Sir Sydney Smith in effecting the escape of the Royal Family of Portugal to the Brazils on Nov. 29, 1807 ; and also the Sufferings of the Royal Fugitives, etc., during their voyage from Lisbon to Rio Janeiro. ' ' While on the subject of such episodes, a notable contri- bution to general history may be considered. Immeasurably the most important nineteenth century historical work on Brazil was Robert Southey's ''History of Brazil," the first volume of which appeared in 1810. The poet, who was greatly assisted by his uncle, the Brit- ish chaplain in Lisbon, obtained special facilities, and the access to many valuable state documents, for the writing of this book. The result is a most admirable work, which still takes rank as the standard publication on the history of Brazil up to the early nineteenth century. As such, indeed, it has been acknowledged by the Brazilians them- selves. Seven years elapsed between the publication of Southey's first volume and that of his second. In the meantime a French historian had published a history of Brazil, and, while twitting Southey with the charge that his first volume had revealed nothing new, accused him of having abandoned the promised completion of the work. Southey's retort to M. Alphonse de Beauchamp occu- pies the greater part of the preface to his second volume. So far as reputation is concerned, it leaves his antagonist as nude as Adam before the apple ! It shows conclusively that de Beauchamp 's work is nothing but the most fla- grant plagiarism of Southey's first volume, even to the extent of using the marginal references of this latter as the list of authorities ! This was turning the tables with a vengeance. Indeed, it is difficult to suppose that the publication of this pref- ace did not leave de Beauchamp plastered with shame, SOUTH AMERICA IN- ENGLISH PRINT 447 yet, possibly not : the other appears to have been a hard- ened criminal in this respect: "For M. Beauchamp," says Southey, *'is no novice in the art of plagiarism, as M. de Puissaye and others of his countrymen may bear wit- ness." This work of Southey 's, it may be said, has met with as much appreciation in Brazil as in England, a high test of its value. In 1821 appeared **A History of the Brazil" by James Henderson, which, published by the same firm, has an ap- pearance which is almost identical with that of Southey 's ** Brazil." Henderson's work is a most useful produc- tion, but why, in those days of a tenuous output of vol- ume, it should have been published just after Southey 's masterwork had seen the light, is difficult to understand. Perhaps the author himself had some doubts on this point, for in his dedication to Lord Lowther he hopes that "if the style in which I present the new fruit, gathered from the branches of the tree of knowledge that are spread in a far country, is not considered interesting, the fruit itself will be found, I hope, acceptable and useful." However, perhaps Henderson relied on the plates which he claims, are "amongst the best of their style" to eclipse the interest in Southey 's unillustrated volumes. Cer- tainly the frontispiece, representing Dom Joao of Portu- gal and Brazil accompanied by queerly-anatomical horses and men, is as unconsciously humorous as any of those old-fashioned Japanese or Hindu representations of Eu- ropean life. But even such as this did not suffice to dis- turb Robert Southey 's clear supremacy! We may now turn to some lighter work. Just as a number of English authors hastened to de- scribe the independent states into which the one-time Spanish colonies had resolved themselves, so did many of their colleagues give their impressions of Brazil in its first period of royalty. Among the earliest of these was a book published in 448 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA 1812 by John Mawe: ''Travels in the interior of Brazil, particularly in the gold and diamond districts of that country, including a voyage to the Rio de la Plata. ' ' This book is a notable publication in its way, since it is the first to describe the remoter interior of the country. Other works descriptive of Brazilian life and landscape of this period were written by Mrs. Graham (1820), John Luccock (1820), G. F. Mathison (1825), and the Rev. R. Walsh, who in his ''Notices of Brazil" presents a very lively and interesting picture of the society and manners such as prevailed in the new Kingdom of the Tropics. Mr. Walsh was chaplain at the British embassy at Rio de Janeiro, and met most of the notabilities of Brazil, from the emperor downwards. Being a broad-minded cleric, he made the fullest use of his frequent opportuni- ties of absorbing local knowledge. Mrs. Graham's book, too, is sufficiently notable for the insight it affords into the affairs of the Brazilian court. This lady, it may be explained, was instructress for a year to Dona Maria of Portugal at Rio. The daughter of Rear-Admiral Dundas, her first acquaintance with South America was made in her husband's (Captain Graham, R. N.) frigate. His death off the Chilean coast left her a widow, and after her sojourn in Chile and Brazil she returned to England, and eventually became the wife of the well-known artist Calcott. As so much space has already been devoted to the prin- cipal early nineteenth century writers on the Pacific coast it will not be necessary to deal with them at any length here. Captain Basil Hall's "Extracts from a Journal written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico (first pub- lished, I think, in 1823; the author's edition (1824) is the second, is in many respects the most valuable of all these. This book, however, has already been fully dealt with. Then, of course, there are Cochrane 's own reminiscences. SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 449 and General Miller's Memoirs, published in 1828. These, too, need no further mention. A very quaint little production which comes under this heading of the Pacific coast is the "Narrative of the Brit- on's Voyage," by Lieut. J. Shillibeer, R. M. It is true that this work only touches lightly on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America, but much of it is of considerable interest, and, incidentally, it may be said that the ingenuousness of the author 's illustrations alone suffices to make the book somewhat of a curiosity. This is the case, too, with the ''Journal written on board of His Majesty's ship Cambridge, by the Rev. H. S., Chaplain." It is true that the illustration here is con- fined to a colored frontispiece — but the lady of Peru which it depicts could scarcely be taken seriously any- where outside a nightmare. This does not, however, in the least detract from the value of the book, which gives an accurate, full, and interesting picture of the life and personalities of the Chilean and Peruvian coasts of that period. Moreover, the Rev. H. S., a most broad-minded chaplain, had a liberal education in the South American personalities of that period, for he not only met Bolivar, Bernardo O'Higgins, and others, but O'Higgins' mother, a lady of considerable romance and mystery, whom he de- scribes as a " pleasant, lively old woman. ' ' In the 1820 's many fine aquatints of South America were included in the publications of Buenos Aires and of Monte Video" (1820) — a work sufficiently well known among connoisseurs — contains twenty-four fine specimens of aquatints. But the wonderfully picturesque landscape of Brazil naturally adapted itself more satisfactorily to this type of illustration, and two years later (1822) was published one of the finest collections of colored aquatints that South America has known, Sir Henry Chamberlain's ''Views and Costumes of the City and Neighbourhood of Rio de 450 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Janeiro, from drawings taken by Lieut. Chamberlain, Royal Artillery, 1819-20." At one time a copy of this very rare book was in the possession of the author of the present work. After this we may proceed for a time more or less in chronological sequence, leaving the geographical order of the works to look after itself. The first four books con- cern the Northern republics. In 1820 George L. Chesterton wrote the ''Narrative of proceedings in Venezuela, in South America, in 1819 and 1820, with General Observations on the Country and Peo- ple." Eight years later was published a work of rather un- usual interest: "Recollections of a service of three years during the "War of Extermination in the Republics of Venezuela and Colombia. By an officer of the Colombian Navy." The author of this was an English naval officer, who took service with the South Americans, and who took part in sufficient fighting, both on water and land, to gratify the taste of the firiest of fire-eaters ! As a matter of fact, no one can have had a much wider experience of this pe- culiarly merciless campaign than this anonymous author. The part he played was not confined to such stirring in- cidents as the gunboat battles on the Northern rivers, and such charges as that at the battle of Carabobo. Having fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, he, heavily chained, was about to pay the usual penalty of death when he was assisted to escape by a certain 'Regan, a Spanish officer of Irish descent. After this he suffered imprisonment at the hands of his own superior officer, Barino, a depraved patriot-leader, whose spite was curbed by the subsequent court martial, which immediately acquitted the English- man. Undoubtedly the writer gives his impressions under the stress of not a little inevitable feeling, and, owing to this, portions of the book must be received with some reserve. SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 451 A friend and admirer of several officers displaced by Bolivar, he shows himself — however unconscious he may have been of the fact — somewhat antagonistically dis- posed towards the Liberator. Hence the pictures we re- ceive from him of Bolivar do not err on the flattering side. Here is the account of his first presentation to the great South American: "At the door of the apartment, which stood partly open, were two English soldiers, who were fixed there as sentinels, to prevent any unseasonable inte-rruption upon his excellency ; and Captain Mardyn having retired, I de- sired one of them to announce to Bolivar the arrival of a British officer with despatches from the Venezuelan Con- gress. He did so, and returned with an order for my immediate entrance. I went into the room, which was large, but dirty, and scantily provided with furniture. At the further end sat Colonel O'Leary, then one of his ex- cellency's secretaries, on the ground, with a small writ- ing-desk in his lap, writing despatches of a military na- ture, at the dictation of Bolivar, who, at the other end of the room, was sitting on the edge of a large South Amer- ican cot slung from the ceiling. To avoid the inconveni- ence of the heat, he was quite unencumbered with apparel or covering of any description, and was swinging himself violently by means of a coquita rope, attached to a hook driven into the opposite wall for the purpose. Thus curiously situated, he alternately dictated to O'Leary and whistled a French republican tune, to which he beat time by knocking his feet laterally ... he instantly sprang from the cot and proceeded to embrace me, ac- cording to the custom of the country, by enclosing me in his arms and kissing my cheek. Such a proof of regard not being very congenial with my feelings, more particu- larly when otfered by a person in a total state of nudity, I declined it in no very gentle manner; upon which he looked as though somewhat displeased, and turned toward his secretary with evident marks of astonishment. The 452 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Colonel, who entered into my feelings at once, represented to him that such a custom was foreign to his countrymen, and hoped, therefore, that he would pardon the ungentle repulse I had given him. His Excellency smiled, and ex- tended to me his hand with an air of the warmest cor- diality, which mark of condescension I respectfully ac- knowledged, and he returned to his cot to finish the de- spatches, while I smoked a cigar." It is a curious glimpse of Bolivar, this — as unexpected as many of the author's comments on his brother officers, British or South American, concerning which the reader is occasionally left in doubt as to whether their accuracy rivals their frankness! At the same time, it is clear enough that the impressions are honestly given. Captain Charles Stuart Cochrane 's ''Journal of a resi- dence and travels in Colombia during the years 1823 and 1824" must not be judged by its colored frontispiece. This depicts our author, who was a gallant British naval officer, in Colombian costume leaning on his steed, whether mule or ass, whose mther does not reach to Captain Coch- rane 's thigh. The art of the early nineteenth century is not that of to-day, and an uninitiated and disinterested modern spectator might well suspect a touch of humor in the conception — and especially in the expression of the steed — which was never in the remotest degree intended. Captain Cochrane visited Colombia just when the War of Independence was drawing to a victorious conclusion. He saw, therefore, much of the new South American so- ciety which was in the course of formation, and his book is a mine of information on the customs and entertain- ments of the period. Many of his descriptions are of high interest. Here, for instance is his account of a national fandango : "This dance is intended as a dumb representation of courtship. The music begins at first slow and monoto- nous, but gradually increases from andante to allegro. The gentleman commences by pursuing the lady quietly SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 453 and gently, and the lady retreats in like manner, making short circles, and turning on her heel at each time that her partner approaches, quickening her step and revolu- tions as the time of the music increases, until she per- ceives that he seems inclined to give up the pursuit; repentance follows, and the pursuer is in his turn pur- sued, making similar retreats, and the same circumvolu- tions that the lady so recently practised, until at last, re- lenting, he turns to meet her, and they approach each other more closely, and being apparently reconciled, make three or four peculiar stamps with their feet, bow to each other, and retire, tolerably exhausted, amidst the ac- clamations of the by-standers, to make way for another couple." It was in these Northern and tropical regions of the continent, of course, that the local color was inclined to be not only most brilliant, but most bizarre. This will be obvious enough from Captain Cochrane 's description of the Cock Mass, which is worthy of reproduction in full : ''At midnight a curious custom of the Roman Catholic Church was performed, called the Cock Mass, in com- memoration of the crowing of the cock which took place on Peter 's denial of Christ. When the curate commences the service, the people imitate and mock his gesture, tone of voice, and manner of reading ; make all kinds of noise — shouting, bawling, hooting, and imitating the crowing of the cock, with every possible exertion of lungs; the whole forming an exhibition most deafening to the ear, and perfectly ridiculous to the eye. There is another church service, quite as ludicrous and preposterous, on the day of celebrating the Rending of the Veil of the Temple, when our Saviour gave up the ghost. The peo- ple have large hammers, with which they beat the benches, and have sheets of tin, etc., which they shake, to imitate the noise of thunder as nearly as possible. An English colonel, in the republican service, on this occasion thought he could add to the scene, by imitating the English fox- 454 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA hunter's tallyho, which he did with so much strength and clearness of lungs, as quite to excel any noise of other persons; and gained by it so much of the curate's good will, who imagined that his religion was in proportion to the vehemence of his utterance, that after the service he came to him, and seizing his hand, thanked him most cordially for his kind addition to the devotion of the night.'* In 1827 appeared "The Present State of Colombia : con- taining an account of the Principal Events of its Revolu- tionary War, the Expeditions fitted out in England to assist in its Emancipation, by an officer," and various other works concerning Colombia appeared at this period. It was, by the way, two years previously to this that Charles Waterton published his famous ''Wanderings in South America," a work which has already been fully dealt with in these pages. The same applies to Charles Darwin's ''Voyage of a Naturalist," published in 1840, fifteen years later. In 1829 Lieutenant H. Lister Maw, R. N., who, by the way, was the first Englishman to descend the Amazon, published his "Journal of a Passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, crossing the Andes in the Northern Prov- inces of Peru, and descending the River Maragnon or Amazon. ' ' In 1834 Dr. W. H. B. Webster published the "Narrative of a Voyage to the Southern Atlantic Ocean . . . per- formed in H.M. Sloop Chanticleer, undei' the command of the late Captain Henry Forster, F.R.S., etc." The sub- ject of this has already been dealt with. Two years later appeared the "Diary of the Wreck of the H.M. Ship Challenger on the Western Coast of South America, in May, 1835, with an account of the sub- sequent Encampment of the Officer and Crew, during a period of Seven Weeks on the South Coast of Chili." In 1835 was produced another interesting work, of wider scope, "Three years in the Pacific, containing no- SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 455 tices of Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, etc., in 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834, by an Officer in the United States Navy." In 1836 John Armitage published an important histor- ical work, that still remains as a standard book of refer- ence, the ''History of Brazil, from the period of the ar- rival of the Braganza family in 1808, to the abdication of Don Pedro the First in 1831, compiled from State Docu- ments, and other Original Sources, forming a continua- tion to Southey's History of that Country." Two years later John Hawkshaw added to the compara- tively slender stock of literature on the Northern half of the continent by "Reminiscences of South America, from Two and a Half Years' Residence in Venezuela." In 1838 the Hon. P. C. Scarlett published a book on a road which was now becoming fairly well trodden: ''South America and the Pacific, comprising a Journey across the Pampas and the Andes, from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso, Lima, and Panama." The following year Sir Woodbine Parish produced a work on "Buenos Aires and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata," of considerable intrinsic merit and interest. The view^s, however, on the politics and development of the river Plate Provinces expressed in this have met with considerable criticism from later writers. In 1841 Captain Allen F. Gardiner, R.N., published "A Visit to the Indians on the Frontiers of Chili," a work which deals with the possibilities of missionary effort among the Araucanian Indians of Southern Chile. It was this book, by the way, which helped toward the forma- tion of the Patagonian Missionary Society, from which sprang the present South American Missionary Society. The closing chapter of the mission of Captain Allen Gar- diner and the story of his death are given in a little book entitled "The Giants of Patagonia," produced by Captain Browne in 1853. In 1842 was published a large and most thorough mono- graph: the "Description of the Skeleton of an extinct 456 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Gigantic Sloth," by Eichard Owen, F.R.S. Tliis giant sloth was found some seven leagues to the north of the city of Buenos Aires. The work deals with it in the most important and conscientious fashion, some of the folding illustrations being of a size sufficiently immense to content the pride of the shade even of a gigantic sloth ! The following year J. P. and W. P. Robertson gave out '* Letters on South America, comprising Travels on the Banks of the Parana and Rio de la Plata." In 1843 George Jones, M.R.S.L, F.S.V., published ''The History of Ancient America . . . proving the identity of the aborigines with the Tyreans and Israelites ; and the introduction of Christianity into the Western Hemisphere by the Apostle St. Thomas. ' ' This ambitious work has a correspondingly ambitious frontispiece, representing the bust of the author, classically carved and with shoulders draped with a classic toga. The first volume was dedi- cated to Frederick William the Fourth, King of Prussia, ''with feelings of enthusiasm." And the author contin- ues: "If, in the following pages, your Majesty should recognize Your own portraiture in that of Hiram the Great, it is such as truth and history have designed and coloured ; — fawning flattery and false adulation have not added even a thought to embellish, where Patriotism has so nobly consolidated"! Then came the question of the second volume ! Its dedication is on a par with the rest. From this it appears that "An Illustrious Prince" was first chosen for the distinction. But this Prince, inclined to hedge waived his right suggesting instead ' ' some Theologian of high rank among the sacred Profession, and eminent for Learning and Piety." This person, concluded George Jones, could be no other than the Archbishop of Canter- bury, and in three sentences — which occupy two pages — he lays his work at the prelate's feet. Is it necessary to say more? George Jones was a crank, and his book is that of a crank ! Yet some of its SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 457 matter has been quoted by some later authors whose work was not without weight. In order to find a companion-volume for this last I will drag from its proper chronological place another book which I imagine — though I have not had the advan- tage of reading it — may be safely introduced into the crank section, if by no other virtue than that of its il- luminating title, which is '' Researches into the Lost His- tories of America, or the Zodiac shown to be an old Ter- restrial Map in which the Atlantic Isle is delineated, so that light can be thrown upon the obscure Histories of the Earthworks and Ruined Cities of America." This work, published in 1883, is, I believe, eloquent of the alleged demons of South America, and is from the pen of Mr. W. S. Blacket. In 1846, when the powder of the Argentine Dictator Rosas was at its height, Colonel J. A. King gave to the world : ' ' Twenty-four years in the Argentine Republic, embracing the author's personal adventures with the Civil and Military History of the Country, and an account of its political Condition, before and during the Adminis- tration of Governor Rosas," etc. Let it be said of this book that it is as wild as were the times it was written in — and, in many pages, a good deal wilder ! But much of the local color is undoubtedly accurate, and all that is necessary is a grain or two of salt to apply to the adven- ture portion of the book ! How thoroughly General Rosas understood the art of propaganda may be gathered from an inspired small book published in 1844: "Buenos Aires-Monte Video and Affairs in the River Plate." This is in the form of a letter to the Earl of Aberdeen by a Mr. Alfred Mallalieu, and constitutes a spirited defense of Rosas' methods of government and political outlook. Three years later the American historian W. H. Pres- cott published his ** History of the Conquest of Peru"; a famous work, and a classic, which, of course, needs no de- 458 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA scription here, beyond the remark that it has familiarized the English-speaking public to a quite unhoped-for extent with the affairs of the ancient Inca race, as well as with those of the Spanish conquistadors, and with the amazing personality of the greatest of them all — Pizarro, the one- time swineherd, who carved out his own vice-royalty, and who reigned there as an actual king ! Among the works on Brazil about this period are: George Gardner's ''Travels in the Interior of Brazil, prin- cipally through the Northern Provinces, and the Gold and Diamond Districts, during the years 1836-41" (1846); W. H. Edwards' "Voyages up the Eiver Amazon, in- cluding a Kesidence at Para" (1847), and E. Dundas' ''Sketches of Brazil, including new views on Tropical and European Fever" (1852). In 1848 Commander Mackinnon published his "Steam Warfare in the Parana, a narartive of operations by the combined squadrons of England and France in forcing a passage up that Eiver." In 1848-52 Sir Arthur Helps published his ' ' Conquer- ors of the New World," a sufficiently notable production, although not of the importance of "The Spanish Conquest of America" (1855), or the "Life of Columbus" by the same author. In 1852, Sir William Gore Ousley published his "Views in South America from original drawings made in Brazil, the Eiver Plate, the Parana, etc." These views appear to have attained to a sufficiently wide popularity, and we find them employed for the illustration of several later volumes by other authors. Of the naturalists who have been referred to in a previ- ous chapter Alfred E. Wallace published his "Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Eio Negro" in 1853, while Bates gave out his "Naturalist on the Eiver Amazons" ten years later. Of a third naturalist, Eichard Spruce, who has already been referred to, it may be repeated that his various notes, letters, and minor works were only SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 459 published in complete volume form in 1908, when they were edited by Wallace. There is one paragraph from these writings of Spruce which may very well be included here, since it illustrates rather curiously the mid-nine- teenth century literary taste in some of the remoter parts of Venezuela: ''When I reached San Carlos in Venezuela the only books in the Spanish language existing there were 'El Sepulcro, por Anna Radcliffe,' and a translation of one of the Duchesse d'Abrantes' novels. They are scarcely more numerous at Tarapoto, where one of the most fa- mous books is 'Waverley o' ahora sesenta aiios, por Sir Gualterio Scott.' In short, so far as I can judge of South America from having seen only the most thinly inhabited portions of it, I can truly say that Mrs. Radcliffe, Walter Scott, and Alexandre Dumas are far more popular there than Cervantes and Camoens. To the credit of the Bra- zilians, they are far more familiar with the 'Lusiads' than the Spanish Americans are with 'Don Quixote.' " The same year was published W. MacCann's "Two Thousand Miles' Ride through the Argentine Provinces," one of the most interesting books of its kind on the pampa. A work notable for its botanical as well as for its gen- eral information was produced in 1853 by Dr. George Gardiner, superintendent of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Ceylon: "Travels in the Interior of Brazil; principally through the Northern Provinces, and the Gold and Dia- mond Districts, during the years 1836-41." Even less known country was touched on in 1854 by L. H. de Bonelli, secretary to the British legation in Bo- livia, in "Travels in Bolivia, with a tour across the Pampas to Buenos Aires, etc." In the same year William Hadfield, who had resided for several years in Brazil, published a work, "Brazil, the River Plate, and the Falkland Islands." The in- formation he gives concerning Brazil is copious and valu- able, and — although here his status was only that of a 460 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA traveler — he has much to say on the river Plate countries that is well worth perusal. Many pages concern them- selves closely with the personalities and parties of the great Argentine dictator Rosas and his one-time adjutant and subsequent rival Urquiza. Hadfield's book appears to have attracted considerable attention at the time, and was widely quoted by many of the following writers on the river Plate countries. But this is undoubtedly as much due to the moment at which the work appeared as to its intrinsic merit. Its publication, just after the fall of Rosas, coincided with the ushering in of the new liberal epoch of the river Plate. The following year a certain recrudescence in the pub- lic interest in bucaneer affairs was assisted by Mr. 0. W. Thornbury's "The Monarchs of the Main; or, Adven- tures of the Buccaneers." *' South American Sketches, or a visit to Rio Janeiro, the Organ Mountains, La Plata, and the Parana," is the title of a book produced in 1863 by Mr. T. W. Hinchliff. Beyond the intrinsic interest of its subject, this work is notable for a merit which is wont to be lacking in so many books of travel — a literary excellence which makes it most admirable reading. The cheery touch of this author may be exampled in passages such as the one describing a shooting expedition on the Uruguay River : ' ' Sometimes a strong whirr told us that a partridge had taken to the wood, and betrayed the course of his flight ; sometimes a sharp flapping overhead warned us that wood-pigeons were hovering about the tops of the trees ; and sometimes a clatter like that of angry Irishwomen in an alley an- nounced the immediate neighborhood of a flock of par- rots. All these in turn fell victims, and were most sweetly and harmoniously combined into a mighty pie, the flavour of which I shall never forget, and which I can confidently recommend to any one starting for the pas- tures of the Uruguay." And then there was that gigantic toad that was pre- SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 461 sented to a friend of Hinchliff's in Brazil: the creature that was as big as a hat, and that sat in front of its alarmed owner, and *' opened its mouth like an oyster, barked like a dog, and flew at his legs !" It does not require the incentive of a direct interest in South America to appreciate such touches as these ! One of the most important British books of the mid- nineteenth century was written by Mr. C. B. Mansfield who visited South America in 1852-53. Less than two years after his return from the Southern continent, Mans- field met with an accident which caused his death, and the MS. of his work, ''Paraguay, Brazil, and the Plate," was left incomplete in some respects. Charles Kingsley, a friend and keen admirer of Mans- field's, has added a biographical and appreciative note to the posthumous volume, which ends with the invocation : ''Oh, fairest of souls! Happy those who knew thee in this life ! Happier those who will know thee in the life to come!" Charles Kingsley was no careless squanderer of en- thusiasm, and its subject seems to have been amply worthy of these exclamations. "From Winchester," says Kingsley, "he went to Cambridge; and none who knew him there but must recollect with pleasure his graceful figure, slight and delicate, yet trained to all ath- letic sports, and of an activity almost incredible; his forehead full and high, and yet most bland ; his fair locks ; his finely-cut features, most gentle and most pure; his eyes beaming with thought, honesty, humor, and a super- abundance of genial life, such as I who write have never beheld in any other man. ' ' High praise, this, from the man whose "Westward Ho ' ' and ' ' Hypatia ' ' were the fruits of only a measure of his various powers! Charles Mansfield, a remarkable man, visited South America at a remarkable period. From the time of Wil- liam Hawkins to the present day very few British have 462 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA gone out to South America for the purpose of philosophiz- ing. But Mansfield went for no other reason. The in- land State of Paraguay was his chief objective, for the mystery of isolation had appealed strongly to his im- agination. He was determined to make an attempt to see the strange land with his own eyes, and to probe into the whys and wherefores of the country that was com- monly known at the time as the "Inland Japan." AVhat a different impression would this simile render if it were coined afresh to-day ! Now, judged superficially, Mansfield would have seemed the last man to hobnob successfully with the rank and file of the South Americans of that period. He was what is popularly known as a "character." He detested all tobacco smoke, abominated the idea of eating animal flesh, was rather deaf, and held strong views on the economy of labor, honoring as he did the producer and utterly de- spising the trader. He was an ardent believer in the mission of the British race, and occasionally loved to burst into a song of prophecy that was a curious mixture of ecstasy and sound common sense. In addition to all this he was one of the most promising young chemists in England, and his book exhibits most generously that flow of humor to which Kingsley alludes. Mansfield was peculiarly susceptible to the beauty of landscape, and these are his exclamations on first setting foot in Brazil: "What a Paradise is, or at least might be, this country if it were possessed by the English. I do not feel at all sure that I am not dead, and have not recommenced another life. . . . The beauty is almost be- wildering. The glorious cocoa-nut trees, bananas, and several kinds of palms, breadfruit, etc., etc., and the mag- nificent green oranges. ... I am too giddy to write so- berly about anything. I feel inclined to cut capers under the trees till I am tired, then sigh like a hippopotamus for some one to pour it all out upon, and then lie down and dream. ' ' SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 463 Mansfield's relations with the very varied types of humanity with whom he was brought into contact seem to have been most cordial. He stayed among the Fazen- deiros of Brazil — the owners of slaves and sugar and coffee and cotton lands, — with their flowered cotton jackets and bediamonded hands, and pronounced them trumps. Arrived in the river Plate, armed with a letter of introduction from Admiral Grenfell, he went to see Urquiza, the all-powerful Protector of the river Plate Provinces of that period, and after contrasting with some dismay his own ancient garments with the smart clothes of those who now surrounded him, he found himself in the presence of *'a very respectable English farmer-like, honest-looking man, in a neat blue uniform coat and white waistcoat, with a lot of officials and applicants sitting or standing in a row at the side. ' ' Urquiza received Mans- field most politely, and, having been granted the freedom of the great Argentine rivers, Mansfield bowed himself out, "thinking him really a hero and a trump." At the same time it must be said that Mansfield's first impressions of the town of Buenos Aires were far from favorable. The hand of man had not yet embellished the alluvial flats of its site, and the numbers of decaying carcasses of cattle which then littered the outskirts of the city were especially oifensive to so ardent a respecter of animal life as Mansfield. Indeed, existence for so enthusiastic a vegetarian must have presented a good many problems in a land where the phenomenal superabundance of butcher's meat caused the cultivation of vegetables to be almost entirely neglected. But no circumstances of mere physical dis- comfort could disturb his equanimity, and it was with his unfailing serenity that he started in a small sailing vessel up the Parana River on the first stage of his inland voy- age to Paraguay. The moment was a notable one in the history of Para- guay. Carlos Lopez, the dictator of the inland republic. 464 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA was about to suffer the veil to be torn from its frontiers. Foreigners were at length to be permitted to tread its long-secluded and mysterious soil. Sir Charles Hotham, the British special envoy, and his French colleague were about to steam up the rivers to Paraguay in their re- spective war vessels in order to conclude treaties with the Government of the hermit state. So Mansfield un- dertook his journey in high hopes of being one of the favored first to see with their own eyes the workings of this beautiful land of seclusion and rumor. The journey to Corrientes, the northernmost port of Argentina, where the rivers Paraguay and Parana join their waters, took a month, during which time Mansfield fed himself chiefly on ship's biscuits and raisins, dived overboard every morning for his swim, notwithstanding the fierce current which occasionally ran, and observed all things with an unfailing acuteness, from the people, landscape, birds, beasts, and fishes to the bottles of Bass's pale ale and the rolls of Manchester cottons which already lay by the side of the local brown sugar and yerha mate in the recently erected stores on the river bank. He was a keenly interested spectator, too, of the games of pelota — the river Plate fives, and considered that *'a Gaucho boy or two, turned loose on ball court at Winton, would astonish a Wykehamist a little." At Corrientes occurred a very long halt, while President Lopez's permission to enter Paraguay was awaited. This period Mansfield occupied in studying the natural history and botany of the district, and in gazing across the great river, speculating on the inherent possibilities of the forests and swamps of the opposite Chaco bank which the dread of the untamed Indians — though numbers of these latter frequently visited Corrientes — kept so en- tirely shut off from the white man that the mile or so of stream which flowed between the two might well have been a thousand ! The long period of suspense would have been weari- SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 465 some enough for most people ; but Mansfield's enthusiasm was sufficient to provide him with joys of his own, as will be evident from the note that rings in his meeting with the giant crane, when he saw : * ' The most magnificent bird I ever beheld : he must be the king that was sent down from heaven to meet the demands of the frogs — a perfect emperor of cranes. I had just been watching a big heron, when I caught sight of this fellow. At first I thought he was a cow, and then that he was a man; at last I perceived that his gait was far too stately for any biped but a bird, and he let me come as close to him as the length of an ordinary room; and he was all snow-white, except his beak and his head and his neck, between the black and white, which was deep red; and his beak was ponderous, like unto a pelican's, and full a foot long, with a heavy lower jaw. He must have stood five feet high without his boots, and he let me look at him ever so long, and he stalked about quite promiscuous; and there was close to him a big white heron, that looked quite small ; and as I sat and wondered, he spread his wings, all snow-white, and sailed straight away down south for miles and miles, till the speck of white in the sky was too small to see." In passages such as these Mansfield is an awkward man to quote from, since the difficulty arises in knowing where to stop. Mansfield had planned to enter Paraguay with two friends of his, a French diplomat and his wife, and even after permission had been received from Lopez the vaga- ries of these excellent but irresponsible people increased the delay. At length he received an intimation that his companions would start immediately. Mansfield explains that he did not believe it in the least, but was bound to act as if he did ! However on this occasion the alarm was no false one, and presently the party had set out on horse- back on its way to Paraguay. Mansfield's description of his costume is instructive in 466 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA itself. Among his garments was a white cotton poncho, Manchester made, but Corrientes bought; Gaucho belt containing Spanish doubloons ; magnificent silvery spurs, Buenos Aires bought but Birmingham made, a water- proof Rio-de-Janeiro bought, London made; and then there was his recado, his Gaucho saddle of horse-cloths, hides, and sheep-fleece — '*a thing like the back of a huge caterpillar, suddenly petrified into an enquiring atti- tude." So they set off, across the fair prairies, woodlands and marshes of Corrientes, poor Mansfield bearing the burden of Madame 's parrot in its cage, that had been transferred to his uncomplaining arms by the somewhat imperious lady ! Indeed, reading between the lines, there seems no doubt that Mansfield's kindly personality was made the fullest use of by Madame G., as well as by her stout hus- band, who always wore a little sword by his side, and whom Mansfield "admired with a great reverence" when he set his horse into a very slow canter. At length the party arrived at the bank of the Alto Parana Eiver, on the further side of which lay the long- shrouded country of Paraguay. Scarcely had they made their appearance there when from a little fort on the Paraguayan shore a canoe was paddled lustily across by seven splendid specimens of manhood, some of which were quite fair, and not one of w^hom bore the slightest trace of Lidian blood. The men, says Mansfield, were utterly unlike any others he had previously seen in South Amer- ica. Paraguay had provided its first surprise ! After this they were ferried across in grand style, and the secret of their prompt reception was now made evi- dent. High up in the branches of a tree was a look-out post from which a lad was watching continually. *'And," says Mansfield, ''I presume he is there still. This is a part of the rigid system of vigilance by which all intruders have been kept off the coasts of the inland Japan. ' ' SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 467 The Paraguayan Government, having admitted Mans- field and his friends, did the thing handsomely, and treated them as its guests, itself providing the horses and men necessary for each stage of the journey to Asuncion, the capital. It was a queer world in which the newcomers found themselves. The idyllic landscape was populated for the most part by soldiers in very smart and service- able uniforms, but barefooted, the majority of the officers being likewise unshod — a fashion which has always been popular in Paraguay as much from motives of choice as from those of economy. Some regiments, remarks our author, of these men — for the most part unusually fair-skinned — wore trousers, others the Gaucho Calzoncillos and Chiripas. But when off duty they strolled to and fro almost in a state of nudity. Mansfield was much struck by the law and order, neat- ness and cleanliness that, under the despotism of the elder Lopez, prevailed in Paraguay at that period. It was with amazement that he contrasted these advantages of that very remote state with the contemporary slovenli- ness and neglect that was all too evident in Northern Ar- gentina. In the long interval which has elapsed since Mansfield's visit these circumstances have tended to re- verse themselves. This would seem to prove that, al- though autocracy may provide a short cut to law and order, the awkward and slow-grinding wheels of democ- racy do their task more thoroughly in the long run ! Some idea of the manner in which matters were carried on in the hermit kingdom of Paraguay may be gleaned from the method by which a large lawTi in the neighbor- hood of the military headquarters of this frontier post was kept spotlessly tidy. Five hundred men, explains Mansfield, under charge of their officers were marched out to pick up with their fingers every spot of dirt and every sign of weed, and the gleanings were borne off on hides stretched on poles, each carried by four men ! 468 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Mansfield's first night in Paraguay was in its way as stirring as anything he could ever have pictured ! Every half -hour the loud challenges of the sentinels rang round the camp, and at two o'clock in the morning a powerful military band shattered the balmy night air by a lengthy outpouring of stirring airs. Now — although Mansfield does not appear to have been aware of it — this seems to me without doubt to have been a survival of the old Paraguayan Jesuit Mission days, when drums and fifes used to parade through the settlements at night for a purpose which any one who cares to study the early Jesuit authors may learn for themselves. In sylvan Paraguay, where cattle were less ubiquitous than in the Southern prairies, and where mandioca and tropical fruits and vegetables abounded, Mansfield's daily bill of fare became comparatively sumptuous. Maintain- ing the unbroken cordiality of his relations with the vari- ous officials and others with whom he came into contact, he, accompanied by his French friends, completed the journey to Asuncion almost without incident. On his arrival there he found that the first foreign trading steamer to enter the port had dropped anchor on the previous day ! In Asuncion, Mansfield continued to wonder at the pro- portion of fair-haired and fair-skinned people, notwith- standing the fact that the Guarani Indian strain largely predominated in the population and that the Guarani tongue was the general speech of the country. Mansfield settled himself down with his rare and en- thusiastic intelligence to study the curious and romantic capital, its surroundings, inhabitants, and the intricacies of the Guarani tongue. Soon after his arrival H.M.S. Locust steamed up, and Sir Charles Hotham, the British envoy, landed in order to recognize officially on the part of his Government the independence of Paraguay, and to draw up a treaty of commerce between that nation and Great Britain. SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 469 Mansfield had already been introduced to the family of Carlos Lopez, the dictator of Paraguay, and among the rest had met young Francisco Solano Lopez, who some fifteen years later was destined to plunge central South America into an ocean of blood. His description of the ball given by Hotham in honor of the diplomatic occasion — a function at which those humble folk who were not ad- mitted congregated outside, and thrust their naked legs into the ballroom through the bars of the windows, hold- ing on to the upper part with their arms — is worth giving in full: ''I was riding along the street yesterday, near the square in which the government buildings are, and heard a precious firing of rockets and viva-ing. Behold ! The people were carrying the portrait of the President from the Cabildo to the ballroom; the noise was adulation of the effigy. In the evening he came to the ball ; he arrived a few minutes before I did, so I lost the sight of his entry ; when I came he was sitting in an armchair at the end of the room in a magnificent uniform, with a huge gold-headed cane in his hand : there he sat for about two hours, the most perfect picture of pompous good humor ; on his right sat his wife, like any queen. I did not notice a single Paraguayan except his wife and his son (a young lad of twenty or so, the general of the army) go near him. The representatives of the foreign powers that are here went up and saluted him as they came in ; he stood up to shake hands with Sir C. Hotham, an honor which he also accorded to the Brazilian minister, but to no one else. I went up with two other Englishmen and made obeisance to him, at which he looked highly pleased ; I do not think any one else went near. Two gentlemen, Argentines, ac- tually danced a solo before him, intended for and called an English hornpipe. At last, about ten p.m. (the ball was opened at eight, by his son dancing with his daugh- ter) he rose and walked out of the room, amidst the ob- sequious bows of some and the retreating of others ; and 470 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA as he departed under shouts of 'Viva la Republican del Paraguay!' 'Viva el excelentisimo Senor Presidente!* the stiffness suddenly relaxed, a hum of talk pervaded the room, the good-natured Presidente burst into a bland smile and swept into the seat just vacated by her husband, and there she sat without moving, except once to go and take refreshments, till the end." Half a century and more ago a president of Paraguay was worth an emperor of decadent Rome and a Chinese mandarin put together! But we have no space to follow Mansfield and his de- lightful reflections any longer. They are plain enough to read in his book, which is just over sixty years old. Moved by a sudden impulse, he determined to return to England, so he took a cordial farewell of President Lopez, and made a bargain for his voyage downstream with a ship's captain, who at the time of the compact happened to be in the guardhouse with his feet in the stocks — no uncommon position even for the most blameless and wor- thy people in Paraguay of the mid-nineteenth century ! Only one incident of Mansfield's downstream voyage need be referred to here. Having just left the land of a despot in the full flush of his power he was fated during his halt of a few hours at the Argentine town of Parana to pick up a link with the destiny of another autocrat, one who had been banished, and was living in retirement in England — Rosas of Argentina. It is only a passing remark that Mansfield makes on the subject, but to one acquainted with the affairs of Rosas, and his charming daughter Dona Manuelita, who is said to have exercised so strong an influence over the British minister, it is significant enough. The British minister. Captain Gore, happened to be on a visit at Parana, and Mansfield took the opportunity of calling on him. Just as he was embarking again Captain Gore came down to the beach on horseback. Would Mansfield call on the Rosas when SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 471 he got back to England, he asked, and tell Manuelita that he had seen him on her horse? Sheer gossip, this, of course. But it is not Mansfield himself who tells the tale in gossipy fashion — how could he, in the three and a half lines he devotes to the episode! — and if any one is to be hauled over the coals for dis- seminating mild scandal, it is not Mansfield, with his head high up among the incurious stars, but the mundane author of these notes ! With this final vindication of his character we may take a reluctant leave of Mansfield. After this, I fear, unreasonably lengthy devotion of space to the affairs of a single author, we must of neces- sity return to skimpier notices. Just about this period it may be said that there were issued a certain number of notable North American pub- lications on South Ajiierica. One of these is a very com- prehensive and finely produced work, describing: *'The United States Naval Astronomical Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere, Chile," by Lieutenant J. M. Gil- liss, United States Navy, which saw the light in 1856. In the same year Thomas Ewbank wrote a full and val- uable account of Brazil in its mid-imperial days: "Life in Brazil, or the Land of the Cocoa and the Palm, with an Appendix, containing Illustrations of Ancient South American Arts," etc. The following year was published in Washington by 0. P. Kidder and J. C. Fletcher a notable book, the title of which will speak for itself: "Brazil and the Brazilians, portrayed in Historical and Descriptive Sketches. ' ' This work, by two very observant North American mission- aries, which gave an unusually clear insight into the Bra- zilian life of that time, ran into many editions, and I can- not be quite positive that the date of the one I have given is the first. But in any case the book must be classed as one of the fullest and most valuable of those which deal with the life and manners of the Brazilian Empire. 472 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA A third volume which may complete this particular series in James Wetherell's ''Stray Notes from Bahia: Being Extracts from Letters, etc., during a Residence of Fifteen Years." (1860.) One of the most valuable contributions of this period to the literature on the little-known State of Paraguay was the work of an American naval officer, Thomas J. Page, who steamed up to Asuncion in his warship, the Waterwitch. This very complete study is entitled: "La Plata, the Argentine Confederation, and Paraguay." In 1859 was published an edition (whether the first or not, I am unable to say,) of the great Cochrane 's mem- oirs: *' Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil, from Spanish and Portuguese Domi- nation" (1817-25). A volume which contains a rather unusual wealth of information is one published by William Bollaert in 1860 : "Antiquarian, Ethnological, and other Researches in New Granada, Equador, Peru, and Chile." This book is primarily concerned with the etymology, lore, rock-sculp- ture, arts, and customs of the Incas and Chibchas. But beyond this its unusually wide scope of subjects includes a survey of the modern Indian tribes of the north of the continent; travels from the northernmost coast to Cape Horn and the Magellan Straits, a useful gazetteer of many districts, a study of the conditions of mining and other industries, and the records of some pioneer survey- ing carried out in Tarapaca. In the 1860 's, when the commercial possibilities of the countries of the river Plate were becoming evident, a con- siderable number of volumes were issued on this subject. A most prolific writer of this period was Thomas J. Hutchinson, who, in his "Journey through the Salado Valley," covers most subjects from farms to fortifica- tions, and whose portrait is presented in another of his works — "Two Years in Peru" — as an Inca monarch crowned with the imperial "llauta" — and this notwith- SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 473 standing his spreading beard, of which hirsute appendage the Incas were entirely innocent ! A most instructive volume of this author's, published in 1865, is ''Buenos Aires and Argentine Gleanings," which describes in great, and frequently picturesque, de- tail the life, landscape, and industries of Argentina as they were at that date. Important though this contribution was to the contem- porary knowledge of the southeastern portion of the con- tinent, it was outweighed in many respects in the follow- ing year by Wilfred Latham's ''The States of the River Plate." Mr. Latham does not write as a traveler; his graphic descriptions are those of a land which he had made his home. When he describes the Campo, it is as a practical "camp" man, part of whose every-day life it was to ride side by side with the Gauchos. As an expert in livestock his book is filled with hints which were of great value at the time, and some of which are even now not out of date. Time has since proved the soundness of Latham's judgment. For instance, although his work appeared a considerable while before the days of meat freezing or chilling, he clearly foresaw some process of the kind, and prophesied the tremendous importance that river Plate livestock was destined to assume in the world, and the extraordinary movement in the breeds which would one day tread the plains. Yes, it is obvious to one who peruses Latham's pages that the author leans over and speaks from his saddle, as it were. But he does more than tell his reader how to run a mid-nineteenth century estancia, how to treat cattle and sheep, and of what climatic perils and vege- table pests to beware. He describes to the life the loves and hatreds, sports and duels, the gambling bouts and songs, of the Gaucho. Now and again he grows cliatty and tells an anecdote such as the one which he says was current in a certain district in Entre Rios. I will give it here : 474 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ''A true specimen of the Gaucbo par excellence, dis- mounting at the hut of a conocedo (acquaintance) found him writhing and groaning under the most violent rheu- matic pain. The fellow looked commiseratingly on the suffering friend, and ejaculating, 'Povrecito, povrecito!' (poor fellow, poor fellow!), gently took him by the beard with one hand, and coolly drawing his knife with the oth- er, passed the sharp edge across his suffering friend's throat, and put him out of his misery ; then, commending him to the 'Virgen,' took his departure, satisfied with having performed a humane act." Perhaps it requires one acquainted with the character of the now almost extinct Gaucho proper fully to appre- ciate this story. Latham's account of the scenes which occurred at Bue- nos Aires — where he happened to be at the time — after the fall of the Dictator Rosas, is an invaluable one. He explains the part played by the patrols of combined Ar- gentines and British in suppressing the temporary disor- der which arose, and describes a meeting between one of these patrols, of which he formed a member, and a gang of brigands. This occurred just outside his own house, and at the critical moment Latham was astonished to hear the treble shouts of his two very small daughters: *' Shoot 'em dead. Papa — shoot 'em dead!" Finally, when the liberal regime of Argentina set in in earnest, Latham appears to have been of real service in mediating between the Argentine government and a some- what hasty and tactless British consul, as well as assist- ing to settle other matters in which the conflicting inter- ests of foreigners were concerned. To turn to Peru — and back a couple of years — we come across a couple of volumes which are sufficiently eloquent as to the disturbed condition of the country at the time. The first is by Captain Melville White: ''Britons Robbed, Tortured, and Murdered in Peru" (1862) ; the second, a year later, by Henry de Wolfe Carvell, deals with other SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 475 outrages, and with the insecurity of British property in Peru which prevailed at the time. Two years later again was published a very notable book by Viscount Bury: ''The Exodus of the Western Nations," which illustrates fully and adequately the trend of the European toward the southern, as well as the northern, part of the Americas. One of the grimmest tragedies of South American his- tory, the Paraguayan war, was responsible for a certain number of books, principally from the pens of those who had been caught in the toils of the struggle, and, like the Paraguayans themselves, had suffered at the hands of the merciless Francisco Solano Lopez. Two important volumes of the kind were ' ' Seven Event- ful Years in Paraguay," by Gr. F. Masterton, and ^'The Paraguayan War," by George Thompson, both of which were published in 1869. Sir Thomas Hutchinson also re- fers to this subject in 1868 in his "The Parana; with In- cidents of the Paraguayan War and South American Recollections." Sir Richard Burton as a writer on South America, comes, of course, within the same group as Southey, Car- lyle, and other famous men, whose connection with the southern continent was somewhat apart from the main trend of their careers. Burton's genius, as a matter of fact, seemed to assim- ilate less with the verdurous new Western world than with the parched and mystic East. In 1869 he published : ' ' Exploration of the Highlands of Brazil : with a Full Ac- count of the Gold and Diamond Mines. Also Canoeing down 1500 Miles of the Great River Sao Francisco from Sabana to the Sea." This was followed in 1870 by "Let- ters from the Battle-Fields of Paraguay." Both of these volumes, of course, cannot fail to possess a certain interest of their own. Yet it is obvious from tlieir pages that the Burton of South America is not the Richard Burton, the household word, of the East. At the 476 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA same time it must be said that Burton, when consul at Santos, gave some clear indications of the bent which was to lead him so far in the Orient in his excellent notes and annotations of the translation of Hans Stade's Captivity, published by the Hakluyt Society in 1874. From the British point of view. South America has lacked its Fenimore Cooper — speaking at hazard, I do not think that a writer of the kind exists even in the Cas- tilian tongue — but the hostile Indian adventures of the outlying British settlers in Argentina have been fre- quently described by themselves. Instances of this are to be met with in such volumes as ''Pioneering in the Pampas," by Richard Arthur Sey- mour, published in 1869, which graphically describe the Indian raids on the new estancias, incursions which left several British homesteads smoldering and ownerless. Before closing the first section of the English litera- ture dealing with South America, we must go back a year to deal with the translation in 1868 by Mrs. Horace Mann of a notable work by a brilliant Argentine author, and a prominent personage of that nation, Domingo F. Sar- miento: "Life in the Argentine Republic in the Days of the Tyrants ; or. Civilization and Barbarism. ' ' The title of the book speaks for itself. Its pages, it is true, deal with controversial matter, and many of the statements are keenly disputed ; but as a study of Argentina in her early desperate political throes the work is of absorbing interest. In this same year was published a book which, although interesting and pleasant enough in itself, is so thoroughly sketchy and inaccurate in its detail as to recall in parts a twentieth century article which a victimized London magazine perpetrated on South American affairs, and which gravely gave out as endearing terms certain South American epithets, which were not only unpolished, but quite unspeakable in normal society. This racy production is "A Long Vacation in the Ar- SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 477 gentine Alps," by H. C. Eoss Johnson. In justice to the author it must be explained that his solecisms are mostly concerned with his rendering of Spanish phrases. But in this he is unusually thorough, for it is not every one who can misspell four words out of a sentence of five! Mr. Johnson shows how efficiently this can be done by taking a phrase which he gives in English as, *^Don Henry, do you wish coffee?" and by turning it into the following alleged Castilian: "Don Enriques, query U caffef" To those ignorant of the mellow Southern tongue it may be explained that the first word alone here is correctly spelled — and, if one comes to think it over, it seems almost impossible to spell "Don" any other way ! In view of these peculiarities, it is perhaps fortunate that the greater part of the book is in the lighter vein. Nevertheless it contains many pages of interest dealing with the subtropical Argentine province of Catamarca, ground which was at the time very seldom visited by any but Argentines, and which, so far as foreigners were concerned, was almost unknown. When we arrive at modern days there are obviously many difficulties which confront the compiler of work such as this. The task of choosing the most suitable from out of the host of contemporary writers would be a thankless one. There are, of course, many names which leap to the eye at once — such as Lord Bryce, R. B. Cun- ninghame Graham, W. H. Hudson, Sir Martin Conway, and the very recently deceased Sir Clements Markham. All these are distinguished in other respects beyond their writings on South America. But there are many others too, some of whose works may, with greater or lesser justice, claim to rank in importance somewhere in the near neighborhood of those above. The only satisfactory way out of the difficulty, it seems to me, is to refuse to make a choice at all, and to add to this volume an appendix in the shape of a bibliography of works on South America from the year 1870 to the 478 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA present day. This I have done, and it only remains to hope that the inevitable accidental omissions in such an attempt may not be too numerous. In this first section dealing with the books on South America I will follow the same course as that adopted elsewhere in the book, and will keep the publications on British Guiana and the Falkland Islands to themselves. Dealing as they do with British Possessions, it seems to me that they should naturally come within a different category to those written by British authors on foreign lands. The first comparatively modern book of importance to be mentioned is "An Essay on the Natural History of Guiana, in South America, ' ' which was published in 1769, and its author Edward Bancroft deserves a few words to himself. Born in Massachusetts in 1744, Bancroft took up the study of medicine, and in 1763 he settled in Guiana. Later, when war broke out between England and her North American colonies, Bancroft acted for Franklin as a spy in London, and was suspected of com- plicity in the attempt to burn Portsmouth Dockyard. He turned king's evidence, however, and does not appear to have left England again, dying at Margate in 1821. In his book — which contains a general description of the natural history, anthropology, and botany of Guiana — Bancroft, for an eighteenth century naturalist, is curi- ously restrained. If his accuracy may be questioned at times, it is never on account of those reckless flights of imagination in which many of his colleagues were wont to indulge. Indeed, Bancroft does not claim too much for himself when he says that "I shall next proceed to acquaint you with its (Guiana's) vegetable and animal productions, in a simple, but, I hope, intelligible language, avoiding all embellishments of stile, which, in subjects of this mature, are incompatible with perspicuity." The severity ot Bancroft's work reduces it almost to the nature of a naturalist's dictionary, and, although he SOUTH AMERICA IN ENGLISH PRINT 479 does hold that the abundance of snakes ought to ''humble the pride and arrogance of man, by convincing him, that all things are not made obedient to his will, nor created for his use," and although he has this to say with some feeling about the chigger, that it "is a small dusky insect resembling a flea, but somewhat smaller, and happily it is incapable of leaping, or the Torrid Zone would be un- inhabitable," such opinions are rare enough in his pages. One of the most curious of the eighteenth century vol- umes on Guiana is Captain J. G. Stedman's "Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the Revolted Ne- groes of Surinam in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America, from the year 1772 to 1777." This was pub- lished toward the end of the eighteenth century (the au- thor's copy is dated 1796) and is provided with some finely reproduced but most curious illustrations, some of the natural history plates being unwittingly, but irresisti- bly, comic. Among other volumes on British Guiana is Henry Bol- ingbroke's "Voyage to the Demerary, containing a Sta- tistical Account of the Settlements there, and of Those on the Essequebo, the Berbice, and Other Contiguous Rivers of Guayana." (1807). Bolingbroke, it may be said, was deputy vendue master in Surinam for six years. Another is Dr. John Hancock's "Observations on the Climate, Soil, and Productions of British Guiana, and on the Advantages of Emigration to . . . that Country; to- gether with Incidental Remarks on the Diseases, their Treatment and Prevention," etc. (1835.) In 1841 was published "Twelve Views in the Interior of Guiana, from Drawings by Charles Bentley," a work which contains a notably handsome collection of colored plates, and the letter-press of which was supplied by Sir Robert H. Schomburgk. Just twenty years later was published a fairly com- prehensive volume by W. H. Brett: "The Indian Tribes of Guiana, their Condition and Habits, with Researches 480 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA into their Past History, Superstitions, Legends, Antiqui- ties, Languages." In 1855, H. G. Dalton wrote a '' History of British Gui- ana . . . together with an Account of its Climate, Geol- ogy, Staple Products, and Natural History." Another work: *'E1 Dorado, or British Guiana as a Field for Colonization," was written by the Eev. W. T. Veness in 1866. The Falkland Islands were fairly fully described in 1789, when was published the ''Voyage round the World . . . performed in 1785 and 1788 in the King George and Queen Charlotte, Captains Portlock and Dixon." A slender but very useful book on the islands was writ- ten by G. T. Whitington in 1840. This contains a descrip- tion of the islands and an urgent appeal for their coloni- zation. In the same year L. B. Mackinnon published "Some account of the Falkland Islands, from a Six Months' Residence in 1838 and 1839." Beyond this, numerous books dealing with Argentina provide descriptions of the Falkland Islands. CHAPTER XXIII ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BRITISH IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (l) Great Britain as a Source of Capital — Some Ethics of Partnership — Roles played by the British in the Development of South America — The nearest approach to a mining rush — The Nitrate Industry — Discov- ery and early vicissitudes of the Commodity — The Chilean Coalfields — Pioneers in Banking and Finance — Various British Communities in the Continent — Their Populations — Description of a Northern Burial Groimd — Ecclesiastical and Educational Establishments — Some Irish Institutions — Father Fahy — Success of the Communities — The Brit- ish in Uruguay — Some Curiosities in Castilian — British Missionary Enterprise — Captain Allen Gardiner — The South American Mission- ary Society — Fields of tha Work — Mr. W. Barbrooke Grubb — His achievements among the Lengua Indians — The Rev. R. J. Hunt — Work of the Society in Southern Chile — The Dioceses of South America — Support of various Chaplaincies — Schools and Institutions — An Ex- tract from Hadfleld — Mr. Morris' work in Buenos Aires — Its success. IT has been said by some that the great amount of capi- tal which Great Britain began to pour into South America at the time of the War of Liberation, and which she has ceaselessly continued to provide from that day to this, had the effect of bringing into being that which was virtually a financial dominion over the South- ern continent. But, regarded from the practical point of view, this alleged financial dominion has surely proved no more than an equitable expectation that the borrower should fulfil his half of the bargain toward the lender — an expectation that, allowing for the vicissitudes insep- arable from humanity, has been amply fulfilled. The more emotional of the South Americans — and they are not alone in this! — are not inclined to use a minor and muflfled key in giving voice to such grievances as it may fall to their lot to bear. But never, I think, has any 481 482 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA responsible statesman out of any of the ten republics of the continent accused the British of having acted as usur- ers, or, indeed, in any other manner, but as partners in the development of their lands and industries. Robbed of all sentiment — and in this instance sentiment is un- doubtedly present — the position may be put in a nutshell — that which has paid the one has paid the other. The finest political economist may seek for a thousand years in vain to improve on this very simple situation ! It is an obvious platitude to assert that in South Amer- ica the British have interested themselves chiefly in those branches of industry in which they themselves were strongest. Broadly speaking, these were finance, urban and port enterprise, traffic, and agriculture, this last in- cluding the pastoral industry. It was with finance that the South American field was first entered, for in the middle of the War of Liberation Great Britain — having in conjunction with the United States already supplied the insurgent forces with arms and munitions — made financial advances in the shape of war loans to several of the young and struggling states. We have already seen how, at the victorious conclusion of the War of Liberation the British public, with more enthusiasm than judgment, rushed into a mining boom which ended disastrously for their pockets. Since that period the number of authentic mines which have been worked by British capital, from the North of the continent to the far South, is far too important to be dealt with here. A perusal of the stock and share lists of the various periods will reveal the condition of the successful ventures, and from time to time the gaps in these printed lists will reveal the casualties in the shape of failures. Only on one occasion does South America appear to have been threatened with a mining rush of the kind that occurred in California, Australia, and the Klondyke. The spot that was on the eve of being invaded by untold thou- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 483 sands of mineral seekers was in a remote district of the great river system of Brazil. . About the middle of the nineteenth century there was a report of the existence of gold on the Upper Maranon. The rumor proved to be a false one, but it had the effect of attracting to the district a number of British and North American '^ diggers," some of them of as wild an order as any that ever graced a mining camp. When one or two of these, straying in aimless disappointment along the great rivers, came into collision with some of the least tractable of the Indians, sanguinary scenes were wont to ensue. The period of these disturbances, how- ever, was short, for the newcomers, when once satisfied as to the absence of the rumored gold, made their visits as brief as possible. The interest taken by the British in the nitrate indus- try of the Pacific Coast was at the least as relatively im- portant as that shown in general mining, and the part played in this by Colonel North and his colleagues and successors is a matter of general knowledge. Tradition has it that the first discovery of the nitrate which has brought so much wealth to Chile and England, was — like that of even greater forces — due to an acci- dent. It is said that a woodcutter numed Negreros, hav- ing made a fire in the Pampa de Tamarugal, found to his amazement that the heated ground began to melt, and to run downhill like a stream ! On examination, the soil was found to be nitrate of soda. It is said too that the existence of nitrate was known in Europe as early as the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury. In 1820 a certain quantity was sent to England; but its reception there was decidedly a cold one ; for, dis- mayed at the amount of duty demanded on it, its owners flung it overboard. In 1830 a consignment sent to Liver- pool failed to find a buyer. However, after that the true value of the article began to be appreciated, for between 484 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the years 1830 and 1850, 240,000 tons were exported. Mr. George Smith, it appears, was one of the first nitrate re- finers, and one of the most enthusiastic supporters of this industry. In 1828 he undertook, in company with Mr. William Bollaert, a survey of the nitrate province of Tarapaca at the request of the Peruvian Government, and from this period his interest seems to have been un- flagging. It may be said that the Mr. Bollaert mentioned here proceeded in 1855 on the invitation of Messrs Cousino and Garland to report on the now famous southern Chilean coal mines of Lota and Coronel, and his observations were afterwards read at the University of Chile. The inauguration in the continent of British banking upon a modern basis was reserved, of course, for a some- what later period. From their comparatively modest beginnings have now sprung such famous establishments as that of the London and River Plate Bank — which, founded, I believe, in 1863, stands as the pioneer — the London and Brazilian Bank, and others. These, of course, have found as allies a number of finan- cial houses of world-wide repute, the list of which, I sup- pose, may be headed by such firms as those of Rothschild and Baring. It is a matter of common knowledge how this latter house was involved in the Argentine financial crisis of 1890, when, as a result of the unwise policy of President Juarez Celman, Baring Brothers, the financial agents of the Argentine Government, were, through no fault of their own, forced into liquidation. The result showed that they were perfectly solvent, and in the end they emerged with flying colors from a difficult position. It is now time to take a rapid general glimpse of the various British communities in South America. Need- less to say, these were far more important in the temper- ate Southern half of the continent than in the tropical North. We have already seen that, very soon after its capture by the South Americans from the Spaniards, the IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 485 city of Valparaiso is reported to have had a British popu- lation of a thousand persons. Since the full establishmbent of independence, how- ever, the towTi which has held the greatest attraction for the British has always been Buenos Aires. By the mid- dle of the nineteenth century it was computed that there were five thousand British residents in Buenos Aires, and the community already possessed a newspaper of its own, ''The British Packet." British immigrants, as a matter of fact, took very kindly to the towns at the edge of the southern alluvial plains, where, as one remarked, "there were five miles of wash- erwomen on the beach ! ' ' Very soon they began to estab- lish their customs there. The original Foreigners' Club was founded in the Calle San Martin. Its first president was Mr. Thomas Duguid of Liverpool. There were also Reading and Commercial Booms owned by the British. These were followed by the establishment of a cricket club and a racecourse. The principal occupations to which the commercial por- tion of these British townsfolk applied itself were those of merchants, publicans, storekeepers, and boarding- house proprietors, Irish domestic servants predominat- ing. The British, moreover, owned many of the small farms in the neighborhood which supplied Buenos Aires with milk — an industry w^hich has long since been taken over by the Basques. In 1865 the British population of the Argentine Repub- lic was calculated at 32,000. Of this number, however, no fewer than 28,000 were Irish — a number which represents an astonishingly large proportion to the whole! In 1870 the number of these British in the city and province of Buenos Aires alone had swollen to some 40,000, a total which the inhabitants of Argentina held out with some complacency against the eleven hundred and odd in Rio Janeiro and its neighborhood. Elsewhere the various British communities were natur- 486 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ally much smaller, and, indeed, from the mere numerical point of view, none of them claim any particular atten- tion. In one or two of the tropical States, indeed, the British population has tended to diminish, mainly from climatic causes. Here and there exists evidence of this of a much more eloquent nature than that rendered by mere statistics. Thus there is a record that at Caracas on the 26th of April, 1834, when the affairs of Venezuela gave a promise that has not yet been fulfilled, occurred the consecration of an English church and burying ground. From the description of these given by Mr. Edward Eastwick, who visited the town in 1864, no small neglect must have supervened. Mr. Eastwick remarks that : "The English burial-ground and the German are. on the southern outskirts of the city, and are very poor places as compared with the Catholic cemetery. They are both covered with weeds, but, in the British burial-ground, the rank grass is so tall that it is impossible to see the graves, and the whole place is full of ant-hills several feet high. There is a chapel, with an inscription to say that it was built by Robert Ker Porter at his sole expense." As has been said, the chief cause of this melancholy picture was undoubtedly climatic. Fortunately it has few counterparts in South America, where the Church and its missionaries have played a very manful part, and where their efforts, let it be said, have been enthusiastic- ally seconded by United States enterprise. Ecclesiastical work proper has naturally been undertaken on the largest scale in Argentina. Among the British ecclesiastical establishments of the mid-nineteenth century in Buenos Aires were the Eng- lish Episcopalian Church, the Scottish Presbyterian Church, and of course the Irish Roman Catholic estab- lishments of much older standing. These included the convent of the Irish Sisters of Mercy, and the Irish Con- vent School and House of Refuge, which held some sev- enty boarders, chiefly the daughters of Irish sheep- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 487 farmers, while the House of Refuge was intended as a temporary home for Irish servants when disengaged. All this was founded by a very notable Irish priest, Father Fahy, a very prominent and widely loved character, whose capacity for good works seems to have been inex- haustible. In 1862 the Irish sheep farmers of Argentina founded a secular college in Lobos on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and it is on record that the following year the in- stitution already possessed fifty resident pupils. One of the most noted pillars of the early Irish com- munity was Father Fahy, to whom I have just referred. An immensely and justly popular man, he appears to have acted not only as spiritual adviser, but as a very practical father in the business affairs of many, and un- doubtedly many a household has to thank its prosperity to the kindly and unceasing efforts of Father Fahy. In 1889 Sir Horace Rumbold wrote of the Irish in the river Plate: ''The Irish have, in short, proved as great a success and as valuable an element in the river Plate as they have been in so many ways a failure in North America. They own almost entire districts in the north and center of the province of Buenos Aires, where they have endowed chaplaincies, and founded schools of their own with libraries attached to them ; and altogether they present an aspect so different from that of their brethren in 'the distressful country' at home, that one cannot but think that a providential outlet is offered to them in these regions." Seeing that Englishmen and Scotsmen, although far fewer in numbers, had met with a corresponding success, the general community began to find itself in a distinctly flourishing condition at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century. Some idea of the wealth which was already accumulating at that time in some of the more important South American centers may be gathered from the fact that at a bazaar held in Buenos Aires in 1860 to 4.88 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA assist in the building of the English hospital no less a sum of £1500 was collected. This hospital, it may be said, was not the first. It was founded to supersede an earlier establishment founded in 1847. In the pastoral country of Uruguay the situation of the British closely resembled that of their countrymen in Ar- gentina, although it must be said that political circum- stances were far longer in adjusting themselves in the former state than in the latter. In the middle of the nineteenth century there were — in addition to a number of British estancieros, stockmen and shepherds in the "camp" — many British mechanics in Montevideo itself. . Indeed, the British community of the Uruguayan capital had by this time attained to con- siderable importance, and a handsome church had been erected and presented in 1846 to his fellow countrymen by Mr. Samuel Laf one, one of the most prominent river Plate merchants of his day. In connection with Montevideo, it is not a little remarkable to find that in the middle of the nineteenth century the paving-stones for the footways of the town were brought from England ! The Rev. J. H. Murray, who visited Uruguay and Ar- gentina in 1868, and was for a time chaplain in Colonia, has recorded some frank views concerning the contem- porary British population of Montevideo, which he says "was neither very attractive, nor on a par with that of Buenos Aires." Fortunately his opinion here clashes with those of vari- ous other contemporary authors, one of whom describes the same society as "of a very superior order — refined, intelligent, and hospitable. ' ' So it would seem that it is all a question of point of view and of the color of the glasses one chooses to wear! There are various curiosities in Mr. Murray's book which make it well worth perusal. Modem languages are seldom the forte of a Church of England parson. Judg- ing by his rendering of the few words he quotes, I cannot IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 489 help thinking that correct Castilian was a closed book to Mr. Murray. At all events his spelling was sufficiently phonetic to please the most revolutionary American. As written by him, Quinta becomes keenta ; at his hands the inoffensive gato, or cat, becomes a gatter, and among his items of advice is the following: ''You must never call a native a 'Gaucho' (pronounced Gowcher) (!), which im- plies a wild savage; nor call a woman, a 'Chino,' or half- bred (equivalent to our female dog), as either would be esteemed a term of reproach." It would seem from such remarks as these that Mr. Murray had had his leg pulled by some of the less rever- ent of his congregation; but in any case it seems clear that he made a very gallant and conscientious attempt to accommodate himself to his surroundings, even when, on an unsuspecting visit to a church, he was caught up in a grand funeral mass for a deceased general. Pres- ently Mr. Murray found himself, holding a yard-long can- dle which he had accepted, sitting, kneeling, or standing with the rest. After a time he had seen enough, but re- treat seemed impossible, for all the chairs behind him had now become filled up, and he occupied too prominent a position for him publicly to abandon his candle. At last the means of escape offered itself in the shape of a new- comer who was advancing to the front, having neither candle nor chair. Murray seized the opportunity, pressed his candle and his chair upon the newcomer, and slid away from the spot in a fashion which proves that if he lacked somewhat in humor, he was by no means deficient in tact. But the remarks of this churchman have led us away from his own church and its missionaries. British mis- sionary enterprise in South America has naturally been conducted in somewhat difficult circumstances. Regarded from the purely practical point of view, it is a far simpler matter to deal with savages over whose land floats the metaphorical shadow of the Union Jack than with those whose country, when once it has become absorbed into the 490 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA civilized world, will become subject to the laws of a Latin republic, and will become part and parcel of a Latin com- munity. The amount of good missionary work which has been effected is therefore all the more laudable, and, in spite of the inevitable disadvantages to which I have referred, much of the influence should continue permanent. The first missionary attempts of importance were made in Tierra del Fuego. More than one catastrophe oc- curred here, and Darwin's account of his voyage to these regions in the Beagle alone suffices to show the perils and dire hardships which these pioneer missionaries had to face. In this bleak country the Yahgan Indians have now become evangelized. It was in 1844 that the first regular missionary society for South America was established. Known as the Pat- agonian Missionary Society, it was founded by a naval man, Captain Allen Gardiner, who visited the still truc- ulent Araucanian Indians of southern Chile, and de- scribed his adventures in a book published in 1841, '^A Visit to the Indians on the Frontiers of Chili." From this enterprise has been evolved the important associa- tion known as the South American Missionary Society. One of the tragedies of South American enterprise oc- curred in 1860, when the Patagonian Missionary schooner Allen Gardiner was captured by the Tierra del Fuego Indians, in the Beagle Channel. The master. Captain Fall, the mate, five seamen, and Mr. Garland Phillips, a catechist, were murdered, and only one man managed to make his escape from the scene of the disaster. The chief fields of missionary work among the abor- igines are the Paraguayan Chaco and southern Chile. It is among the swamps and forests of the Paraguayan Chaco — where an extraordinary scourge of human insects burns the human skin like fire, and where the Indian is only just emerging from the state that greets a stranger with an arrowhead — that the most striking work has re- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 491 cently been achieved. Here Mr. W. Barbrooke Grubb undertook a mission which earned for him the title of the ''Livingstone of South America." In 1889 he crossed the great river which divides civilized Paraguay from the savage Chaco, and entered boldly among the Lengua In- dians, escaping death by a marvelous concatenation of circumstances, and thus obtaining the lively distinction of being the only white man who had ever gone among these people and survived ! On one occasion, shot in the back, his life hung in the balance, but he recovered, and continued a work that has now accomplished the civiliza- tion of a considerable portion of the Lengua tribe, as well as of some neighboring groups. Another very notable missionary, and an authority on the Indian languages, is the Rev. E. J. Hunt, who went out in 1892. Had a Paraguayan of thirty years ago been told that of these fierce, intractable Indians — remarkable at the time for nothing beyond their wars, crude weapons, feath- ers, and drunken orgies — over fifty would in a short time become full members of the Church of England, they would undoubtedly have received the prophecy with the utmost incredulity ! But so it is. Much work, moreover, has been undertaken among other tribes, formerly quite implacable, such as the Matacos of the Argentine Chaco, who now regularly proceed to San Pedro de Jujuy for the sugar-cane harvesting, and similar tribes such as Chu- nupis, Tobas, Chorotis, and others. In southern Chile, where the warrior race of Araucan- ians have now settled down to a comparatively tranquil existence, the work has arrived at a far more advanced stage, and the establishments here include four boarding schools. So much for the main missionary features of the so- ciety. As regards the ministerial side it founded in 1869 the bishopric of the Falkland Islands, the jurisdiction of which originally included all South America with the ex- ception of British Guiana. Bishop Every, who acted 492 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA for thirty years, was succeeded by Bishop Stirling. This bishop divided the diocese into two in 1908 — that of the Falkland Islands, including South America to the west of the Andes, that of Argentina taking the countries to the east. In this connection the society helped the following chap- laincies until they became self-supporting : Rosario, Cor- doba, and Tucumah, in Argentina ; Concepcion and Punta Arenas in Chile ; Sao Paulo in Brazil, and Callao in Peru. It is still helping, moreover, at the following Argentine centers: Buenos Aires, Alberdi, the province of Entre Rios, and the Welsh colony in Chubut ; at Santiago, Lota, Coronel, Coquimbo, and Temuco, in Chile; at Salto and Fray Bentos in Uruguay; and at Santos in Brazil. But even this does not exhaust the energies of the South American Missionary Society, for it has founded British schools at Alberdi and Trelew in Argentina, and at Tem- uco in Chile. Beyond this it has established a British orphanage at Los Cocos in Argentina, and is responsible for much seamen's work at the ports. Briefly, it may be said that the South American Mis- sionary Society is working in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with a traveling chaplain for the North of the continent. Its sixteen head-stations and twenty-four out-stations are staffed by 110 persons, a total made up of 18 clergy, 19 laymen, 57 women workers, and 16 native workers. Three doctors are normally at- tached to the missions. From all this it will be seen that the work is as notable for its scope as for its thorough- ness. I have come across an enthusiastic testimony to the ef- forts of the South American Missionary Society written in 1877 by Mr. Hadfield, who says : ''With the feeble resources of the society, unaided by government or other assistance, the missionaries have traversed a large portion of the Amazon and its affluents, particularly the River Purus, where two or three are now IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 493 residing amongst the Indian tribes, on its banks, pursu- ing tlieir arduous work of endeavoring to Christianize them . . . one of the earliest pioneers of the society, Dr. Lee, was unfortunately drowned, by the sinking of a small steamer, moored to the banks of the Purus, and on which he was sleeping, some of the crew being on shore. The event was a very melancholy and discouraging one, but it did not deter his fellow-workers, the Eev. Mr. Clough and Mr. Eesyek, from following in his track . . . Lately another missionary, the Eev. W. Thwaites Duke, has gone out to join his colleagues, and he has also sent home a very graphic account of his trip up the Amazon." Coming down to recent times, when some of the now enormous cities of South America demand a species of attention the need for which has only sprung up with their growth, the work of a clergyman, Mr. Morris, in Buenos Aires, has undoubtedly been most admirable, and has met with a gratifying response. This has lain among the youngsters of the city, and how great was its need has been evidenced by the present magnitude of the work which, including a mission hall and various schools, has met with the deservedly hearty encouragement of the Ar- gentine Government. CHAPTEE XXIV ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BRITISH IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (ll) Influence of the practical atmosphere of the Americas — Some unlocked for results of the British expedition — Early military and naval settlers — Treaty rights — Relations between the British and South American agriculturalists — How the British adapted themselves to local cus- toms — Tricks of speech — Town communities — Early British pastoral- ists of the river Plate — The foundation of the livestock industry — Advent of the Scottish colony — The importation of pedigree stock — Later progress — First experiments in meat preserving — Development of the industry — The career of Robert Billinghurst — Some early estancia records — Success of the Irish pioneers — A scourge of "Camp" duellists — Pastoral incidents — Success and failure — The Henley colony — The Welsh colony at Chubut — Ideals and difficulties of the settlers — The Australian colony in Paraguay — Reasons for its founda- tion. Mr. Stewart Grahame on an experiment in socialism — Its col- lapse — A tentative exportation from Bolivia of llamas, alpacas, and Vicunas — Objections of the Bolivian Government — How its officials were outwitted — Some explorers, mountain-climbers, and travelers — The influence of sport. NO doubt as many delusions have been concerned with South America as with any other continent. Many Englishmen have sailed for the Spanish- speaking countries of that continent, expecting the voy- age's end to reveal to them a fantastic, paradoxical world such as was truly conjured up from Spain in Eu- rope by that mellow and delightful author, Richard Ford. Surely no writer ever opened the doors of a country more gently, and at the same time more widely — and the doors of Spain are the heaviest and creak the loudest of all at the push of an unskilled and ponderous hand! But at no time were Ford's **Cosas de Espana" trans- lated with their full peninsular flavor across the West- 494 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 495 ern Ocean. In certain respects the atmosphere of the Americas has always proved unsympathetic. Its prac- tical influence has chilled, for instance, even the proverbs of Spain, and has reduced their resounding bulk to a handier collection of lesser volume. It has exercised a similar effect on many trappings, whether of speech, office, or general social environment. It need not be inferred from this that the Spanish South American has lacked his Iberian graces. The Spanish South American can be as eloquent as the Span- iard. The flow of his oratory is such as may be envied by the speakers of less fluent nations. But he has his strong practical side, for all that, and when occupied by the hard-and-fast business of the day, he is capable of turning the streams of his imagination and eloquence in a single-minded fashion upon even such prosaic and profitable objects as bulls, rams, and sires ! It was, indeed, this pastoral side of his existence, which — in the South, at all events — led to the first real intimacy between him and the British. As has been seen, the advent of these latter was heralded in a some- what truculent manner by the military expeditions to the Eio de la Plata The final results of this could by no means have been foreseen, when Admiral Home Pop- ham's fleet first cast anchor in the muddy waters that washed the town of Buenos Aires. From out of the smoke of battle grew the beginnings of a mutual respect and friendship. The expedition that had failed from a military point of view was crowned with an unexpected success in the affairs of every-day and commercial life. The influence of the British occupation had been greater than had been suspected at the time. It had served to disseminate new ideas, which had been eagerly drunk in by the South Americans. Moreover, although most of the British merchants who had flocked to the spot had departed with the fleet, a certain number had remained, while of 496 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the rest there were not a few who returned to the tempt- ing field after the lapse of a year or two. As for the colonists themselves, the added confidence of their own strength, which the events of the expedition had taught them, had the effect of urging them to display more openly that warmth toward the foreigner, which they had experienced almost from their first contact with the outer world, but to which the laws of Spain had not permitted them to give expression. We have seen that the War of Independence was re- sponsible for the arrival of many British soldiers and sailors, a certain number of whom remained as settlers, in the Southern continent. The most pronounced im- migration of the British, however, followed the conclu- sion of this war, and the signing of the treaty which guaranteed to British subjects full protection, liberties, and trading rights, as well as exemption from all local claims such as those for military service and the like. It was after this that the British went beyond the first stage common to the immigrants in a foreign country: they took up land, and settled themselves for better or worse in the new territories of the South. I doubt if there has been a parallel in the entire his- tory of British immigration of the ease with which these settlers threw out their sentimental roots, and adapted themselves to their surroundings. The more practical side of the influx was marked by the arrival of pedigree cattle, horses, and sheep, and soon the Shorthorns and Herefords, Hackneys and Clydesdales, Lincolns and Romney Marsh, began to transform the livestock popu- lation of the pastoral plains. On the whole, nothing could have been happier than the relations between these newcomers and their Argen- tine or Uruguayan neighbors. The influence was mu- tual. The South American rapidly adapted himself to the British notions of breeding and sport. He took to polo, and learned how to go out with a gun a V anglais; AVENUE DE MAYO, BUENOS AIRES I'l.AZA CONSTITUCION STATION, BUENOS AIRES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 497 his stockmen altered the short bursts of tricky speed that characterized the typical Gaucho horse-race for the long, sweeping gallop of the English turf. The British, for their part, experienced an unusual lack of difficulty in adapting themselves to the ways of their adopted land. The interest which the personali- ties of their Gaucho stockmen compelled from the first rapidly deepened into an understanding that was by no means without its admiration. As the British estan- ciero became more conversant with the ethics of the Campo, he began to be imbued with some of the ardent pride of the natives of its soil. He discovered the merits of a poncho, and took to sipping mate through the bom- billa with the enthusiasm of the expert. His speech be- came more and more interlarded with local phraseology. Edward Smith became Don Eduardo to William Brown, and William Brown was now Don Gulliermo to Don Edu- ardo — alias Edward Smith. Moreover, when Don Gul- liermo rode into a paddock it was into a potrero that he went ; when he mustered cattle, it was to a rodeo that he galloped, and if the tick disease smote his cattle, it was from grano malo that they suffered. And so on, not only in matters concerning livestock and the pastoral life, but in the general trend of existence — even down to such little local tricks of speech as that of trailing an inter- rogative "Nof" at the end of an affirmative sentence. However incongruous this mixture of languages and jargon might sound elsewhere, it fitted — and still fits — admirably the atmosphere of the free and open Campo: just as the suave Iberian influence is apt to give an ad- vantageous touch to those sunburned leaders of virile lives who hailed originally from northern latitudes. A similar process of blending occurred in the towns. But here the results were neither so rapid nor so com- plete, as was only natural among the larger distinct communities. On the other hand, there are some impor- tant communities, such as that of the Irish-Portenos of 498 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Buenos Aires, that, up to a certain point, would seem to have identified themselves successfully with the dual interests of the two nationalities. But, so far as po- litical nationality is concerned, all alike would appear to have conformed to that natural law which calls on all settlers in South America to insist on their claim to South American citizenship first and foremost. The achievements of the early British settlers in the pastoral plains of the river Place are worthy of some detailed mention. A certain number of these had ar- rived, as a matter of fact, during that final decade of the colonial era, when, although the flag of Spain was still waving over the yellow waters of the great river, the fundamental laws of the empire had become greatly relaxed. The most prominent names among those who began to flourish in the period between 1802 and 1825 would seem to be Gibson, Lafone, Brittain, Appleyard, Billinghurst, McKinley, Thwaites, White, Fair, Parish Eobertson, Carlisle, Nuttall, Gowland, Harratt, Sheri- dan, Miller, Dick, Duguid, Puddicomb, Burton, Newton, Halsey, and Hannah.^ It is, of course, only possible to give some scrappy fragments of information here concerning the progress effected by these pioneers. The following achievements, however, may rank among some of the most salient. In 1813 Mr. Henry Lloyd imported into Argentine one hun- dred merino ewes, and this founded the first fine-wooled merino flock in the Province of Buenos Aires. The disturbed political condition of the country interfered with the further progress of the venture; but a little later Messrs. Harratt, Sheridan, and Whitfield founded merino stud flock, which became the most famous of its day. Other notable sheep-breeders of that period were Mr. John Hannah, Mr. William White, Mr. Richard Newton, Mr. John Fair, and the Messrs. Gibson. In 1825 an important Scottish colony was formed on 1 See list of early arrivals in Appendix. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 499 the Monte Grande Estancia, some six leagues from the city of Buenos Aires, which had originally been the property of the Gibson brothers. This had been pur- chased by John and William Parish Robertson, who made arrangements for the reception of the Scottish col- ony there. About sixteen thousand acres were set aside for this purpose, and these lands were occupied by some two hundred and fifty persons, including children, who sailed out from Edinburgh in the good ship Symmetry. Here are the last two verses of a lengthy poem by one of the Monte Grande colonists descriptive of the voyage. Undoubtedly tlie quality of its inspiration is lower than celestial, but it gives a quaintly cheerful account of a fateful arrival: The Symmetry anchored, boats gathered around them, While jabbering foreigners their luggage received ; The Babel o' tongues was enough to confound them, But naebody understood Scotch, they perceived. Betimes there started a coo-cairt procession, O' colonists, implements, bedding, and rations. Bound for the South, where the Robertson concession Awaited to welcome the Scotch Immigrations. Although the Scottish Colony, the advent of which was thus sung, suffered greatly from the civil wars into which the country became plunged, the proportion of its individual members who ultimately achieved success was very large. Still pursuing the policy of selecting the most salient scraps of information, it may be said that some thirty years after the founding of the sheep- breeding industry Mr. Robert T. Gibson established a boil- ing-down factory on his estmicia, ^'Los Yngleses," an im- portant departure which opened up a new market for the produce of the Campo, and which caused the price of livestock to rise. I /Just about this time a number of English breeds of^ ^heep were introduced, among them being the South- 500 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA down, Leicester, Lincoln, and Shropshire. Sheep-farm- ing in Argentina at the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury was a sufficiently remunerative occupation, for it could be conducted on an imposing scale with a sur- prisingly small outlay of capital. This will be evident when it is explained that land could be acquired then for some five hundred pounds the square league, and that native sheep with which to stock it could be got at from eight pence to a shilling each ! V Advancing further on this same system, we find that in 1848 Mr. White imported into Argentina the first Shorthorn cattle, and thus began the revolution in cattle- breeding which has been responsible for such epoch- making results at the present day. Tlie first Shorthorn bull that trod the Campo was called Tarquin, and it was owing to this that all Shorthorns, or mestizos of Short- horn type, were subsequently widely known among South Americans as ''Tarquinos," or ''Talquinos." We now arrive at a period of more rapid progress. Between 1850 and 1880 some of the most prominent British names connected with the general breeding of livestock are those of Fair, White, Hannah, Shennan, Musgrave, 'Grady, and Kemmis — the last being espe- cially associated with thoroughbred horse-breeding. In 1866 some stir was caused in Buenos Aires by the arrival of Messrs. Sloper and Paris, who came out to make some experiments in connection with the former's invention of a system of preserving meat by means of the exhaustion of air and the substitution of nitrogen. It was not until 1883, however, that the meat industry first began to develop on commercial lines. Then Drabble Brothers in Campana, and S. G. Sansinena in Barracas began to freeze mutton for shipment to Great Britain. Soon afterwards other firms such as John Nel- son & Co. and O'Connor & Co. joined in, and in ten years' time no fewer than 1,300,000 carcases were being shipped in the place of the trifling 17,000 that had been IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 501 exported from the river Plate during the first year of the industry. So much for a few of the chief landmarks in the careers of the river Plate pastoralists. We may now leave the severe highroad of their progress, and wander for a short time among the leafy and winding by-ways. There is at least one name among those already men- tioned that evokes a peculiarly wide interest. This is that of Robert Billinghurst, who came out either with the British to river Plate, or immediately after it. Bil- linghurst appears to have been a man of considerable attainments. Flinging himself with ardor into the af- fairs of the young republic, he married an Argentine lady, and became an Argentine, the first Englishman, I believe, to be naturalized as a South American. Robert Billinghurst sat as a deputy in the first con- gress, and rose to be one of the leaders of the party that was subsequently known as "Unitarian." This was the party that, under the leadership of Lavalle, opposed first Dorrego, and afterwards Rosas. When the latter became dictator, Billinghurst, like so many others, was forced to flee the country. It was the grandson of this Robert Billinghurst who, as President of Peru, died quite recently, and who un- doubtedly was one of the most upright and liberal chiefs of state that has ever held office in that republic. There is, by the way, a street in Buenos Aires named after the original Billinghurst. It is only natural that the records of the early British estancieros in the Rio de La Plata should be scanty. The lives of very few pioneers in any walk of life are inclined to adapt themselves to detached literary effort ! Some data, however, have been preserved concerning the estates of the Gibson brothers, who at the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century were very large landowners. It is on record, for instance, that the list of stores ordered in 1825 for one of their estancias, the 502 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA ''Carmen," included "gunpowder, two cannons, eight muskets, twenty sabers, lead and stone cannon balls." That these objects were not designed merely as orna- ments was found out to their cost by the Indians on the occasion of their next raid, when the "Carmen" was not caught napping. An interesting incident concerning another of the fam- ily estancias, Los Yngleses, is thus related by Mr. Herbert Gibson in his book: "The sheep-breeding Indus- try in the Argentine Republic": "The shearing con- tinued to be a difficult operation until about 1845. Labor was not easy to obtain, and women and children had often to do the work. This was because the native was either serving in the National Guard at the orders of the Dictator Rosas, or hiding away from the detachments which were constantly scouring the country in search of recruits." Apropos of this scarcity of hands, an in- cident in 1845 served the estancia in good stead. Rosas had shut the Parana River against foreign flags . . . and at last in 1845 the British minister asked for his passports, and left the country, announcing his action to the English residents. The author's father was down in the "Yngleses," and received the announcement a few days later, but resolved to remain where he was, and trust to the chivalry of the Argentine commander in the South, to leave him in peace. At this time the cattle roamed untended, there being no hands to mob them or brand them, for all the gaucJios were cantoned and under arms. There was a danger of the stock be- coming unmanageable, and the greater part being un- branded, they could be claimed by any neighbor as his own. Mr. Robert Gibson rode dow^n from Buenos Aires to Dolores, and applied to Colonel del Valle, the Chief in Command, for a picket of men to do the work. Del Valle 's answer was a flattering one: "For your brother who remained at his estancia when his minister advised him to leave the country? Most willingly!" IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 503 I have already referred more than once to the notable success attained by the Irish, who were the earliest of all the British pioneers to arrive in the river Plate. A circumstance which at a later period added to the value of these Irish as shepherds was their freedom from the military liabilities which even before the time of Rosas would occasionally sweep an estancia clean of all its gauchos at five minutes' notice. The industrial merits of these Irish, moreover, were keenly appreciated by the Argentines, who would take these shepherds into partnership so far as the flock under their care was concerned. By this working arrangement the estanciero provided the sheep and the land, and the shepherd supplied the labor. As a result, the flocks of these shepherds increased rapidly, and they, in turn, be- came estancieros, frequently attaining to great riches, while the Argentine himself received no little benefit from the arrangement. Those who enter the ''back-blocks" of a new and dis- turbed country cannot expect to lie upon a bed of roses. There were "bad men" among the gauchos, of course, and a few of these could scarcely fail to fall foul of the Irish pioneers. It is related that one of these latter, in- furiated by the wantonness of some of the knife play he witnessed, took to the weapon himself, and slew seven- teen expert duellists and ' ' Camp ' ' Bravos by slashing in sincerely and wholeheartedly with his knife while his op- ponents were airily occupied with the preliminary airy ceremonial flourishes of their weapons! Needless to say, half a century ago the British estancieros did not dress for dinner, nor did their table- cloths reflect the golden bubbles of champagne! Such luxuries are only attained to in a pastoral country by much labor and many gradual stages. Half a centuiy ago tablecloths themselves were very rare, and frequently non- existent. In 1860 Hinchliff tells the story of a young Englishman who set out from home to join a friend of 5045 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA his, a Scotsman of the name of Anderson, who had estab- lished himself on an estancia fifteen leagues from Pay- sandii in Uruguay. Mr. Eoberts, the former, who had not announced his intention beforehand, hoped for a warm welcome and a roof to cover his head. He ob- tained the former, but not the latter. Anderson had expended all his capital on his land and livestock. In company with a single staunch gaucho, he was sleeping on his saddle under the stars, in the fashion of a true pioneer. The house was to come later — when the wool of the sheep and the beef and hides of the cattle would have justified it ! It is my endeavor in this book to give as many as possi- ble of other people 's opinions — especially when they hap- pen to coincide with my own ! — so I will quote a couple of paragraphs from Sir Horace Rumbold on the early Brit- ish settler on the Argentine Campo : ' * He was to be met from the first at the advanced posts and in the most exposed situations, tilling the ground and raising cattle, rifle in hand, in the evil days when the Indian plague was still at its worst. But the very daring of his first ventures in some instances led to disastrous, and sometimes tragical failure, as in the massacres at Fraile Muerto. ''Many of the young Englishmen who were first tempted to come out were perhaps scarcely fitted by birth or education, for a hard life of unremitting toil and severe privation. Some of them went home in disgust, while of those who struggled on, not a few took to drown- ing their cares in whisky, or cana, or fell into the toils of the native chinas, and speedily sank to the level of the ordinary Gaucho." Success, in fact, was not universal — for the simple rea- son that such has never been the nature of success ! If there were a weak spot, the solitude of the Campo was designed to find it out. There is a tale told of two Eng- lishmen who spent most of their time in bed in a humble IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 505 rancho, a whisky bottle suspended from the roof at the end of a string between the pair. By this means the drink could be swung from the one to the other with the least possible amount of trouble ! But the proportion of such sorry workers to death of an unnecessary hobby to the whole fine army of British estancieros, mayordomos, and workers in general in the *'Camp" is most gratify- ingly insignificant. In 1870 a notable colonist venture was undertaken by a Mr. Henley, who, having got together a number of en- terprising young men of good family and circumstances, arranged for their settlement on the Argentine Campo. The first company of these to go out numbered fifty, and altogether nearly a hundred landed on the shores of the La Plata. Of these "Henley boys" a considerable pro- portion met with success, and became flourishing land- owners. The physical conditions of the north of the continent, of course, forbade any pastoral enterprise which in any way approached that of the south. Sometimes the Brit- ish were led into ventures of this kind, however, whether they would or not. An instance of this kind occurred when in 1855 the government of Ecuador issued warrants to the amount of £560,000 in part payment of arrears of interest to British holders of its stock. In consequence, a British company was formed to work the land, and in 1859 the yacht Kittiwake sailed to Ecuador with experts in agriculture, geology, botany, and engineering. Almost immediately afterwards war broke out between Peru and Ecuador, and the lands ceded to the British were claimed as Peruvian. As compensation for this some other lands were assigned to the British. I have no record as to whether any financial return of consequence was ever de- rived from these. Judging from the disturbed political conditions of the period, the probabilities are against this. The British have seldom gone out to South America as agricultural laborers or as the workers of small holdings. 506 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Colonies, therefore, of the extent of those founded by the Russians, Poles, and Jews have not obtained in their case. Nevertheless two sufficiently notable instances of British Colonies occur at a much later period than that of the Scottish enterprise, and comprise immigrants of a differ- ent social status to that of the ''Henley boys." The Welsh Colony at Chubut, near Puerto Madryn in the Argentine province of Chubut, is the senior of these two ventures. It was founded in 1865 by a Mr. Lewis Jones, who, together with some comrades likewise im- bued with some of the more soaring and attractive of the Celtic ideals, desired to establish a community which might cultivate these without interference from the out- side world. Towards the end of the last century the colony numbered no fewer than two thousand inhabitants, who have proved themselves in every way admirable workers and desirable citizens. Having never had the opportunity of visiting the Welsh colony, I am necessarily speaking from hearsay. From this it would appear that their patriotic ideals have not been fully realized, and it would seem that the increase in the population of the colony has ceased. Perhaps its founders had not reckoned sufficiently with that Argentine law — quite reasonable in itself — which makes every child bom on Argentine soil an Argentine subject, and thus liable to Argentine regulations, and, if a boy, to his an- nual term of military service. This would seem to have placed serious difficulties in the way of the original ideas of the Welsh colony — among which was the thorough cul- tivation of the Welsh language — and in this respect has proved somewhat discouraging to these southern wheat- growers and breeders of sheep and cattle, though their material situation would seem to be flourishing. The Australian colony that was established in Para- guay provides a different, and more dramatic tale. This venture was organized by Australian socialists, under the leadership of William Lane, an honorable but visionary IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 507 man, a success in journalism, a tragic failure in Utopian land settlement. Under his guidance a number of famil- ies of some of the finest artisan and laboring stock in the Antipodes, disgusted with the unsatisfactory result to them of the great Australian strike, sailed in 1893 from the Dominion to the Colony of New Australia in Para- guay — a hundred square leagues of good land presented to them by the government of Paraguay, which showed a commendable anxiety to get colonists of this type to settle within its boundaries. The result of this enterprise has been described often enough, but never more lucidly than by Mr. Stewart Grahame in his book "Where Socialism Failed." No community ever set out with loftier aims, or with a more settled determination to do their duty by their neighbors in a state where each should work for all, and all should share and share alike. The venture had an absolutely fair trial: there was no interference from without. But when theory began to be put into practice, failure loomed from the very start. Dissension and splits in the com- munity completed the work of the discontent brought about by an honest attempt at an equal division of the fruits of unequal labor. After this the community aban- doned its theories. Those who remain in New Australia work for themselves instead of for others, and appear contented with the result ! Before abandoning the topic of the British Agricultural and pastoral work in South America, let us turn back again for a last glimpse at the mid-nineteenth century. The following episode justifies the retrograde movement, as w^ill be seen from its character ! Almost every known domestic animal has, at one time or another, been introduced into South America; but it was left to a Mr. Lodger in 1858 to attempt a reversal of the process. Having resided for a number of years in Peru and Bolivia, he became impressed with the idea of transporting some specimens of the few kinds of 508 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA indigenous South American domestic animals to Austra- lia. So, having purchased some flocks of llamas and al- pacas, together with a few vicunas, he assembled them in the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca, and there, where the feather-crowned and gold-plated Inca magnates had once led the worship to the sun, he prepared himself, and his four-legged, swan-necked brood for the journey to the coast. Before the expedition had set out, Mr. Ledger heard news which would have dismayed a less resolute man. The Bolivian government, it appeared, had decided not to allow his flocks to leave the country. This procedure was typical of the old Spanish regime rather than of the new and liberal Republics. Yet such relicts of the im- perial theories of monopoly were wont to crop up now and then in this continent. Before now, indeed, some important issues have been involved in this way. I have heard from a London merchant — a Mincing Lane man of the old stamp so delightfully portrayed in ' ' Vice Versa, ' ' — of the great difficulty that was experienced in obtain- ing from Brazil the seeds of rubber trees for the plant- ing of tentative groves in the East. But this, from a commercial point of view, seems rea- sonable enough compared with this prohibition of ani- mal export. For in this latter, no competition was in- volved, and it is difficult to see how the mere presence of a young llama in Sidney could effect its father's wel- fare in Bolivia! Or, even that of its father's master — in which after all lies the crux and the human element of the situation ! Perhaps it was some such views as these latter which strengthed Mr. Ledger 's already strong personal interest in the scheme. Perhaps he argued to himself that if a coach and four could be driven through any act of the British parliament, surely a flock of llamas and vicunas could be coaxed through a Bolivian By-law ! OLD PRINT OF THE LLAMA AND INDLVNS SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 509 So Ledger left the neigliborhood of Lake Titicaca, only to find that the Bolivian officials were on the look-out for him. In order to escape detection, therefore, Ledger and his convoy were obliged to forsake the main-roads — them- selves mere sheep-tracks — and to scramble as best they could across the peaks and valleys of the stupendous Bolivian Mountain country. This achievement in itself, involving immense hardships, was a sufficiently notable one. Once arrived in the neighborhood of the North-western iVrgentine frontier, our intrepid smuggler found himself on the threshold of the crisis of his enterprise. Ahead of him was the Bolivian frontier guard, warned, and on the look-out for his approach. How on earth was Ledger to conceal the many scores of his tall llamas! A few rab- bits he might have placed in a game pocket : but this was not to be done with an animal too lowly for a camel, too lofty for a sheep, and too shaggy for a deer. Moreover any interference with the llama 's dignity would undoubt- edly have resulted in a hiss of protest followed by that unerring ejection of the missile of saliva which is that haughty creature 's principal weapon. So Mr. Ledger determined to dispense with the services of a single llama as accomplice. Having concealed his flock in some field of the mountains, he strode forward alone, bearing bottles as full to the mouth with fiery liquid as was the horse of Troy with men. Arrived at the frontier port, the guards, — who did not know Mr. Ledger by sight — welcomed with effusion the presence and generous beverages of one whom they took to be an irresponsible and super-jovial traveler. Fortune favored this bold stroke. The frontier guards drank, chattered, sang, and slept in that conventional and satis- factory fashion that is seldom seen off the operatic stage. Then Ledger darted away, and returned, to lead his com- panies of padding animals past the slumbering sentries on to Argentine soil, and freedom ! 510 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA After a further strenuous mountain journey, he sailed from the Chilean coast, and landed in Sydney with, it is said, a mixed flock of 276 llamas, alpacas, and vicunas. Mr. Hinchliff in referring to this episode in 1863 re- marks: "These immensely valuable animals are now- thriving in Australia and increasing so rapidly that they are already talked of as a very important element in the future wealth of our colonies." But this prediction, it seems, was of too optimistic a nature. At all events I, for one — who in my youth ex- changed the remote possibility of a diplomatic cocked hat for the privilege of chasing sheep in the back blocks of New Zealand — met with no llamas, or even tales of llamas in Australasia. But it need not be deduced from this fact alone that these animals do not exist somewhere in the Dominions ! Perhaps the end of a chapter devoted to these breezy callings of the open air would be as fitting a place as any other in which to refer briefly to the South American feats of such noted mountain-climbers as Conway, Whymper, and Fitzgerald, and to the work of explorers and f rontier- delimitators such as Holditch, Fawcett, and Edwards. There are lady travelers of a past generation, too, such as Lady Brassey, whose cruise in the Sunbeam was largely devoted to South America, and Lady Burton, who roughed it with her brilliant husband across the ''back- blocks" of Brazil. But it is necessary to resist the temptation to launch out in these directions. There are of course, many other travelers and geographers of note, including the recently deceased Sir Clements Markham, to whom reference is made in another place. The names I have given are merely representative of the various bodies — a course that must necessarily be adopted if encyclopasdic dimensions are to be avoided in this work. In connection even with such weighty subjects as these, it is by no means out of place to make a passing refer- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 511 ence to sport. One of the most notable fields of British influence in South America has been — and is — connected with sport. The importance of this is not to be under- rated; for the football and the golf-club, the lawn-tennis racquet and the racing craft, the polo ball and the coach- horn, and all the rest of such gear, have been vitally instrumental in evoking a real intimacy and mutual re- spect between the British and the South Americans. No more convincing evidence exists of the stage which has been arrived at in this respect, than the play of the Ar- gentine polo teams in England, the tour of a Corinthian "Soccer" eleven in Brazil, and the visit of Lord Hawke's cricket team to Argentina. CHAPTER XXV ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BRITISH IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (ill) Part played by the British in communications and transport — The South American steamship service — The introduction of steam navigation into the Pacific — William Wheelwright's work — Arrival of the first steamers — Progress in the Pacific and in the Atlantic — North Ameri- can competition — A Darien project — The founding of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company — Supremacy of British shipping established — Increase of British trade with Brazil — Costliness of the early ocean mails — British control — British railway enterprise in South America — Its value as a national advertisement — Work of the pioneers — In- dians and fever — Labor difiiculties — William Wheelwright and the railways of South America — Some details of a notable career — Indus- trial concessions and feats — The first South American railway — A Chilean enterprise — Wheelwright's scientific attainments — His degree of fame — Railway enterprise in Paraguay — The development of the Argentine railways — A modest beginning — Eff"ect on land values — The first railways of Uruguay — Of Venezuela — The first cables and tramways — Some modem feats of the South American railway enter- prise — Magnitude of the general industrial achievements. UNDOUBTEDLY some of the most monumental work achieved by the British in South America has been in connection with communications and transport. Indeed the shipping, railway — and, in a lesser degree, the tramway — enterprise of the British in the Southern Continent has every right to be regarded with deep pride by the nation in general. We may begin with the shipping industry, since that is primarily concerned with the coasts of the continent, and we may subsequently proceed to its inland heart by means of the railways ! It is somewhat curious that the west coast of South America should have had the advantage of a steamer con- nection with Europe for so many years before a similar 512 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 513 benefit was enjoyed by the far less remote east coast. One of the chief reasons for this undoubtedly lay in the political stability of Chile, and the confusion that pre- vailed at the time in the young river Plate States; al- though Brazil, it must be said, was entirely free from this state of affairs. The full credit for the introduction of steam naviga- tion into the Pacific must be given to Mr. William Wheel- wright, a very notable North American steam pioneer, who is referred to at some length later. Wheelwright, having in 1833 obtained the necessary concessions from the Chilean and Peruvian governments, came to England to establish a company for the running of the steamers. He found the city of London in an unresponsive mood. For years his efforts to overcome its apathy in this par- ticular direction were unsuccessful. At length he had the good fortune to meet Lord Abinger, who entered warmly into the project. In 1839 the company was formed, and two steamers, each of 750 tons and 180 horse- power, were built. This tardy response, however, had set the whole en- terprise in peril. There was no time to be lost if the first steamer were to arrive in a Chilean port within the period of time stipulated in the concession granted by the Chileans so many years before ! The new enterprise was known as the Pacific Steam Navigating Company, and it was in 1840 that its first steamers, the Peru and the Chili, drove southwards on their way to the Pacific Ocean with not an hour to spare ! An arbitrary delay of fourteen days enforced by the Brazilian Government in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro put all hope of success out of the question, and ultimately the vessels arrived off the Chilean coast exactly thirteen days after the stipulated time-limit of years had ex- pired ! Fortunately the Chilean Government was keenly alive to the benefits promised by this sendee, and re- newed for ten years those privileges which have ever 514 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA since been enjoyed by the Pacific Steam Navigation Com- pany. Considering that the enterprise was in its infancy, these early privileges were liberal. The Chilean government granted an annual subsidy of £12,000 for the direct steam communication with England. At a later period the Pacific Steam Navigation Company in connection with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company entered into a contract with the British Government for the fortnightly conveyance of mails between Panama and Valparaiso. Shortly after 1850 the Pacific Steam Navigation Com- pany had on the West Coast of South America the follow- ing vessels : Tons Horse-power Lima 1,100 400 Bogota 1,100 400 Santiago 1,100 400 Bolivia 800 280 New Granada 600 200 Valdivia 700 180 Osprey 300 100 So much for the inauguration of the British steamer enterprise in the Pacific. In the Atlantic — owing to the disturbed political condition of the river Plate States that has already been referred to — the chief freight and passenger traffic was almost entirely confined to the Brazilian ports. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century a serious competitive element entered into this commerce. The ten years between 1840 and 1850 were apparently somewhat critical ones for the British shipping trade with Brazil. During this period the value of the freights carried re- mained stationary at an annual figure of some three and a half millions sterling. A stagnation of this kind could entail nothing else but a serious lagging behind in the general progress, and actually nearly all the advance in tonnage during this decade was snapped up by the North IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 515 American clippers, who were making a bold bid for the trade. Nevertheless, it is evident that some enterprising spirits were abroad on the British side from the fact that in 1844 a Captain Liot was commissioned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company to examine the isthmus of Darien with a view of linking the two oceans by means of a macadamized road or a railway. But the British Govern- ment, it appears, refused to tlirow in its influence in favor of the project, and, owing chiefly to this discouragement, the scheme fell through. To the southward of this an important event was soon destined to come about. Truly the influence of steam has been further-reaching than even the most inveterate trav- eler imagines ! What might have occurred had the con- test between the British and North Americans been left to the "windjammers," and had the decision remained with canvas, might possibly have given food for some un- pleasant reading to-day. It was, however, at the critical moment that Great Britain launched out boldly into a new enterprise, and in 1850 the Eoyal Mail Steam Packet Company extended its field, and established a new and southern connection with Brazil and the river Plate. From that moment the advance of North American shipping in South America was doomed. Dozens of prominent men in the United States, foreseeing this, strongly advocated the founding of a rival steamship line. This move, indeed was urged with an almost pas- sionate intensity by those patriotic, practical and shrewd missionaries, Messrs. Kidder and Fletcher. But nothing materialized. The North Americans began to get into the habit — of which they are only now begin- ning to break themselves — of going from New York to South America via Southampton. British imports be- gan to spring up by leaps and bounds, and in five years the trade between Great Britain and Brazil had more than doubled itself. 516 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Much of this advance, as a matter of fact, was due to the enormous increase in the coffee trade, which the ad- vantages of steam carriage now enabled the British to control. The great growth of this trade will be evident from the following figures: British exports in coffee in: Year Lhs. 1852 3,000,000 1853 52,000,000 1854 59,000,000 1855 112,000,000 These figures are sufficiently striking to excuse the re- sort to the somewhat reprehensible tabular form! This period, indeed, was a notable one for British commerce with South America, as the increase in the com- bined imports and exports between Great Britain and Brazil will show, for in 1855 these had advanced from the average of three and a half sterling that had prevailed between 1840 and 1850 to a total of £8,162,455. The first steamship service instituted by the Eoyal Mail Steam Packet Company was a monthly one from Southampton to Eio de Janeiro, at which port passengers for the river Plate were transshipped into a smaller steamer. The ball having thus been set rolling, it was not long before active competition arose, and in 1853 a rival company was formed to start a regular steamship service between Liverpool and the river Plate. In those early days Liverpool would seem to have out- rivaled Southampton in the tonnage employed in the voy- ages to the river Plate. In 1835 the trade between the Mersey and the southern ports called for the employment of sixty-four vessels, the combined tonnage of which amounted to 11,850 tons — about the dimensions, that is to say, of a very moderate-sized liner of to-day ! The cor- responding tonnage of the Port of London, however did not amount to the half of this. EARLY TVl'E OK KOVAL STEAM PACKET COMPANY SHIP A MODKKN ItUlTlSlI SOUTH AMERICAN SHIP IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 517 The costliness of the early ocean mails between Great Britain and the river Plate was sufficient to make the art of letter-writing a luxury. So far as Uruguay was concerned, it was claimed in 1854 that this disadvantage had been removed, when the postal rates were lowered to two shillings an ounce, with an increased ratio of cost for letters exceeding four ounces! From this it will be realized that, even after these much praised reductions had been affected, the cheapness of the correspondence with Uruguay at that period was only relative! The charges in connection with the Brazilian mails were equally heavy. Postage between this empire and Great Britain was at one time 2/7 for anything up to half an ounce in weight, and even in the late 1870 's, the same amount could not be sent under the cost of a shilling. Until the middle of the seventies the British postoffice had a branch of its own in Rio de Janeiro. By this means the British dealt directly with the mails of their own nation, which did not pass through the hands of the Brazilian authorities. This, of course, created an un- usual international situation, which could not continue when Brazil had attained to its maturity as a state. A similar postal arrangement existed in the early days of the river Plate countries. The work of the British railway companies in South America should, as I have remarked before, stand as an everlasting monument to British enterprise in that con- tinent. Its broader aspects have never, I think, been sufficiently acknowledged by the world in general. It is difficult to believe that the British prestige in the southern continent could have maintained its height had it not been for those great systems of traffic which have been at hand to bear witness to an efficiency and an organizing power which has been by no means so patent in many other branches of our industries. It is the traveler's privilege to indulge in an occasional mild grumble — a right which is, so to speak, thrown in 518 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA with the ticket — and South America provides no excep- tion to this rule; at the same time, speaking generally, the working of the various British companies does extort admiration, both voluntary and unwilling, from all classes and nationalities in that continent. As a national asset, and, more, as a national advertise- ment, the value of these railways is not to be under- estimated, even when harvests fail and dividends fall. It would, I think, be a bad day for British enterprise should the work of the pioneers and of the present organ- izers pass into other hands. Certainly the results of any revolution of the kind would be dramatic enough in South America. However profitable a substitution of control might prove to certain groups, and however pleasing a state appropriation might be to the patriotic spirit of the various republics, the changing of the present situa- tion would surely prove to many that the substance of experience and efficiency is better than the shadow of unduly eager speculation or of untried new endeavor. If this sound too complacent, the failing must be con- doned by a survey of the general South American situa- tion, where at the present moment we have too little cause to congratulate our enterprise. Probably no work on South America would afford more interesting reading than one describing the experiences of the railroad pioneers of that continent. Decidedly the triumphs and tragedies of surveying and construction camps, if conscientiously told, would fill as much space as an ordinary encyclopaedia. It is true that the men who now strike out in front of the lengthening lines, and plunge into the unknown that lurks beyond railhead, need no longer — except in the rarest instances — trouble their heads about the possibility of Indian attack. But this particular peril has never loomed very large in the South American railway world. Fever has claimed a thousand victims where the Indians of the center and north have scarcely succeeded in murdering one. Among the bones IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 519 of those who have died of yellow fever, blackwater, beri- beri, and the like, the few skull trophies which have hung in the forest dwellings of the Indians would indeed be as needles among haystacks ! The task of the British railway engineer in South Amer- ica has always been a difficult one compared with that of the other employers of out-door labor. The British estanciero in the river Plate countries has its local peones to work for him, and, if he remain ignorant of their tem- peramental peculiarities, the fault is his own. The same applies to the owners of Chilean, Peruvian, or Bolivian haciendas, to the Brazilian cotf ee and sugar planters, and, in fact, to the employer of agricultural and mining laboi throughout the continent. But the railway construction engineer, although he is at least as much concerned with labor as any of these, is in a very difficult case. It is his fate to be always in command of scratch labor crews. He is largely at the mercy of labor conditions in other parts of the continent, and even of the world in general. It is part of his ''job" to adapt himself to the peculiarities of white, mestizo, yellow and black labor. Than this nothing can impose a severer test of his powers of leadership and diplomacy. When the line is completed, and the engineer glides to and fro along it in the private car that is his second home, he is doubtless an object of envy to many. But it may be taken for granted that he has deserved every square inch of this luxury, and is still earning it ! We may now revert to the infancy of this great British railway enterprise in South America. One of the most remarkable men who had to do with its birth was William Wheelwright. It was the State of Massachusetts that saw Wheelwright's birth in 1798, but it was in London that he died seventy-five years later. So much of his astonishing initiative and vigor was employed in the serv- ice of the British that considerably more than a passing reference is due to him in these pages. 520 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA From the records of the rapidly budding South Amer- ican industries of the early and mid-nineteenth century Wheelwright's name flashes out over and over again — and nearly always from the very summit of some monu- mental conception of the world of enterprise. Concessions of vast importance seemed to drop as plen- tifully as blackberries into Wheelwright's mouth. At least such traces of his work as crop up might well give this impression to the casual follower of these records — who may not be aware that a valuable concession is not the kind of fruit that falls ! Most decidedly it has to be climbed for, and picked ! But Wheelwright must not for one moment be con- fused with the ordinary concession-hunter, notwith- standing his marked success in this direction — which, after all was only the logical result of his general abilities. It was Wheelwright who, assisted by the Chilean and Peruvian governments, as we have already seen, founded the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, It was Wheel- wright who obtained in Argentina the concessions for the Ensenada Railway, the Eosario and Cordoba railway, the Central Argentine railway, and numerous other enter- prises of the kind. But Wheelwright achieved more than this. His name has a great claim on posterity as being that of the founder of the first railway in South America. This was the Chilean line between Caldera and Copiapo, which was opened on Christmas Day, 1852, the first loco- motive on the system being driven by an engineer of the name of 'Donovan. This venture met with hearty support from the Chilean notabilities. To those acquainted with the names of the Chilean aristocracy this will be clear when the following list of shareholders is given: Gallo, Edwards, Carvallo, Subercaseaux, Varas, Vega, Tocornal, Cifuentes, Montt, Carril, Cousino, the last shareholder being Wheelwright himself. The Senor Edwards, it may be mentioned, whose name lOREST CLEARING IN SOUTH AMERICA RAILROAD CONSTKl C TION IN .S(HTH AMERICA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 521 appears second in the list, was the son of an English gen- tleman who took part on the Chilean side in the war of liberation, and became a Chilean. The latter 's great grandson is Senor Agustin Edwards, the well-known Chilean statesman, and the present highly esteemed min- ister-plenipotentiary in London. Wheelwright's talents were not confined to the business side of his profession, although he afterwards became a partner of Mr. (afterwards Lord) Brassey's, the firm be- ing known as Brassey, Withes, and Wheelwright. His scientific attainments were marked, and he was an expert in territory. Thus in 1860, in his character of F.E.G.S. we find him reading to the Royal Geographical Society a paper on a proposed railway across the Andes, from Caldera to Rosario via Cordoba. It is said to have been Wheelwright himself, moreover, who discovered the Chilean coal field at Talcahuano, which has subsequently played so important a part in the steam traffic of these regions. Possibly Wheelwright's fame as an industrial pioneer is wider than I suspect. It is true that Valparaiso has raised a statue to him, and that his name is familiar enough in Chilean print — there are some excellent notes concerning him in Seiaor Santiago Marin Vicuila's Los Ferrocarriles de Chile. But it is surprising how seldom his name occurs in English books, and how many indexes one may ransack for a reference to him, only to draw blank! It is not a little remarkable that in a hermit state such as was Paraguay in the middle of the nineteenth century railway enterprise should have begun as early as the year 1854. In that year the most genial of Paraguay's three autocrats, Carlos Antonio Lopez, ordered that his coun- try was to be provided with railways. Three British engineers, Messrs. Burrel, Valpy and Padison were en- gaged for the purpose, and, in order that the construction might be conducted on the accepted Paraguayan model of 522 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA the mid-nineteenth century, three battalions of infantry were placed at their disposal to act as navvies. As a result, some seventy-two kilometres of rail had been laid in 1861, when the line was opened from Asuncion as far as Paraguari. The advent to power of Francisco Solano Lopez brought about a period of war which inter- rupted all such enterprise, and it was not until 1886 that work was resumed on the line. Little by little the network of railway lines extended itself over South America. The following report, pub- lished by Mr. C. Frederic Woodgate in 1877, will show the beginning of various of the companies in Argentina, the chief railway country in the Continent. In 1877 the situation of the Argentina railways was as follows : Work Miles Proprietors begun Western 1857 150 Provincial Government of Buenos Aires (aft- erwards British). Northern 1862 18 London Company. Great Southern 1864 202 London Company. Boca and Ensenada 1863 37 London Company. 'Central Argentine 1863 245 London Company. Villa Maria and Rio Cuarto 1870 82 National government. Cordova and Tucuman . . 1873 336 National government. Rio Cuarto and Mercedes . 1873 76 National government. Eastern Argentine 1873 96 London Company. Buenos Aires and Cam- pana . . , 1873 42 London Company. The first of these, the Western Railway was begun un- der distinctly modest auspices so far as capital is con- cerned. A sum of £28,000 sufficed to start the venture, an amount to which the Argentine Government subse- quently added the loan of the equivalent of £24,000. In 1864 we find the officials claiming with pride that the trains on their system frequently carried over three thou- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 523 sand passengers in a single day — an estimate that might cause some chagrin to the managers of to-day ! Incidentally it may be remarked that, as a result of the construction of this line, some of the land through which it passed increased in value fifty-fold. At a later date, after the Great Southern Railway had opened the south- ern Buenos Aires country which General Roca had freed from the Indian peril, land which had been obtainable for £70 the square league less than eight years afterwards was worth £3,000 the league ! It was in the 1870 's that some of the most notable strides were undertaken in the great public services throughout South America. Even before this, however, the little Republic of Uruguay had made its first ac- quaintance with the iron road. The first railway to be opened here was the Central Uruguay. This was begun in 1868, and a short section of eleven miles was already being worked in 1869. Four years later, in 1873, the British turned their at- tention to the north of the continent, and built the first railway in Venezuela. This was known as the Bolivar Railway, and was originally constructed to connect the town of Tucacas with the copper mines of Aroa. The line was subsequently extended to Barquisimeto. Incidentally, too, it may be remarked that it was at this period that the complementary public services came into being. Thus the first South American cable was laid in 1874. It connected Lisbon with Pernambuco, and its 3,866 miles ran by way of Madeira and St. Vincent. By the year 1877, moreover, a proof of the strides of the young tramway industry was evident in Buenos Aires, where the British Companies owned a length of fifty-four miles, of tram-lines, on which about one hundred cars were working. It is quite out of the question to attempt to deal here with the more recent progress of the British owned rail- ways in South America. Some of the feats, it is true. 524 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA are of world-wide importance. The linking up of Buenos Aires with Valparaiso — and consequently, of the Atlantic with the Pacific — the establishment of railway communica- tion between Rio and Brazil and Montevideo in Uruguay ; between Buenos Aires and Asuncion, the capital of Para- guay ; the construction of the famous Oroza railway, which crosses the Peruvian Andes at a height of nearly sixteen thousand feet; the successful completion of the remark- able Madeira-Mamore railway, the pet project of that most worthy North American successor of Wheelwright, Colonel Church, by which the terrors of a fever-laden series of Amazonian torrents were for ever done away with — these alone are achievements which have called into being some of the greatest engineering skill of the age, to say nothing of the assistance of such ambitious instru- ments as steam ferries for the conveyance of trains across rivers, and similar undertakings by means of which the more stupendous stretches of nature have been harnessed. Much the same may be said of the port-works, river traffic, and municipal undertakings in which the British have specialized. A book might comfortably be written on each subject, and, indeed, so far as the amount of print is concerned, many have been! CHAPTER XXVI TO-DAY AND TO-MOKKOW IN SOUTH AMERICA The Work of the British in the Continent — Financial achievements — Man- ner in which the efforts have been carried out — Policy of the British from the Elizabethan Age onwards — Relations with the South Amer- icans — The latter's experiences of the Englishman as an enemy and as a friend — The Prussian Alfinger — Tastes of the South Americans — Some matters of appreciation — Confidence between the Iberians and the British — Guiana and the Falklands — Progress of British trade — Eatio of increase compared with that of Germany — Reasons for a specious growth and real decline — Philosophy of the British manu- facturer — His relations with his agents abroad — Questions of market- ing goods — Some artificial disadvantages — Necessity of organization on a large scale — An instance in the shipping world — Result of retalia- tory measures — The British commercial traveler in South America — Suggestions concerning a suitable type of man — The intimate history of a warship contract — The Englishman not an opportunist — Advan- tages and disadvantages of this circumstance — Teutonic national ma- chinery employed in support of commerce — The value of official flattery — Necessity for British organization on a comprehensive scale — Ques- tions of diplomacy and diplomats — Suggestions concerning a special type of attache — Evidences of German prosperity in South America — Latin- American sentiment — Opinions of a Brazilian merchant — Prob- able future German commercial campaign — The North Americans as competitors — Relations of these with the Latin Americans — South America and British imperial preference — Britain's task as an ally. IN reviewing the work of the British in South America it is fortunately unnecessary to enter into a maze of statistics. These have been so clearly set out in doz- ens of publications, official and otherwise, that any mass of detail would not justify its passage in this particular prose vehicle. Briefly, very nearly one hundred years ago two or three million pounds passed from Lombard Street to the newly founded South American States. This financial assist- ance came to them when they were still in the act of reel- ing to their feet, and before the smoke of the War of In- dependence had finally rolled clear of the Continent. 525 526 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA To-day the British investments in South America prob- ably amount to some seven hundred millions sterling. On the face of it, this situation might well seem not merely satisfactory, but triumphant. In many respects it justifies the first adjective; but the second, I think, could apply only if the rest of the world had remained impassive spectators of our industry as we piled up our interests and securities in the great Latin continent. There is, moreover, another view of the question, which has so far been ventilated by our enemies rather than by ourselves, but which is by no means unworthy of atten- tion. A boat may be rowed for seven hundred miles up a river to a point where the tiring oarsmen slacken and fail : then it will be of merely historic consolation to the inmates to reflect that, the farther upstream the craft has won its way, the more numerous are the down-river reaches along which it has to drift. But this pessimistic metaphor is premature, certainly in this chapter, and probably in the world of affairs. It is essential in the first place to see by what means the British progress in South America has been achieved, from its earliest beginnings to the present day. We at once find ourselves confronted by a remarkable chain of events, every one of which illustrates the desultory na- ture of both our hostilities and friendly undertakings in South America. Almost all our achievements there have been the work of free lances. This has been so since the days of Elizabeth, who on the one hand gave Drake god- speed and scarfs embroidered with well-wishes, and on the other condoled with Philip of Spain on the deeds of her irrepressible sailors! The policy of James, feebly parodying the vigorous partnership of Elizabeth, gave a grim end to Raleigh. Later, many an honest sailor had to take his chance whether he were regarded by Spain as a lawful enemy, a dubious privateer, or a wholly damnable bucaneer. His mutable status depended on the course of the relations between England and Spain — a kaleido- TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 527 scopic procession of sentiments concerning which he, afloat in the Southern oceans, could not be expected to keep himself posted. The dawn itself of the freedom of Spanish South America was heralded by a stroke of this same free-lance policy. For the successes and disasters of the British invasion of the Rio de la Plata in 1806 — which played so notable a part in instilling the idea of independence into the South American mind — were the result of an inspiration on the part of the British naval commander, Sir Home Popham, who found himself with some ships and troops to spare after the capture of Cape Town. The War of Liberation itself affords a final instance of the consistently impassive official attitude toward South America. At that period the British Government, main- taining a correct neutrality, provided nothing beyond a benevolent sympathy. The British sailors and soldiers who enlisted in the patriot cause provided themselves; and such men as Cochrane, Guise, Miller, O'Brien, and some scores of others, found that their own Government's attitude toward them partook of the Nelsonian touch of refusing to observe what ought not to be seen ! It was only natural that the first trading relations of the British with the South Americans should have been of an individual nature. The commercial world was loosely knit in those days, and it was in the age when private in- itiative counted that the prospering British coached the South Americans from the status of pupils to that of colleagues. England had well earned her considerable early ad- vantages over her European and North American rivals. Her political and militant sympathies, her golden assist- ance, and the advent of a swarm of merchants conveying cargoes of merchandise — all this while the yellow and red of the Spanish standard was still floating over the last remnant of royal territory, the castles of Callao — had won for the British a place in the esteem of the South 528 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA Americans that no subsequent international vicissitudes have succeeded in destroying. It was in cordial circum- stances that the British merchant introduced his machin- ery, his hard and soft ware, his live stock, and his liquids, and shipped home in their place hides, horns, metals, sugar, coffee, and the general produce of the Continent : for, since the sentiments of Brazil resembled those of the former Spanish colonies, it is with the entire con- tinent that we are now concerned. It was surely one of the anomalies of statesmanship that gained for England the simultaneous gratitude of Brazil and the Spanish- speaking States. She had assisted the former in her step from a royal colony to a kingdom ; she had aided the latter to divest themselves of royalty and its influence by becoming republics! The explanation is a simple one. These divergent processes had the same effect: that of throwing open the South American ports to the trade of the world. As the intercourse between the British and the South Americans increased, other links beyond those of com- merce began to be forged. It is the fashion to accuse the Englishman abroad of the unsocial crime of keeping him- self to himself. This, I think, must apply in a far lesser degree to South America than to any other part of the world. There is no doubt that the average Englishman in South America entertains an affection for that con- tinent and its inhabitants deeper than the inevitable re- gard with which the successful man contemplates the source of his wealth. Intermarriage has been frequent : common interests in sports, games, pastoral, and ag- ricultural occupations have led to an intimate under- standing. Thus we arrive at the general relations of the present day. Without an over-indulgence in complacency, they may be said to be very satisfactory. The average Eng- lishman is aware that he does not sound the tempera- mental depths of the average South American; on the TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 529 other hand, the average South American has a much shrewder conception of the Englishman than the latter suspects. It is true that for generations the man of Iber- ian stock took some pleasure in referring to the North- erner as the loco Inglez — the mad Englishman. But the adjective, emitted in jocular resignation, was devoid of sting; for at all times the Iberian considered the other an honest loco, and now for more than a generation he has joined him in his madness — in almost all its forms, from hygiene and social clubs to the cult of balls ! Moreover, is not the word of an Englishman — Palahra de un Inglez! — an oath in itself? Is not the expression Hora Inglessa an appeal to punctuality ? And — still regarding the situation from the point of view of the South American — he has been able to judge of the Englishman as an enemy; no mean test of a man's w^orth. When Wliitelock's ill-fated expedition left the shores of the river Plate, the Government of the invaded territories had already bcome national rather than vice- regal. It was as South Americans that the city fathers of Montevideo offered that generous tribute to the de- parting British troops, an address that acknowledged with spontaneous warmth the chivalry of the army of oc- cupation, and that went the length of expressing regret for its departure! A fine testimonial this — one which would not have been applied, say, to the Prussian Alfinger, who, assisting in the sixteen-century Welser colonization of the Continent, made a practice, when on the march, of cutting off the heads of dying members of the Indian slave-gangs, whose necks were chained to a common steel rod, and by this practical method prevented any senti- mental delay in the progress of the party ! This Alfinger of unsavory memory, dragged in here somewhat by his grim and ghastly heels, opens up in a not inappropriate fashion one of the main objects of this chapter — the question of the respective relations with the South Americans of ourselves, and of our keenest com- ^30 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA petitors, the Germans. Let us start in a key that is justifiably buoyant! As regards mere popularity, it seems to me that we have little to fear. The piece of eight played its part in the temporary lease of part of Venezuela to the Prussian Welsers, and it is very little beyond a common interest in the dollar which is respon- sible for the association of South American and German to-day. An inherent and unquenchable antagonism exists between the arrogance of the Prussian and the easy de- mocracy of the South American. One very clear proof of this exists. In largely increasing numbers the South American has taken to visiting Paris and Cannes, London and Eastbourne, Switzerland, Norway, and Egypt; but — for his own pleasure — never Berlin ! The lists of Eton and other schools now include a number of South Ameri- cans — but to what German school does any South Ameri- can boy go for the building up of his character and tone ? Those who have visited Teutonic technical colleges have done so for technical purposes. Surely, since every straw counts, we may even take some pride in having induced the South American to follow our lead in such matters as clothes, games, and household arrangements. I have had the honor of din- ing en petit comite with the late President of Argentina — an old member of the Devonshire Club — when the serv- ice was carried out by maidservants in English caps and aprons. Now is not this in its way as high a compliment as any other? The volatile Iberian — as sturdy in his own way as any other race of the earth — has, we flatter ourselves, a stanch belief in the good faith of the British. On this head we have every right to sound a trumpet blast or two, for in this case the proof of the pudding has been our willingness to respect its plums! The Iberian is noth- ing if not a student of history, and he remembers. What of Madeira? Have we not twice occupied, and volun- tarily restored that tempting, pleasant, and strategically TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 531 important island? Then there are the Falkland Islands. Has an Argentine statesman lost a single ministerial wink of sleep on account of our possession of these hills and pastures in the South Atlantic? What of Guiana, too — a colony that, logically, should be deeply unpopular in the Southern continent, since it is one of the last two remaining appanages of royalty on the republican main- land? Nevertheless, British Guiana, a tranquil neigh- bor to the north of the Latin republics, provokes no shriek even from Monroe's sensitive eagle. But — if Raleigh's territory had been Prussian! The South Americans are sufficiently alert to conceive the length of the tentacles of intrigue that would have wriggled south- wards across the Continent ! In fairness to the Englishman it must be said that during a hundred years not only has he maintained his relations with the inhabitants of the various South Amer- ican republics, he has improved them. At this point we must leave the bright side of the pic- ture. These justifiable trumpet blasts bring us to the threshold of a startling and unpleasant anomaly. Dur- ing these recent decades, while this mutual cordiality has increased, and the British have enjoyed sentimental ad- vantages over every nationality save the Latins, the pro- portion of British trade compared with that of the rest of the world has decreased! That it should decrease to a certain extent was inevitable — but the shrinkage that has actually occurred has been beyond reasonable expec- tation ! It would hardly seem that the point is a debatable one — though there are some who profess themselves satisfied with the mere fact that our trade with South America has not been stagnant, and who even rejoice in an in- crease in our exports such as could only be received with legitimate satisfaction had the rest of the world stood still in the meantime. Such a frame of mind will not, I think, bear much investigation. 532 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA There is no need to plunge here into any of the count- less statistics which are available on the subject : we may take our exports to Brazil as a typical example. In 1875 we sent to Brazil practically as much as all the rest of the world put together. To-day our proportion of the goods shipped to Brazil is some twenty-five per cent. Since it is clearly unreasonable that Great Britain should expect to continue to rival the bulk of the rest of the world's trade, there would be less reason for complaint concern- ing these figures had the bulk of the increased exports to Brazil been divided in a normal fashion among the other nations. But this is not so. In 1875 the German exports to Brazil amounted barely to an eighth of our own, but in rather more than twenty years she had increased these figures tenfold, while Great Britain during this period had rather more than doubled her exports. Germany's gains, of course, have not continued in this phenomenal ratio, or, instead of maintaining the lead. Great Britain would have lost her predominant position many years ago. Nevertheless, the general advance of the Germans in exports and the control of industrial en- terprise has continued far in excess of our own. Viewed in this light, our trade advance in South America loses much of its glamour. It appears only too clearly as a lag- ging behind, which, if the existing trend be continued for long enough, must end in collapse ; for who now can doubt that the ultimate aim of the German commercial policy in South America has been, not division, but the annihilation of the non-Teutonic! Moreover, the actual process must be far more rapid than any promised by mere statistics ; for there comes a stage in commercial war when strategic advantages have a cumulative effect. Then the resistance is apt to crum- ble like the atoms of an undermined sand-castle when the waters have ceased to nibble, and begin to devour! It is possible, apart from the circumstances of the war, BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION IN SOUTH AMERICA VIADUCT CONSTRUCTION IN SOUTH AMERICA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 533 that this aggressive policy has led Germany to the verge of bankruptcy, as some allege. Even so, that would not return to us the volume of past trade that the policy has lost us. There must be serious reasons for this specious growth and real decline which during the last quarter of a cen- tury has occurred in the face of a favoring situation. There would seem to be two main causes. The first has already created a certain amount of attention : the refusal of many British manufacturers to adapt themselves to a rapidly altering condition of affairs. The second has at- tracted less notice, but is, I think, as important in its own way as the first. This is the continuance of that free- lance policy of individual effort that, as I have tried to show, harks back to the days of Hawkins and Drake. Surely under present conditions this is as obsolete as the walls of England that once were of wood, rifted against the scientifically combined groups of highly organized competitors, its working must resemble the performance of a scratch Association football team against the mathematical precision of a tried professional eleven. Let us consider the former of these two main causes. The obstinacy of many British manufacturers would seem to be a thing of comparatively recent growth — probably a fungus on the tree of easy prosperity. Those who care to peruse the experiences of the British travelers in South America from the end of the first decade of the nine- teenth century up to rather more than a generation ago cannot fail to be struck by the copious notes and inky exclamations as the author describes the picturesque knives and quaintly romantic spurs that come frOm Shef- field; the bizarre fabrics, redolent of palm-trees, guitars, and starry nights, that were Lancashire's contribution to the South, and a hundred other articles of the kind. Doubtless a shoddy species of trade, this, but at least eloquent of enterprise and ingenuity ! One is occasionally tempted to wonder if the German 534 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA of to-day be not in the mood of the Mid-Victorian English- man — minus the latter 's sporting propensities and con- science, and plus the Prussian cynical contempt of any divine or human convention which might limit his chances of success ! Certainly the Mid- Victorian manufacturer would not have accepted the present-day situation with that resigna- tion — approaching indifference — evinced by his succes- sor. In the course of time certain British articles have gone by the board in South America, pushed aside by natural forces. It was the climate that gave light Ger- man beers the victory over the English ales that once flooded the Continent — a loss to the British that was sub- sequently more than retrieved by the triumph of whisky. Such circumstances are not to be overcome ; but unavoid- able disasters of this particular kind have been very few and far between in the history of British trade with South America. Of recent years it is only too lamentable to observe how frequently the relations between the British manufacturer and his agent abroad resemble those between a motionless mule and a dispirited goad. The manufacturer is in- clined to be complacent and trite; the agent tends to be- come irritated and bitter. Which of the two has reason on his side? Not, I think, the manufacturer. It may appear a poor calling to attempt to point out to a com- munity how unjustified is its content with its situation. Nevertheless in this case the microbe of dissatisfaction is a healthy one, and the sooner it is injected the better for the manufacturer. It is not too much to ask of him that he should put his customer's wants before his own views, that he should supply to Brazil axes of a steel tempered to fell the tropical iron-wood, instead of the English oak ; that he should discover which cloth is popular in Lima, and which in London ! Does it savor of an unreasonable pessimism to assert that, unless he act on some such prin- ciples as these, that craft of his, which his very deliberate TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 535 paddling now just succeeds in propelling upstream, will be swept rapidly down the current? Let us suppose, then, the very reasonable supposition that we are in a position to supply the South American (whose sentiments do not interfere with his desire to purchase in the cheapest and most practical market) with the type of goods he requires, on terms as favorable as those offered by our neighbors — if we fail in this, is there any special providence available to produce some super- natural reason why we should not shut up shop ? Let us suppose, further, that we, as sellers, will in our accounts yield to the decimal system, to the local customs, cur- rency, and prejudices, and render all the other minor matters concessions by the non-observance of which we have voluntarily handicapped our trade. What has hap- pened when we have achieved this! — We have merely placed ourselves on a footing of equality with our com- petitors. The actual fight to maintain our proper position in the South American trading world is still before us. We may now turn to the second of the two main causes of the present unsatisfactory position of British trade with South America. I have tried to show that in the days of individual competition and British manufacturing enterprise — the period of ''notions"! — ^nearly all the cir- cumstances were in favor of the British. The subsequent introduction of the great industrial combinations such as are in existence to-day has tended toward the undermin- ing of these advantages. Only on rare occasions have the British organized their resources on a w^holesale scale to oppose the trusts that sprang up in the United States, and that were imitated in Germany. Where they have, success has followed. But for the great shipping coop- eration effected by Sir Owen Philipps, who can doubt but that the grim and determined onslaught of the German shipo\vners would have ended in the fluttering of the Red Ensign over fewer and smaller decks than is at present the case? As it is, the stand has been made in the face 536 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA of a hundred tricks, such as that of a local method of tonnage calculation tending in the announcements to in- flate the dimensions of the German ships at the expense of the British, and other dubious measures of this kind. It would seem that an axiom in success in the South America of to-day is that an undertaking should not only be efficient, but on a large scale; witness the deserved triumph of the British railway methods in that continent ! A lesser instance is to be met with in the success which attended the foundation of the large British stores in Buenos Aires. There are times "when it is necessary to think imperially — outside the bounds of our own empire ! I cannot help supposing that, had the British meat-chill- ing companies been imbued more liberally with this spirit, the Stars and Stripes w^ould not have won so rapid a victory on the banks of the river Plate. But this need of combination now seems so clear, and it is one which is raising itself with such emphasis before the captains of the British industries, that it is surely not necessary to lay any prolonged stress upon it here. The benefits of an alert resistance have been proved over and over again, in minor, as well as in major, matters. Indeed, it is usually only in minor matters that a definite and patent result is available. For an instance of this I must turn again to the leading British steamship association which serves South America. It happened some time ago that the agent of this asso- ciation at one of the western European ports noticed that the agent of the rival German line was making a practice of endowing the poster-pictures of his steamers with one funnel beyond the number that they actually possessed. Unimportant though the exaggeration may appear to the layman, it was by no means without its method. How deeply the simple but profitable Iberian steerage passenger is impressed by such pictures will be realized when it is explained that on one occasion a num- TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 537 ber refused to sail on a certain vessel that did not boast as many funnels as shown in the stock illustration printed on the ticket — although the despised vessel happened to be one of the largest in the service. The British agent, aware of its significance, proceeded to counter his rival's method. New posters showed the vessels of his line with one funnel more than those de- picted on the German sheets. When the Teutonic agent had rubbed his eyes at the sight he hastily called his posters in, and replaced them by others upon which tow- ered two funnels more than on the last. He had, in fact, gone one better: but his improvement was once again excelled by his alert competitor. The affair continued un- til the pictured British hulls groaned beneath the weight of, I believe, seven enormous funnels ! On this the German agent, in despair, appealed to his head office in Prussia to intervene — in order to make an end to this spectacular rivalry which he himself had in- troduced ! As a result of negotiations between the com- panies a truce in imaginative posters was proclaimed, and the respective pictures began again to sail under their proper funnels. But this object-lesson has led us some way from the two great issues under discussion. Out of these two issues, enterprise and combination, arises a third which in its own way is every whit as im- portant. It is one which involves the forsaking of gen- eralities and a survey of some of the more intimate de- tails of our trade with the South Americans. We have been taking into consideration the question of the com- parative values of goods and industrial services. The most cursory study of these must lead to the conclusion that the rewards of unadvertised sterling merit are largely confined to fiction. It may savor of smugness to assert that in the past we have relied too largely on merit and not sufficiently on advertisement in the widest sense of the word. Yet I believe that this has been so in the com- mercial world of buying and selling — in some branches of 538 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA which the goods would seem to have sold themselves in spite of the methods adopted to sell them ! At the present juncture the commercial traveler repre- sents one of the most important personages in the South American commercial problem. It is only quite recently that we have begun to employ men sufficiently well- equipped by education and training for a field that is the richest in the world, and at the same time the most liber- ally garnished with pitfalls. South America is the blue ribbon of the selling world. The commercial traveler ap- pointed there should stand in the same relation toward his brethren of the home trade that an ambassador does to the most modest vice-consul. My own definition of the type of commercial traveler fitted for the South American trade of to-day may sound didactic, even startling, but here it is. He should, I think, be of the public school type, whose subsequent university career has been sacri- ficed to a study of French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Trouble should be taken in his initiation into his pro- fession. He should be properly coached concerning the men and matters of the countries that are to be his field. Finally, he should be trained to chase an order as keenly as his father followed hounds in the wake of the gamest fox! Is this recipe for a modern South American com- mercial traveler made up on Utopian lines'? I do not think so. It is merely a question of salary and profes- sional status, both of which would arrange themselves in such circumstances. I am convinced, from encounters in South American travels, that this is a perfectly feasible and practicable person in real life, but on this canvas it is only possible to sketch him on the broadest lines. Of late years the most important English companies when competing for large contracts have acknowledged the merits of this policy up to the point of sending out men of real eminence in their professions. But this has been principally on account of the necessity for an author- itative opinion where important technical points are con- TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 539 cerned, such as in contracts for warships, harbor-works, and the like. Even in such affairs as these expert knowledge and merit are not invariably successful against the more pirat- ical type of salesman. The following history of a war- ship deal will illustrate this. I had the story from the successful agent himself in the flush of his triumph — but, needless to say, not before the matter had been signed and sealed beyond redemption. No pledge of secrecy is in- volved ; nevertheless I will not describe his nationality — save to say of it that it was neither British nor German — nor the republic in which the affair occurred, nor is it necessary to state whether the vessels concerned were dreadnoughts or torpedo-boats ! The story smacks rather of the popular fiction than of the actualities of South America. But its transparent truth has been borne out by subsequent events. A number of warship-builders' agents had assembled in South America, to compete for a contract. As it hap- pened, in the ministry of the republic concerned was a minister whose financial morality belonged to an era of the Continent that is no longer normal in the pro- gressive republics. One of the competing agents, having succeeded in interesting him directly from the monetary point of view, obtained the promise of the contract. When the agreement came up for ratification, it became clear on the face of it to the other ministers that the business was a tainted one. They desired to quash the entire negotiation. But the agent stuck to his guns. If the contract were not ratified, he threatened, he would publish the incriminating letters which the erring min- ister had ingenuously written to him! The agent held firm even against the interference of a most efiicient chief of police, whose warnings and life were cut short by an anarchist bomb — a catastrophe that helped the agent to win the day. In the end the authorities, realizing that the reputation of the cabinet was at stake, and that the days 540 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA had gone by when this sort of scandal could be endured with impunity, gave in — and England lost the contract. It is not often that one is favored with the tranquil narration of such facts as these at first hand! This inner history of a warship contract may, or may not, be known to the British firms who competed at the time. I do not introduce it here as a model for the policy of the British agents! Viewing the matter quite apart from its moral aspects, it is no easier to bribe a minister in the advanced South American States than it would be in England. But it may serve as an illustration of the thousand and one situations w^hich British agents must be prepared to face — situations which naturally grow in variety as the less advanced countries are entered. The average Englishman may find some difficulty in combating this particular species of difficulty, since we may take it that, following a settled and deeply ingrained policy, he is not in general an opportunist. This is an important factor in the political and commercial situa- tion ; for this lack of opportunism has its advantages as well as its drawbacks. A South American knows that a saddle bought from an Englishman will be of leather, and not of paper. It does not matter whether the reason be that the seller's father made leather saddles before him, and that, like the American of fable, he is too lazy to stop running when once he has started ! The saddle will be of leather, and the South American is deeply appre- ciative of this fact. He welcomes this want of oppor- tunism as warmly as he does another instance of it — the failure to alight like a bird of prey into the midst of a South American political crisis, and to make capital out of local embarrassment. This brings us again to the consideration of our most formidable rival in South America. In our commercial struggle with Germany we are confronted with a state of affairs which carries us beyond the fundamental problems of the quality of the goods and the capability of the seller. TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 541 Granted that — by the simple means of taking trouble — it is in our power not only to rival Germany but eventually to outdo her in both these respects, we are by no means at the end of our difficulties. Our commercial efforts have recently been made to labor under an entirely new set of specially created and formidable disadvantages. We find ourselves opposed by a Teutonic flame of energy which is fanned by a species of forced draft. It is of enormous importance to scrutinize this system which has now become part and parcel of the German predatory trade. If we fail to grasp this we might well find our- selves in the position of a bowler who, having placed nine crack fieldsmen to the right of the wicket, bowls to leg! The German merchant or agent now forms an atom in one of the most scientific organizations that the world has ever seen. The entire Teutonic national machinery is driving to assist in pushing a lighting or tramway con- tract, or the sale of a razor, or a spoon! Realizing that commerce is the guiding star, in the relations between Europe and South America, Germany has thrown into the struggle every ounce of her official strength. Does a South American army require training in the latest military ideas! The Prussian Government is delighted to send a score of officers at a moment's notice. The rec- ommendations of the Prussian soldiers, once installed, concerning military weapons and stores, will not be un- favorable to the German manufacturers. An imposing German warship is always prepared to make a special parade in the South American ports, and no banquet or any other social function is too costly to oil a creaking commercial wheel ! A cordial imperial telegram is occa- sionally at the service of a private deal — if sufficiently important — and imperial cups for regattas have been found pretty successful in the way of business. Of re- cent years the average German minister plenipotentiary in South America has resolved his uniformed personality into that of an arch-commercial traveler. He has become 542 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA an intriguing concession hunter, who has succeeded in dressing up rather shady commercial procedure in a cocked hat, and stars, and spurs — very much to the benefit of the financial results, and to the outraging of the ethics of legitimate diplomacy. The law in England may be a '*hass"; diplomacy in Germany is certainly a .jackal! There is no denying the commercial value of telegrams, decorations, audiences, and special embassies, when em- anating from a sufficiently exalted source. Organized flattery may be wearisome labor, but it is profitable policy. It is one in which the modern German special- izes. I chanced to meet with a salient instance even in Norway when, the summer before the first year of the war, the fiords were heavily infested with the vessels of the German fleet. As one or two of the battle-ships were about to depart from a small port, it was noticeable that the sailors, waiting for the launches which were to convey them to the ships, had been provided with little Nor- wegian flags. These they waved in a fashion so patently to order that it was rather ludicrous to watch. It was a piece of drill to them! But it was an object-lesson to the spectator. What have we to pit against an organization that will back a contract, a convenient revolution, or a friendship of state, with a thoroughness that includes all things from calculated terrorism to the waving of toy flags? Some thousands of able British business men, some hundreds of public companies, and one or two great combinations. Individually, the force of any one of these is formidable, when opposed to a rival concern of its own weight and industrial gun-power. But, mustered into the organized commercial army which the present situation demands, they present a heterogeneous front compared with the ordered and closely knit phalanx that Germany has ad- vanced to the attack. If ever there was an opportunity for the removal of these disadvantages it is now. In what way is this to be TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 543 effected? By a general formation of trusts? No doubt necessity will drive considerable lengths in this direction, but even this procedure — distasteful to the public — leaves much unsolved. Moreover, the alternative, state control, on so large a scale as this would involve a more fateful leap into Socialism than the nation has been prepared for even by the events of the past two years. In any case it seems to me that there is a moderately simple means of supplying a practical impetus to a suc- cessful stand against German trade aggression. Surely this might be effected by broadening the scope of our South American legations, not after the German model, but in a legitimate fashion. We can now afford to regard our diplomatists in South America with some complacency. That particular de- partment is not so restful in these days as it was some twenty years ago, when the aspirants to attacheships were haunted by a tradition that a lack of proper influ- ence meant an exile to South America, and that, after years of a Rip Van Winkle-like existence, the sole reply which the F.O. would deign to the protest of an official thus stranded was an enquiry concerning the whereabouts of the place with the strange name from which the young diplomat dated his letter, and, further, how it came about that he should find himself there ! Fortunately for ourselves, we have now a number of ministers of the first order in South America — the same may be said of the South American ministers in Europe — and nothing could be more gratifying than the stand- ard set by our senior representative in Argentina. It would be lamentable were the functions and dignity of these ministers in any way interfered with. But why not graft on to this tree of legitimate state a branch which should apply itself to commercial purposes only? It may be objected that such officials as commercial attaches are already in existence. I would carry the duties of these suggested adjutants of trade much further. The new 544 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA branch should be made the rallying-point of an organized force to stem an organized tide. Needless to say, its officials would have to submit to a very special training. The curriculum of a public-school, a university, with vacations spent abroad, and a year or two at "Scoones," is admirable enough in itself. But it does not fit a young attache to cope with professional in- triguers and with the seamy side of commercial life. Be- fore he takes up the lively responsibilities of his post this new man's studies must have drawn him over rougher places than the shaven lawns of international law, politi- cal economy, and history. He must have familiarized himself with the conditions under which the various businesses of his fellow coun- trymen in South America are carried on. It is of supreme importance that he should delve into the dark places where the typical dodges and evasions of our chief competitor are hatched. In sympathy he must be heart and soul with the business people of his nation. In fact, he must be a diplomat in his shirt-sleeves, and should rep- resent to the minister or charge d'affaires that which the engineer does to the commander of a battleship. Finally, he should be reasonably endowed with the qualities of mental elasticity and detective power. How is all this to be effected? There are a dozen ways that suggest themselves to the person of average intelli- gence, given a loosening of some of the more rigid of the official tenets — a process that should not be difficult in these frankly experimental days. In fact, this new offi- cial, if he is to succeed, must be under the protection of a specially founded ministry — a ministry of anti-red tape! Doubtless there are a dozen more or less valid objec- tions which might be brought against this suggested inno- vation. But those which confine themselves to the diffi- culties of finding the right men and of training them, should not, I think, be taken seriously, since a moderate TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 545 display of organizing power will overcome an obstacle which is important only in the minds of those averse to a new order of affairs. Quite possibly in the first instance the British merchant himself would look askance at the new departure, and would utter a few sturdy and outspoken objections against an attempt on the part of outsiders to teach him his business. But, if the service were in any way efficient, it would take the new officials a comparatively short time to prove themselves invaluable allies instead of mere chastening agents. In which case the average merchant would soon have cause to admit the incalculable benefits to be derived from the presence of an official whose whole mind and time were given to tasks which the merchant possessed neither time, inclination — nor perhaps even ability — to achieve for himself — in fact, an ally whose chief aim would be to supply an intelligence service on tap, as it were. Surely the importance of a successful work of this kind cannot be over-estimated. It must not be forgotten that in spite — or because — of its dubious morality, this German commercial policy has paid! The ocular evi- dence of German prosperity in South America is so sa- lient that the traveler in that continent needs none of the numerous attendant statistics to help to prove it ! In one or two spots the advertising genius of the Germans has even gone the length of implanting a German settle- ment — sufficiently ostentatious to make a blaring parade of success — on a spot previously inhabited by the British, which had been abandoned with a dignified but incom- prehensible calm. Yet more striking evidence is pro- vided by the pretentious buildings of the German clubs and institutions, edifices which suggest the work of an iron fist in a monumental mood toying with bricks and mortar! But let it never be forgotten that the founda- tion of these peace-time equivalents of the Hindenburg statue in Berlin have been set in a prosperity caused, not 546 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA by superior manufactures, but by a more obsequious at- tention to the customer's wants, and a more cunning way, officially assisted, of selling them ! And now to deal with the situation of to-day. At the present juncture it is very doubtful how fully the depth of South American unpopularity into which the circum- stances of the war have plunged the Germans is under- stood in Great Britain. Here are a few extracts from a prominent Brazilian merchant's letter written to a friend of mine some six months after the outbreak of hostilities, which will — very mildly — illustrate this, as well as some other important points : "The useless German propaganda attributing to Eng- land the responsibilities of the war are of no avail. ... I bear no hatred toward the Germans in general and I am sorry for them, but I detest the Kaiser and his militar- ism, which it is necessary to destroy once and for all. The blood of so many brave men killed calls for justice, and justice will be done, for the God of Humanity is not He whom the Kaiser calls his ally. "I follow daily in several newspapers all that is writ- ten as to the war, and I think that we are here almost as well informed as you in Europe are, because our tele- graphic news service is very good. In our press there is not one single journal that is not on the side of the Allies, except one little Italian rag that is published here and sold to Germans. Of the Brazilian and Portuguese inhabitants of Rio also 95 per cent, is in favor of the Allies, and if this current of sympathy were ably devel- oped it would be easy for English and French merchants to push the Germans right out, but I know both one and the other well enough to be aware how difficult it would be to induce them to alter their manner of working. . . . Now that England, France, and Belgium have put their hands to the defense of their countries, let them also do it in defense of their commercial interests. . . . Business propaganda should start from the English and French TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 547 chambers of commerce, backed by official support, but without the interference of self-seeking politicians. Send business men who can get to business with our merchants ! Only thus will something be attained. All the rest is throwing away time and money. ' ' These are the phrases of an intelligent and practical merchant. The sound commonsense expressed in his opinion is undeniable. As to its reference to South American sentiment, it must be remembered that these lines were written when the German propaganda was at its height, and very long before the declaration of war by Germany on Portugal had stirred the consistent South American resentment to its present pitch. I have tried to show that the South American has always looked with some favor on the Englishman: but if the regard was warm before the war, it is burning now! Surely all the energies which can be spared from the vital needs of the war should be turned to that ''devel- opment of sympathy" to which the Eio merchant refers. It would be a poor ambition, moreover, which would con- tent itself with the mere seizing of a strategic advantage offered by our enemies' preoccupation. If we desire to continue in our rightful place in the industrial world, how can we fail to prepare ourselves — as is well within our power — to cope with the full blood of German industry should it resume its attempts to swamp our own ! ' ' Quien se hace miel le comen las moscas," says the Spaniard. "He who lets himself be honey is eaten by the flies !" Should Germany continue a nation, without a doubt such an attempt w411 be made sooner or later, and it re- quires no gift of foresight to judge that it will be con- ducted on an important scale. No doubt, following a pol- icy which has proved successful in the past, she will attempt a lavish short cut to reinstatement, and will en- deavor to dull the memories of the war by sending out a stream of dollars — from however diminished a hoard — in as close an order as she sent her soldiers to the attack. 548 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA A fluffy hailstorm of notes will play about the centers of journalism, officialdom, and general commerce: it needs not a very astute seer to prophesy so much. Then would arise a great opportunity for the proposed new officials ; for an attitude of passive resistance is as profitless in a war of commerce as in a battle of shells. To forsake the topic of the German trade hostilities for that of the North American competition is to experi- ence the sensations of one emerging from an entangled forest path on to an open high-road. Yet this affords no reason for regarding it lightly. The North American competition with which we have to contend is straight- forward, of a fairly simple order, but very powerful. It relies for its success largely on a sheer weight of dollars. It enjoys forming a trust and buying up the control of an entire trade as it has done in the case of the river Plate chilled meat industry and the banana trade of the extreme north of the Continent. In its industrial enter- prise, moreover, it has set itself a very high standard — if not quite so lofty an ideal of political morality — at Pan- ama. The North American has already given ample proof that he means business — very big business — in the South. But, seeing that no question of imperial aggression is concerned, there would seem no reason why his ventures and those of the British should not thrive side by side. Generally speaking, the North American's experience of the Southern continent has up to the present been limited. The newcomer from the United States finds it difficult to realize how many races teem, and how many rivers run, between New York and Buenos Aires. Moreover, seeing that South America is so essentially a Latin con- tinent, refusing to open the doors of her intimacies to any chance knocker ignorant of her tongues, manners, and cus- toms, this condition of aifairs cannot be altered very rap- idly. But the importance of the work which the United States is already achieving in this direction may be gaged STREET SCENE IN RIO DE JANEIRO AVENUE RIO RRANCO, RIO DE JANEIRO TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 549 from the ** Bulletin of the Pan-American Union," an ad- mirably edited organ, with which we in England, to our loss, have nothing to compare. In many respects the North American has only just begun to feel his feet in South America. Being a rapid worker, he has already begun to compete with us in our railway enterprises, and in general commerce he is nat- urally making the most of the opportunities afforded him by the European conflagration. Nevertheless, I do not think that the United States will be in a position to make her full force felt until she has largely increased the number of her workers who are genuinely conversant with South American affairs. There is a final point to be considered, bearing rather on our relations with the South Americans themselves than with our industrial and commercial competitors. In what manner would the proposed policy of imperial preference affect the inhabitants of the Southern con- tinent? It would, I think, leave them calm. The con- tinuous progress of industry tends to keep the various fields and markets in a state of flux. To-day the competi- tion between South America and our colonies is not in food products (neither can produce sufficient to meet the world's demand) nor in the command of the markets. Such rivalry as exists concerns the attraction of immi- grants and capital. How fully alive are our colonies to the importance of removing the bushels from their lights may be judged from those well-planned agencies and shop-window ex- hibitions which they have established in London and elsewhere. If there be a canker in the British Empire, it is, I think, a parochial spirit, which occasionally flour- ishes at its heart (where the best and least mingle) and which finds nothing on which to thrive in the colonies and younger lands. It seemed a stroke of genius that at the Argentine Centenary Exhibition held a few years ago gallant little New Zealand should have had a section 550 BRITISH EXPLOITS IN SOUTH AMERICA all to herself. More of this kind of thing — from infor- mation bureaus to exhibition shops — would greatly facili- tate our relations with the great Southern continent. Who would not strongly advocate a more thorough edu- cation of the British in South American affairs : a more thorough education of the South Americans in British affairs ! So much is, I suppose, a platitude. But the ignorance which from time to time is displayed in London on the part of even those financially interested in the Latin Con- tinent is sufficiently amazing to justify many platitudes ! I myself know of one minor loan (of seven figures never- theless) that was floated largely on the misapprehension that it was for a fashionable South American seaside re- sort, when its object was really a commercial port on the banks of one of the great rivers. The names of the two somewhat resembled each other! No harm was done; but that was not on account of the geographical knowl- edge of the financiers ! So much for a few considerations affecting our com- mercial relations with our competitors and with the South Americans. Apart from every question of business, there is surely every ethical reason why the British should work hand in hand with the Iberian in the development of a continent which has every right to call itself the most industrially remarkable in the world. The duty of assisting in this task has appealed to the British for more than a century, and their sympathies with the South Americans have remained unbroken throughout. It is seldom enough that a note is struck such as that of C. B. Mansfield, a splendid but rather visionary personality — ^beloved and admired of Charles Kingsley — who, seething with ecstasy at the splendors a trip in South America revealed to him, wrote, "What a monstrous folly, to guarantee by treaties the possession of these lands to these Iberians!" This cry rises from the pages of a sufficiently remark- TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 551 able book wbicb Mansfield wrote in 1852. It is instruct- ive in its way, since it proves that a person of even Mans- field's genius mistook for a normal state the convulsions that accompanied the birth of the new nations. He fore- saw neither the great prosperity which was to come into being nor the intellectual field which has already given strong evidence of its power, and which will undoubtedly provide some of the most remarkable achievements of the future. But his commercial countrymen who were settled in the Continent at the time of Mansfield's visit, guided per- haps by instinct rather than observation, made no such mistake. No nation, surely, has proved itself so well fit- ted as Great Britain to serve as a practical guide for that South American brilliancy which for the first half- century of the independence of the Continent shone only in fitful gleams. Now that the time for guidance is pass- ing, may we not more than maintain our position by con- tinuing our assistance — as an ally? APPENDIX APPENDIX BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MODERN WORKS FROM 1870 1870 Resources of the Argentine Republic. By Major Rickard. 1870 Letter of Colombus, with other Original Documents Re- lating to his Four Voyages to the New World. Translated by R. H. Major. (Hakluyt Society.) 1870 The Andes and the Amazon. By James Orton. 1870 Letters from the Battle Fields of Paraguay. By Sir Richard Burton. 1870 Pioneering in the Pampas. 2nd edition. By R. A. Sey- mour. 1870 Seven Eventful Years in Paraguay. By G. F. Masterman. 1870 Ten Months in Brazil, with Notes on the Paraguayan War. By J. Codman. 1870 Flint Chips: A Guide to Pre-historic Archeology, as Il- lustrated by the Collection in the Blackmore Museum, Salisbury. By Edward T. Stevens. 1871 Emigration to the River Plate, Success of British Subjects in Buenos Aires, List of Landowners, Description of the City and Pl-ovince of Buenos Aires. By S. Webster. 1871 Notes on the Natural History of the Straits of Magellan and West Coast of Patagonia. By R. D. Cunningham. 1871 Three Years' Slavery among the Patagonians. By A. Guinnard. 1871 The Coolie, his Rights, Wrongs: Notes of a Journey to British Guiana. By Edward Jenkin. 1871 At Home with the Patagonian. By Commander G. Cha- warth Masters, R.N. 1871 Travels in Uruguay. By J. H. Murray. 1872 Rough Notes on a Journey through the Wilderness, from Trinidad to Para, Brazil, by Way of the Great Cataracts of the Orinoco and Rio Grande. By H. A. Wickham. 555 556 APPENDIX 1872 Round the World in 1870 : An Account of a Brief Tour Made through India, China, Japan, California, and South America. By A. D. Carlisle. 1872 Reports on the Discovery of Peru. Translated and edited, with notes and an introduction. By Clements R. Mark- ham. 1872 Reports on the Discovery of Peru by Pizarro and Others. Translated and edited by Clements Markham. (Hakluyt Society. ) 1873 Two Years in Peru: with Exploration of Its Antiquities. By T. J. Hutchinson. 1873 British Guiana, the Essequibo and Potaro Rivers, with an Account of a Visit to the Recently Discovered Kaieteur Falls. By Lieut.-Colonel "Webber. 1873 At Home with the Patagonians. By G. C. Musters. 1873 Brazilian Colonization : from an European Point of View. By Jacare Assu. 1873 The Amazons: Diary of a Twelvemonths' Journey on a Mission of Enquiry up the River Amazon. By R. S. Clough. 1873 Reports Respecting the Condition of British Emigrants in Brazil. 1873 Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas. Translated and edited, with notes and an introduction. By Sir Clements Markham. (Hakluyt Society.) 1873 Life and Missionary Travels of the Rev. J. F. Ogle. Edited by Wylie. 1873 A Journey across South America. By Paul Marcoy. 1874 The Western World : Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North and South America. By W. H. G. Kingston. 1874 Memoir of Lady Ana de Osorio, Countess of Chinchon and Vice-Queen of Peru. By Sir Clements R. Markham. 1875 Explorations Made in the Valley of the River Madeira, from 1749 to 1868. Published for the National Bolivian Navigation Company. 1875 Geological Survey of British Guiana. By C. B. Brown and J. G. Sawkins. 1875 The Amazon and Madeira Rivers. By Franz Keller. 1875 History of British Guiana. By Geo. W. Bennett. APPENDIX 557 1876 The Argentine Republic. By Richard Napp. 1876 Handbook to the River Plate. By M. G. and E. T. Mul- hall. 1876 Sporting Adventures in the Pacific whilst in Command of the Reindeer. By W. R. Kennedy. 1876 Recollections of Four Years in Venezuela. By C. D. Dance. 1876 Dutch Guiana. By W. G. Palgrave. 1876 Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana. By C. Barring- ton Brown. 1876 Over the Sea and Far Away. By T. W. Hinchliff. 1877 The Two Americas. By IMajor Sir R. Lambart Price. 1877 Peru and its Creditors. By W. Clarke. 1877 Brazil and the River Plate, 1870-76. By W. Hadfield. 1878 Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon and its Tributar- ies. By C. B. Brown and W.. Lidstone. 1878 The Land of Bolivar. By J. M. Spence. 1878 The English in South America. By M. G. Mulhall. 1878 Pioneering in South Brazil. By T. P. Brigg-Wither. 1878 Visit to South America, with Notes and Observations, etc. By Edwin Clark. 1878 The Land of Bolivar; or, War, Peace, and Adventure in the Republic of Venezuela. By J. M. Spence. 1878 On the Supply of Nitrate of Soda and Guano from Peru. 1879 Wanderings in Patagonia ; or. Life among the Ostrich Hunters. By Julius Beerbolm, 1879 Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger. By H. N. Moseley. 1879 Roraima, and British Guiana, with a Glance at Bermuda, the West Indies, and the Spanish Main. By J. W. Bod- dam-Whitham. 1879 Waterton's Wanderings in South America. Edited by the Rev. J. G. Wood. 1879 Brazil, the Amazons, and the Coast. By H. H. Smith. 1879 Report of Robert Cross's mission to South America in 1877-8 to Collect Plants of the Quinine Bark Tree, etc. 1879 Up the Amazon and Madeira Rivers. By Edward D. Mathews. 1879 Brazil and the Brazilians (9th edition). By J. C. Fletcher and D. P. Kidder. 558 APPENDIX 1880 Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America. By E. J. Payne. 1880 Eight Months on the Gran Chaco of the Argentine Re- public. By Giovanni Pelleschi. 1880 The Natural and Moral History of the Indies. By Father Joseph de Acosta. Edited by Sir Clements Markham. (Hakluyt Society.) 1880 Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana. By W. H. Brett. 1880 South America. By A. Gallenga. 1880 Six Weeks with the Chilean Army, being a Short Ac- count of a March from Pisco to Lurin, and the Attack on Lima. By Commander William Acland, R.N. (Pri- vately printed at the Melanesian Mission, Norfolk Island.) 1880 Across Patagonia. By Lady Florence Dixie. 1880 Peruvian Bark: a Popular Account of the Introduction of Chinchona Cultivation into British India. By Sir Clements Markham. 1881 The Prospects of Peru, the End of the Guano Age and a Description Thereof, Etc. By A. J. Dufifield. 1881 Between the Amazon and Andes; or, Ten Years of a Lady's Travels in the Pampas, Gran Chaco, Paraguay, and Matto Grosso. By M. G. Mulhall. 1881 Chapters from a Guianese Log-Book. By the Rev. C. D. Dance. 1881 Sketches of Chili and the Chileans during the War, 1879- 1880. By R. W. Boyd. 1881 Cameos from the Silver Land; or, The Experiences of a Young Naturalist in the Argentine Republic. By E. W. White. 1882 A Year in the Andes. By R. Carnegie-Williams. 1883 Among the Indians of Guiana. By Everard F. im Thum. 1883 The Geology of the Goldfields of British Guiana. By J. B. Harrison. 1883 Travels in Uruguay. By J. H. Murray. 1883 The Colony of British Guiana and its Laboring Popula- tion. By the Rev. H. V. P. Bronkhurst. 1883 Researches into the Lost Histories of America; or. The Zodiac Shown to be an old terrestrial Map in which the Atlantic Isle is delineated, etc. By W. S. Blacket. APPENDIX 559 1883 The Republic of Uruguay. Stanford. 1883 The War between Peru and Chile 1879-82. By Sir Clements Markham. 188- ? A Year in the Andes; or, A Lady's Adventures in Bogota, By Rosa Carnegie-Williams. 1884 Spanish and Portuguese South America. By R. G. Wat- son. 1884 The Peruvians at Home. By George R. Fitz-Roy Cole. 1884 The Temple of the Andes. By Richard Inwards. 1884 Across the Pampas and the Andes. By Robert Crawford. 1885 Central America, the West Indies, and South America. (Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel), edited and extended by H. W. Bates. 1885 Brazil and Java. Report on Coffee Culture. By C. F. Learne. 1885 Ascent of Mount Roraima. By Sir Everard im Thurn. 1885 Sketches of African and Indian Life in British Guiana. By Ignatius Scoles. 1885 Description of the Collection of Gold Ornaments from the "Huacas" or Groves of Some Aboriginal Races of the Northwestern Provinces of South America, Belonging to Lady Brassey. By Bryce-Wright. Undated. The Cruise of the Falcon. By E. F. Knight. 1886 A Year in Brazil, with Notes on the Abolition of Slavery, Etc. By H. C. Dent. 1886 Venezuela: A Visit to the Gold Mines of Guiana, and Voyage up the River Orinoco during 1886, Etc. By William Barry. 1886 Travels in Guiana and Venezuela. By H. Ten Kate. 1886 Travels in the Wilds of Ecuador and the Explorations of the Putumayo River. By Alfred Simson. 1886 Exploring and Traveling Three Thousand Miles through Brazil. By J. W. Wells. 1886-89 History of America. By J. Winsor. 1887 Notes of a Naturalist in South America. By John Ball. 1887 The Apostle of the Indians. By W. H. Brett. 1887 Zephyrus: A Holiday in Brazil and on the River Plate. By E. R. Pearce Edgecumbe, LL.D. Undated. Missionary Pioneering in Bolivia, with some Ac- count of Work in Argentina. By W. M, Payne. 560 APPENDIX 1887 The Great Silver River, Notes of a Residence in Buenos Aires in 1880-81. By Sir Horace Rumbold. 1887 Sketch of the City of Iquique, Chile, South America: Its Past and Present during the last Fifty Years. By Captain W. M. F. Castle. 1888 The Amazon Provinces of Peru as a Field for European Emigration, and the Gold and Silver Mines. By H. Guillaume. 1888 Three Cruises of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Steamer Blake in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, Etc., 1877-1880. By Alexander Agassiz. 1888 The Venezuela Central Railway and its Sources of Traf- fic. By G. E. Church. 1888 Prospects of Gold Mining in Venezuela. By W. G. Wears. 1888 Among the Hindus and Creoles of British Guiana. By the Rev. H. V. P. Bronkhurst. 1888 The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana. By W. H. Brett. 1888 The Capitals of Spanish America. By W. E. Curtis. 1888 Annals of Guiana: Chronological History of its Discov- ery and Settlement. By James Rodway and Thomas Watt. 1888-89 Argentine Ornithology. By P. L. Sclater and W. H. Hudson. 1899 Recollections of Travel Abroad. By A. J. Duffield. 1899 Textile Fabrics of Ancient Peru. By W. H. Holmes. 1889 From Peru to the Plate Overland. By Patrick A. Evans. 1890 A Visit to Chile and the Nitrate Fields of Tarapaca. By William H. Russell. 1890 The Great Silver River; Notes of a Residence in Buenos Aires in 1880-81. Second edition, with an additional chapter on the present commercial position of the coun- try. By Sir Horace Rumbold. 1891 The Conquest of the River Plate, 1535-1555, Translated by Don Luis L. Dominguez. (Hakluyt Society.) 1891 Twelve Months in Peru. By E. B. Clark. 1891 History of the Bucaneers of America. By B. J. Bumey. 1891 Story of the Filibusters, Etc. By James J. Roche. 1891 Adventures amidst the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of APPENDIX 561 South America, West Indies, and Florida. By Villiers Stuart. 1891 Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter. By Albert Millican. 1891 A Winter's Cruise in Summer Seas. By C. C. Atchison. 1892 Sporting Sketches in South America. By Sir W. R. Kennedy. 1892 Paraguay. By Dr. E. De Bourgade La Dardye. 1892 The South American Eepublics. By Theodore Child. 1892 The Naturalist in La Plata. By W. H. Hudson. 1892 The Discovery of America, with Account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest. By John Fiske. 1892 The Voyage of the Nyanza Three Years in the Atlantic and Pacific. By J. Cumming Dewar. 1892 Writings of Colombus, descriptive of the Discovery and Occupation of the New World. Edited, with introduction by P. L. Ford. 1892 Career of Colombus. By Chas. J. Elton. 1892 Life of Colombus. By C. K. Adams. 1892 Life and Labors of John Wray, Pioneer Missionary in British Guiana. Compiled by Thomas Rain. 1892 Notes on British Guiana. By Sir Everard im Thum. 1892 Argentina and the Argentines. By T. A. Turner. 1892 Travels among the Great Andes of the Equator. By Edward Whymper. 1892-94 History of the New World Called America. By E. J. Payne. 1893 An Enumeration of the Plants Collected in Bolivia by Miguel Bang, with Descriptions of New Genera and Spe- cies. By H. H. Rusby. 1893 The South American Republics. By T. C. Dawson. 1893 Handbook of British Guiana. By James Rodway. 1893 Idle Days in Patagonia. By W. H. Hudson. 1893 Christopher Colombus: His own Book of Privileges, 1502, Etc. With historical introduction by H. Harrisse, the whole compiled and edited with preface by G. F. Stevens. 1893 Journal of Colombus, during his First Voyage, 1492-3, and Documents Relating to the Voyages of John Cabot 562 APPENDIX and Gaspar Corte Real. Translated, with notes, etc., by Sir Clements Markham. (Ilakluyt Society.) 1893 Tropical America. By L. N. Ford. 1893 The History and Present State of the Sheep-Breeding Industry in the Argentine Republic. By Herbert Gibson. 1893 The State of Para, Notes for the Exposition of Chicago, as Authorised by the Governor of Para, Dr. Lauro So- dri. 1894 Travels of a Naturalist. By A. Boucard. 1894 By Order of the Sun to Chile to See his Total Eclipse. By J. J. Aubertin. 1894 In the Guiana Forest. By James Rodway. F.L.S. 1895 The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn: A Study of Life in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia. By J. R. Spears. 1896 Venezuela; or. Two Years on the Spanish Main. By W. E. Wood. 1896 Over the Andes, from the Argentine to Chile and Peru. By May Crommelin. 1896 John Cabot. By Henry Harrisse. 1896 Documents and Maps on the Boundary Question between Venezuela and British Guiana from the Capuchin Ar- chives in Rome. By J. Strickland. 1896 The West Indies and Spanish Main. By James Rodway. 1896 Venezuela: A Land where it 's Always Summer. By W. E. Curtis. 1896 Three Gringos in Venezuela and Central America. By Richard Harding Davis. 1897 Records of the Scottish Settlers in the River Plate and Their Churches. By James Dodds. Undated. Argentine, Patagonian, and Chilean Sketches, with a few Notes on Uruguay. By C. E. Akers. 1898 Boundary Agreement in Force between the Argentine Republic and Chile. By Dr. Emilio Lamarea. 1898 Twenty-five Years in British Guiana. By Henry Kirke. 1898 South American Sketches. By Robert Crawford. 1898 Spanish America. By J. W. Root. 1898 Bibliography of the Anthropology of Peru. By Geo. A. Dorsey. 1898 The Establishment of Spanish Rule in America. By Benjamin Moses. APPENDIX 563 1898 The Dwarf Tribe of the Upper Amazon. By D. G. Brin- ton. 1898 Twenty-five Years in British Guiana, By Henry Kirke. 1898 Spain and Her Colonies. By J. W. Root. 1899 Temperate Chile. By W. A. Smith. 1899 Notes on the Natural History of the Aconcagua Valleys, from Fitzgerald's "Highest Andes." By Philip Gosse. 1899 The Highest Andes, a Record of the First Ascent of Acon- cagua and Tupungato in Argentina, and the Exploration of the Surrounding Valleys. By E. A. Fitzgerald. 1899 The Ores of Colombia. By H. W. Nichols and 0. C. Far- rington. 1900 South America. By F. G. Carpenter. 1900 The Colombian and Venezuelan Republics. By Wm. L. Scruggs. 1900-4 The Spanish Conquest in America in Relation to the History of Slavery and of the Government of Colonies. New edition, with introduction and notes. By M. Oppen- heim. 1900 Traveling Impression in, and Notes on, Peru. By F. Seebee. 1901 The Bolivian Andes: Climbing and Exploration in the Cordillera Real in 1898-1900. By Sir Martin Conway. 1901 The Land of the Amazons. By Baron de Santa-Anna Nery. Translated by George Humphrey. 1901 Through Patagonia. By W. D. Campbell. 1901 A. H. Keane's Central and South America. Edited by Sir Clements IMarkham. 1901 The South American Republics. By W. F. Markwich and W. A. Smith. 1901 The Question of the Pacific. An edition in English of Dr. Maurtua's work. By F. A. Pezet. 1901 A Vanished Arcadia. By R. B. Cunninghame Graham. 1902 The Great Mountains, and Forests of South America. By Paul Fountain. 1902 Ancient Peruvian Art. By A. H. Keane. 1902 The Caura. By E. Andre. 1902 Aconcagua and Tierra del Fuego, a Book of Climbing, Travel, and Exploration. By Sir Martin Conway. 19 — Picturesque Paraguay. By Alexander K. Macdonald. 564. APPENDIX 1902 Climate of the Argentine Republic, Compiled from ob- servations made to the end of the year 1900. By "Walter G. Davis. 1902 Down the Orinoco in a Canoe, By S. Perez Triana. 1902 Through the Heart of Patagonia. By Hesketh H. Prich- ard. 1903 Great Argentina. By Francisco Seeber. 1903 The Independence of the South American Republics. By F. L. Paxon. 1903 The South American Republics. By Thomas C. Dawson. 1903 To the Falls of Iguazu. By W. S. Barclay. 1903 Trade and Travel in South America. By F. Alcock. 1903-4 Christopher Columbus, his Life, his Work, his Remaias, as revealed by Original Records, with Essay on Peter Martyr and Las Casas. By J, B. Thacher. 1904 A Naturalist in the Guianas. By E. Andre. 1904 The Great Mountains and Forests of South America (2nd edition). By Paul Fountain. 1904 South American Sketches. By W. H. Hudson. 1904 An Account of the Spanish Settlements in South Amer- ica. Anonymous. 1904 A History of South America (1854-1904). By C. E. Akers. 1904 Argentine Shows and Live Stock. By Professor Robert Wallace. 1904 The Countries of the King's Award. By Col. Sir Thomas Holdich. 1904 Among the Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco. By W. B. Barbrooke Grubb. 1905 The Colombian and Venezuelan Republics. By W. L. Scruggs. 1905 Through Five Republics of South America. By Percy F. Martin. 1906 Panama to Patagonia. By C. M. Pepper. 1906 The Republic of Colombia. By F. L. Petre. 1906 Bolivia. By Marie Robinson Wright. 1906 Christopher Colombus, and the New World of his Dis- covery. By Filson Young. 1907 Modern Argentina. By W. H. Koebel. 1907 The Birds of Tierra del Fuego. By R. Crawshay. APPENDIX 565 1907 Humboldt's Voyage. Translated and edited by T. Ross. 1907 The Continent of Opportunity, the South American Re- publics. By F. E. Clark, D.D. 1907 Chile. By G. F. Seott-Elliot. 1908 Richard Spruce. Notes of a Botanist on the Amazons and Andes. Edited and condensed. By A. R. Wallace. 1908 American Supremacy: The Rise and Progress of the Latin American Republics, and Relations to the United States under the Monroe Doctrine. By George W. Crich- field. 1908 A Bibliography of Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight. By T. N. Brushfield. 1908 The Andes and the Amazon: Life and Travel in Peru. By C. R. Enock. 1908 Peru. By Reginald C. Enock. 1909 Explorers in the New World, before and after Colombus ; and the Story of the Jesuit Missions of Paraguay. By Marion McMurrough Mulhall. 1909 The Argentine Year Book. By H. W. Farrell. 1909 Bartholomew de Las Casas. By F. A. Macnutt. 1909 Yachting in the Pacific. Notes of Travel in Peru, Ecua- dor, Etc. By A. Mann. 1909 The Great Pacific Coast. By C. R. Enock. 1909 The Journal of an Expedition across Venezuela and Col- ombia. By Hiram Bingham, 1909 Peru, its Story, People, Religion. By Geraldine Guin- ness. 1909 Official Handbook of British Guiana. 1910 Argentina : Past and Present. By W. H. Koebel. 1910 Manual of Argentine Railways. By S. H. M. Killik. 1910 Ups and Downs of a Wandering Life. Roaming Adven- tures in Argentine, Paraguay, Venezuela, Etc. By Wal- ter Seymour. 1910 On Sea and Land. By H. W. Case. 1910 The Andes and the Amazon. By C. R. Enock. 1910. The Argentine Republic. By A. Stuart Pennington. 1910 Our Search for a Wilderness, An Account of Two Or- nithological Expeditions to Venezuela and to British Guiana. By M. B. and C. W. Beele. 1910 Simon Bolivar, "El Libertador." By Lindon Bates. 566 APPENDIX 1910 Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena. By H. J. Moz- ans. 1910 Life of Sir Woodbine Parish, or Early Days in Argentina. By the Hon. Nina Kay Shuttleworth. 1910 The United States of Brazil, with a Chapter on Uruguay. By C. W. Domville-Fife. 1910 The Other Americans. By A. Ruhl. 1910 The Amazons in Antiquity and Modern Times. By G. C. Rothery. 1910 Argentina. By W. A. Hirst. 1911 Early Spanish Voyages to the Strait of Magellan. Trans- lated and edited, with a preface, introduction and notes by Sir Clements Markham. (Hakluyt Society.) 1911 An Unknown People in an Unknown Land. By W. Bar- brooke Grubb. 1911 Brazil. By Pierre Denis. 1911 The Family and Heirs of Sir Francis Drake. By Lady Elliot Drake. 1911 A Woman's Winter in South America. By Charlotte Cameron. 1911 Uruguay. By W. H. Koebel. 1911 The Argentine in the Twentieth Century. By Albert B, Martinez. 1911 Under the Roof of the Jungle. By Charles Livingston Bull. 1911 The Ten Republics. By Robert P. Porter. 1911 Peru of the Twentieth Century. By Percy F. Martin. 1911 The Wilds of Patagonia. By Carl Scottsberg. 1911 South America To-day. By Georges Clemenceau. 1911 Through the Wilderness of Brazil. By W. A. Cook. 1911 In the Guiana Forest (2nd Edition). By James Rod- way, F. L. S. 1911 Wheat Growing in Canada, The United States, and the Argentine. By W. P. Rutter. 1911 The Rise of British Guiana. Compiled by C. A. Harris and J. A. J. de Villiers. (Hakluyt Society.) 1911 Along the Andes and down the Amazon, By H. J. Moz- ans. 1911 Adventures in Search of a Living in Spanish America. By "Vaquero." APPENDIX 567 1911 Simon Bolivar. By F. L. Petre. 1911 Across South America. By Hiram Bingham. 1911 Old Panama and Castillo del Oro. By R. D. Johnson. 1911 The Incas of Peru (2nd Edition). By Sir Clements Markham. 1912 The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise. By W. E. Harden- burg. 1912 The Sea and the Jungle. By H. M. Tomlinson. 1912 Venezuela. By Leonard V. Dalton. 1912 Early Man in South America. By Ales Hrdlicka in col- laboration with W. H. Holmes, B. Willis, Fr. E. Wright, and Clarence N. Fenner. 1912 South America. By W. H. Koebel. 1912 Where Socialism Failed. By Stewart Grahame. 1912 The Secret of the Pacific. By C. Reginald Enock. 1912 Aborigines of South America. By Colonel Church. 1912 The Conquest of New Granada. By Sir Clements Mark- ham. 1912 South American Archceology. By Thomas A. Joyce. 1912 In Jesuit Land: The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay. By W. H. Koebel. 1912 The Independence of Chile. By A. S. M. Chisholm. 1912 South America: Observations and Impressions. By James Bryce. 1912 In the Amazon Jungle. By A. Lange. 1912 The Path of the Conquistadores. By L. Bates. 1912 Guiana : British, French and Dutch. By James Rodway. 1912 High Mountain Climbing in Peru and Bolivia. By A. S. Peck. 1913 South America (The Making of the Nations Series). By W. H. Koebel. 1913 Modem Chile. By W. H. Koebel. 1913 The Lords of the Devil's Paradise. The Putumayo Atrocities. By G. Sidney Paternoster. 1913 The Putumayo Red Book. By N. T. 1913 To the River Plate and Back. By J. W. Holland. 1913 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress. By F. Garcia Calderen. 1913 The Venezuelan Boundary Controversy. By Grover Cleveland. 568 APPENDIX 1913 Panama: the Creation, Destruction, and Resurrection. By Bunau-Varilla. 1913 Colombia. By Phanor J. Eder. 1913 South America : A Supplementary Geography. By J. F. and A. H. Chamberlain. 1913 Observations on the Natives of the Patagonian Channel Region. By Carl Scottsberg. 1913 Across Unknown South America. By A. Henry Savage Landor. 1913 The Travels of Ellen Cornish. 1913 A Tour through South America. By A. S. Forrest. 1913 In the Wonderland of Peru. By Hiram Bingham. 1913 Brazil in 1913. By J. C. Cakenfull. 1913 Brazil and Portugal in 1809 (Manuscript Marginalia). By George "W. Robinson. 1913 O'Higgins of Chile. By 'J. J. Mehegan. 1914 Ecuador. By C. Reginald Enock. 1914 Bolivia. By Paul Walle. 1914 Chile. By George J. Mills. 1914 Argentina. By G. J. Mills. 1914 North Brazil. By E. C. Buley. 1914 Peru. By E. Charles Vivian. 1914 South Brazil. By E. C. Buley. 1914 New Light on Drake. By Zelia Nuttal (Hakluyt Society) . 1914 The Romance of the River Plate. By W. H. Koebel. 1914 The Upper Reaches of the Amazon. By Joseph F. Wood- ruffe. 1914 The River Amazon. By Paul Fountain. 1914 The Spanish Dependencies in South America. By B. Moses. 1914 The Amazing Argentine. By John Foster Eraser. 1914 A Walloon Family in America. Lockwood de Forest and his Forebears, 1500-1848. Together with a Voyage to Guiana, being the Journal of Jesse de Forest and his Col- onists. By Mrs. Robert W. de Forest. 1914 Under the Southern Cross in South America. By Wil- liam Buekman, 1914 The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. The Whale Fisheries of the Falkland Islands and Dependencies. By Theodore E. Salvesen. APPENDIX 569 1914 The Lower Amazon. By Algot Lange. 1914 Northern Patagonia: Character and Resources. By Bai- ley Willis. 1914 Mysterious South America. By A. Henry Savage Landor. 1914 Through the Brazilian Wilderness. By Theodore Roose- velt. 1914 The New Brazil (2nd Edition). By Marie Robinson Wright. 1914 The Timbers of British Guiana. By Herbert Stone and Dr. W. G. Freeman. 1914 West Indies and Guiana. By Algernon E. Aspinall. 1914 Chile : Its Land and People. By F. J. G. Maitland. 1914 Colombia. By V. Levine. 1914 The South American Tour. By Annie S. Peck. 1914 The Two Americas. By General R. Reys. 1914 Forty Years in Brazil. By Frank Bennett. 1914 A Church in the Wilds, the South American Mission to the Paraguayan Chaco. By W. B. Grubb. 1915 Brazil and the Brazilians. By G. J. Bruce. 1915 South of Panama By Dr. Edward Alsworth Ross. 1915 The Rubber Industry of the Amazon and how its Suprem- acy can be Maintained. By Joseph F. Woodrofe and Harold Hamel Smith, with a foreword by Viscount Bryce. 1915 The Real Argentine. By J. M. Hammerton. 1915 The Northwest Amazons. Notes of Some Months Spent Among Cannibal Tribes. By Captain Thomas Whiffen. 1915 Mineral Resources of Minas Geraes (Brazil). By Albert F. Calvert. 1915 The Amazon as a River, a Problem, and a Call. By the Rev. 0. R. Walkey. 1915 The South Americans. By W. H. Koebel. 1915 (?) The Plateau Peoples of South America. By Alexan- der A. Adams. 1915 Colombia and the United States. By Norman Thomson. 1916 Through South America's Southland. With an Account of the Roosevelt Scientific Expedition to South America. By the Rev. J. A. Zahn (H. J. Mozans). 1917 Paraguay. By W. H. Koebel. BRITISH ARRIVALS IN THE RIVER PLATE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XIXTH CENTURY FROM ENGLAND Names Tear of Arrival Robert Jackson 1802 Oliver Jump 1808 Proprietor Philip Parkin 1809 James Barton 1809 Proprietor Robert Billinghurst 1809 Proprietor John Postlethwaite 1810 John Ludlam 1810 Proprietor D. M'Kinlay 1811 Proprietor S. Puddieomb 1812 John Stevenson 1812 James Brittain 1812 Proprietor William Cope 1812 Proprietor Thomas Nelson 1814 Spenser Davis Weller 1815 Joseph Lee 1815 Sam Chapman 1813 David Price 1813 Thomas Newton 1811 John Turner 1814 Joshua Thwaites 1816 Proprietor N. B. Nisbet 1816 T. H. Bayley 1817 Proprietor John Appleyard 1818 Proprietor John Carlisle 1818 John Harratt 1818 John Tabberer 1818 Proprietor Thomas I. C. Gowland 1812 James Kelshaw 1819 John Sillietoe 1820 Proprietor 570 APPENDIX 571 Names Year of Arrival George Nuttall 1820 George Brown 1822 E. S. Harvey 1822 John and Wm. Downes 1822 Proprietor Joseph Crowther 1822 Samuel Lafone 1823 Merchants 36 Proprietors 13 FROM IRELAND Names Tear of Arrival John Dillon 1806 Richard Duffy 1811 R. Montgomery 1814 Peter Sheridan 1817 Proprietor John Gullinan, M. D 1818 Proprietor Merchants 5 Proprietors 2 FROM SCOTLAND Names Year of Arrival Thomas Fair 1809 Proprietor David Spalding 1806 Proprietor Alexander Wilson 1808 John Miller 1810 Proprietor John Orr 1811 Proprietor George M'Farlane 1813 Proprietor John Parish Robertson "] I 1813 Proprietors Wm. Parish Robertson J John Carter 1806 Proprietor John Watson 1815 William M'Quake 1816 Proprietor Andrew C. Dick, M. D 1817 Proprietor John M'Fariane 1818 Duncan Stewart 1818 Henry Hoker 1818 Stewart D. Campbell 1820 572 APPENDIX Names Year of Arrival Duncan M'Nab 1820 John Gibson . .] 1820 George Gibson J 1^24 Proprietors Adam Butters 1822 Thomas Duguid 1822 William Thompson 1822 John M'Dougall 1822 James Miller 1821 John Stewart 1824 C. Watson 1824 William Loekhart 1824 Eobert Mathison 1824 John M'Clelland 1824 Merchants 28 Proprietors 12 The above list is taken from ' ' Records of the Scottish Settlers in the River Plate and Their Churches," by James Dobbs. INDEX Alfinger, the Prussian, 529 Aljubarrota, field of, 6 Alliance, between England and Port- ugal, 5 Alligator, Waterton's adventure with an, 402, 403 Althaus, Colonel, 276 Amazon, valley explored by Bates and Wallace, 408-415 characteristics of the, 410, 412, 413 yellow fever attacks valley of the, 417 Andes, early crossings of the, 262, 276 Darwin crosses the, 408 Anson, Commodore George, 117, 240 Aquatints, Sir Henry Chamberlain's South American, 449 Argentina, fate of British prisoners in, 153 character of army of, 202, 203 William Brown becomes admiral for, 229 war between Brazil and, 328 character of na\'7 of, 376 financial crisis in (1890), 484 center of British South American settlers, 485 Araucanians, Benavides becomes leader of, 219 conversion of the, 491 Armitage, History of Brazil by John, 455 Australians, settle in Paraguay, 506 Authors, professions and occupa- tions of British South Amer- ican, 440 B Bacalhao, (dried cod), Anglo-Bra- zilian trade in, 319 Bahia, English trading post founded at, 47 raided by Withrington, 59 visited by Sir Home Popham, 143 Portuguese Court stops first at, 285 negresses of, 286 573 Bahia — continued United States ship Constitution defeats British frigate Java off, 297 attacked by Admiral Cochrane, 303, 305 Irish colony sent to, 334 Baker, Admiral, assists Emperor and Empress escape from Brazil, 344-363 Balenar, town of, 112 Bancroft, "Essay on Natural His- tory of Guiana," by Edward, 478 Barcelona, treasure of, 182 Barker, Andrew, 38 death of, 39 Bates, Henry, explores the Amazon, 408-412, 458 Bats, characteristics of the vampire, 399 Spruce's combat with, 416 Beamish, Major, 170 Beggars, in Brazil, 317 Beltran, the monk, 202 Benavides, career of, 218-223 captured by Chileans, 219 wins favor of San Martin, 219 commands Araucanians, 219 captures American ships, 220 prepares invasion of Chile, 220 end of, 222 Beresford, campaign of General, 147 Berrie, Captain, 77 Bibliography, prior to 1870, 421-480 Billinghurst, Robert, 501 Biscay, Bay of, 5 Blair, incident of famous duelist, 160 Blanco, Commodore, 205, 242 Mrs. Commodore, 207 Bogota, Mrs. English's house at, 186 gas plant built in, 187 Bolivar's house near, 245 Christmas celebrations at, 273 Bolivar, character of, 167, 184-186, 451 signs contract witli Deverevtx, 176 thanks British and Irish Legions, ISO navy of, 183 574. INDEX Bolivar — continued cordiality to British, 184, 185, 212, 227, 243 gives portrait to Captain Brown, 236 ball in honor of, 245 home of General, 245 interests himself in Peruvian min- ing, 250 Bolivia, W. Wilson appointed min- ister to (1837), 241 Bowles, Captain, 237 Boyaca, battle of, 173, 185 Brazil, English trade with, 49, 291, 319 end of English relations with, 56 Cavendish raids, 63 attacks on, 70 Portuguese policy toward, 104 Jesuits in, 105, 106 influence of Spanish on policy of, 281 British fight Portuguese in, 282 hostile to British, 282 offers refuge to Portuguese roy- alty, 283 Portuguese Court arrives in, 287 receives Prince Joao of Portugal, 288 becomes a kingdom, 289 makes commercial treaty with England, 289 grants ecclesiastical rights to British, 289 invaded bv British merchants, 291 guarded by British fleet, 293, 297 experience of royalty in, 298, 299 begins rebellion against Portugal, 300 Admiral Cochrane builds up navj of, 303 revolution breaks out in, 305 revolution is suppressed bj' Brit- ish, 306 British prize money claims re- fused by, 309 court regulations in, 312, 314, 315 character of royalty in, 313, 314, 315 American Minister resents regula- tions of, 314-316 Portuguese beggars in, 317 British merchants in, 318-320 gets first taste of mutton and champagne, 323 hospitality of landowners in, 323- 324 British goods fill shops of, 326 British buy mines in, 326 Brazil — con tinned establishment of regular army in, 327 makes war on Argentina, 328 treatment of Irish in, 331 Irish and German soldiers revolt against, 333 appeals to British, French and Portuguese ships for help, 333 Dom Pedro I abdicates throne of, 341-363 expiration of British Commercial treaty with, 364 steamer communication line stim- ulates British trade, 365 amount of annual British capital engaged in, 365 Quakers begin anti-slave trade campaign in, 369 first official railway journey in, 370 History of Brazil, bv Charles Brockwell, 432 History of Brazil, by Robert Southey, 446 History of Brazil, by James Hen- derson, 447 books on the court of, 448 History of Brazil, by John Armi- tage, 455 Travels in the Interior of, by George Gardiner, 458 Brazil and the Brazilians, by Kid- der and Fletcher, 471 British shipping trade with, 514, 515, 532 German trade increases with, 532 present unpopularity of Germans in, 546 Brion, Admiral, 183, 184 British, attitude toward South American independence, 164, 165 enlist in South American War of Independence, 168, 170 in Venezuela, 171 sickness among, 172 defeat Spanish, 173 merchants in South America, 174, 244, 260 thanked by Bolivar and Colombian Congress, 180 find treasure at Barcelona, 182 serve in Bolivar's navy, 183 officers settle in Colombia, 187 officers in Chilean navy, 203 friendship for Chileans, 206 build racecourse at Valparaiso, 206 INDEX 575 British — continued South Americans erect monuments to, 213 surrender to Argentines, 150 commanders on Pacific Coast, 217, 218, 236 otEcers on staff of Bolivar, 227 naval warfare with United States, 239 consuls appointed to South Amer- ica, 240 population in Valparaiso (1823), 247 speculate in Peruvian mines, 249 vessels survey South American coast, 251, 275 first called "Gringo," 253 occupations after war of Liber- ation, 257, 258, 485 doctors in South America, 257 open hotels throughout South America, 258 become South Americans, 259, 267, 496-498, 528 shopkeepers in South America, 260 attracted to Chile, 260 trade methods with South Amer- ica, 264, 527, 533 exports to South America, 265 defense against Indians, 268 win ten years' pearl fishing rights, 274 cross South American Continent, 276 navigate Huallaga River, 277 first to navigate Ucayali River, 278 allowed to reside, marry and navi- gate in Paraguay, 280 attempt to settle in Brazil, 281 convoy Portuguese Court to Bra- zil, 287 make commercial treaty with Bra- zil, 289 build their first church in Brazil, 290 fleet guards Brazil, 293, 297 naval commanders' increasing dif- ficulties, 300 sjTnpathies divided in South " America, 301, 528 blockade Rio Harbor, 301 suppress revolution in Brazil, 306 are cheated of prize money by Brazilians, 309 take Pernambuco and gain prize money, 310 introduce table mutton and cham- pagne into Brazil, 322, 323 British — continued stock Brazilian shops with goods, 326 buy Brazilian mines (1825), 326 organize Brazilian cavalry regi- ment, 328 aid Dom Pedro I to escape from Brazil, 342-363 commercial treaty with Brazil ex- pires, 364 capital annually engaged in Bra- zil (1853), 365 introduce slave trade into Brazil, 365 attitude toward negro in theory and practice, 370 hotels in Rio, 372 and French make expedition up river Parana, 380 tortured by Paraguayans, 388 naturalists in South America, 395-419 early geographical works on South America by, 427-430 officers meeting with Bolivar, 451 as capitalists in South America, 480 nitrate industry in Chile, 483 banking system in South Amer- ica, 484 commimities in South America, 484-488 Buenos Aires greatest South American center of, 485 churches and missionaries in South America 486^93 hospital in Buenos Aires, 488 sheep industry in South America, 498 cattle industry in South America, 500 develop meat shipping industry in South America, 500 sport in South America, 511 shipping and railway achieve- ments, 512-524 coflfee trade with Brazil, 516 prestige in South America due to their railways, 517 lay first cable to South America, 523 build tramways in South America, 524 financial assistance to South America, 525, 526 good faith in South America, 530- 531 trade falls off with South Amer- ica, 531, 533, 535 676 INDEX British — continued trade fight with Germans in South America, 541 future relations with South Americans, 549 Brockwell, History of Brazil, by Charles, 432 Brown, Admiral William, 229-231 founds Argentine navy, 229 destroys Spanish fleet, 229 blockades Callao, 230 captures Guayaquil, 230 taken prisoner, 231 exchanged for governor of Guaya- quil, 231 Brown, Captain Thomas, 236 sails for South America, 236 receives Bolivar's portrait, 236 wins General Rodil's friendship, 237 Bucaneers, origin of, 80 history of, 86-91 Basil Ringrose, 90 Captain Sharp, 91 Captain Dampier, 93 Sir Henry Morgan, 94 Buenos Aires, slave establishments in, 108 capture by British, 145 surrender by British of, 146 takes possession of Falkland Is- lands, 162 Scottish milkmaids introduced to, 258 blockaded by Anglo-French squad- ron, 378, 380 character of squadron of, 383 "Narrative of a Journey from Santiago to," 443 greatest British South American community in, 485 Burton, South American books by Sir Richard, 475 Byron, Commodore, 131 C Cable, British lay first South Amer- ican (1874), 523 Cabot, Sebastian, story of, 11 Cabral, Pedro Alvarez, 4, 282 Cacafuego, capture of, 35 Callao, Admiral William Brown blockades, 230 frigate Briton visits, 240 Campbell, Vice Admiral, 130 Cape of Good Hope, expedition to, 143 Cape Town, capture of, 144 Carabobo, battle of (1821), 180 Caracas, premature capitulation of, 181 Carrera, Jos6 Miguel, 194 opposes Colonel Mackenna, 194 obtains control of Chile, 195 deserts O'Higgins at Rancagua, 195 kills Colonel Mackenna in duel, 196 Cartagena, capture of, 36, 174 game hunting in, 270 Cavalry, capture of British vessel by South American, 147 feats in war of South American, 148 William Miller commands Peru- vian, 209 Cavendish, Thomas, career of, 61 cruelty of, 62 Chagres, character of river, 252 Chamberlayne, tragic death of Cap- tain, 180 Champagne, Brazil introduced to, 323 Chanticleer, voyage of the, 251, 252 Character, Drake, 34, 37 Edward Fenton, 56 Thomas Cavendish, 62, 63 Straits of Magellan, 66, 131 James Lancaster, 69 Sir Walter Raleigh, 74, 77 Antonio de Berreo, 75 Orinoco River, 75 Gondomar, 79 of the Bucaneers, 82-92 Sir Henry Morgan, 94, 95 Ambrose O'Higgins, 112, 190 Commodore George Anson, 127 Vice-Admiral Campbell, 131 Portuguese, 131, 143, 282 British missionaries, 137, 247, 489-493 Brazilian soldiers, 143, 283, 305, 335 English in Buenos Aires, 146 Lieutenant-General Whitelock, 150 Argentines, 151, 202 Guiana, 159, 160 South American document, 165 Latin Americans, 165, 248, 256 San Martin, 167, 199, 215, 216, 217 South American War of Inde- pendence, 168, 169 Colombians, 169, 170 British troops in South America, 174 General English, 175 INDEX 577 Character — continued General Devereux, 176-179 Irish Legion, 179 Admiral Brion, 183, 184 Liberator Bolivar, 167, 184-186, 243, 246, 451 Mrs. English, 186 Bernardo O'Higgins, 190, 191, 192 Colonel John Mackenna, 193 Jose Miguel Carrera, 194, 195, 196 Admiral Cochrane, 197-199, 303, 304, 310 Lady Cochrane, 200 the Gaucho, 201, 252 William Miller, 202 Chilean fleet, 204 Peruvian cavalry, 209, 210 British naval officers in South America, 218, 301, 302 Benavides, 218, 219, 226 Peneleo, 222 Araucanian Indians, 223, 267, 268, 277 Admiral William Brown, 229 General Rodil, 242 South American society, 256 British in South America, 259, 321, 441, 504, 528, 530, 540 South American priests, 263, 413 South American trade, 264, 527 a Colombian dinner, 272 Prince Joao of Portugal and Bra- zil, 84, 295, 297, 299, 319 British merchants in Brazil, 291, 318, 320 British military rule in Brazil, 306, 307 the Brazilians, 320, 321, 322, 323, 366 sailors in Brazilian navy, 303 Irish immigrants to Brazil, 329, 332 Brazilian Court, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316 Emperor Pedro I, 313, 328, 331, 337, 339, 341-363 Empress Amelie of Brazil, 345, 347, 357, 361 slave trade in Brazil, 365, 366, 368 General Rosas, 376, 377, 382 river fleets of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, 383 the Santaf^cinos, 384 Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, 384 Francisco Solano Lopez, 386, 387 warfare in Paraguay, 387 South American revolutions, 388, 389 Character — continued tropical forests of South America, 396 a naturalist in South America, 397 Charles Waterton, 397-404 the Amazon Valley, 408, 409 Henry Bates, 410, 411 A. R. Wallace, 414 Richard Hakluyt, 424, 425 early British South American books, 427-434 early British South American au- thors, 440 Charles Mansfield, 462-470 Paraguay, 467-468 British enterprise in South Amer- ica, 482 the Spanish South American, 495 the Irish in South America, 503 British railroad pioneers, 518-519 British progress in South Amer- ica, 526 the Germans in South America, 530, 537, 541 success to-day in South America, 536 necessary for a commercial trav- eler in South America, 538 German South American diplo- macy, 542 British diplomats in South Amer- ica, 543 United States' South American trade policy, 548 Charles, Colonel, 208 Chile, census of (1788), 103 governed by Ambrose O'Higgins, 113 Bernardo O'Higgins arrives in, 190 Bernardo O'Higgins becomes dic- tator of, 192 Jose Carrera obtains control of, 195 British command navy of, 203, 204 attracts British trade, 260 "Journal of a Residence in," 444 nitrate industry in, 483 direct steamship line between England and, 513 first South American railroad in, 520 Chilton, John, 35 Churches, British, in South America, 486-493 Clipperton, Captain, 97 578 INDEX Cochrane, Admiral Lord, 166, 197, 268, 269, 302, 303 Colombians described by, 169 Chilean navy founded by, 198 Spanish navy conquered by, 198 breaks with San Martin, 199 popularity of Lady, 199, 207 gives banquet to Chileans, 206 builds up Brazilian navy, 303 attacks port of Bahia, 303, 305 methods employed by, 304 drives Portuguese from Brazil, 305 suppresses Brazilian revolution, 306 made Marquis of Maranhao, 308 Emperor Pedro refuses prize money to, 309 suppresses revolution at Pernam- buco, 310 sails for England with prize money, 310 "Journal of a Eesidence and Travels in Colombia," by, 452 Cockaram, Martin, of Plymouth, 18 Cockburn, Alexander, 241 "Cock Mass," description of the, 453 "Cockney" Sam, 381 CoflFee, trade with Brazil, 516 Coleman, Nicholas, 102 Colombians, character of, 169, 170, 272, 452 Irish enlist with, 170, 171 rations in army of, 171, 172 climate and conditions of, 172 announcement of freedom of, 186 Alexander Cockburn appointed British minister to (1826), 241 mountain crossing methods of, 263 sacred lake of, 270 typical dinner of the, 272 early costume of the, 274 fandango dance of the, 452 Columbus, voyages of, 4 Condor, adventure of a Cornish miner with a, 261 attacks Richard Spruce and com- panion, 418 Convicts, meet missionaries at Mon- tevideo, 136 Cook, Captain, 134, 252, 282 Comwallis, voyage of H.M.S., 138 Cotton, Edward, 59 Courtney, Captain Stephen, 95 Cricket, introduced at Valparaiso, 206 D da Gama, Vasco, 4 d' Almeida, history of Joao, 105 Dampier, Captain, 4, 93 d'Arset, story of Anna, 8 Darwin, experiences in South Amer- ica of Charles, 404-408 "Voyage of a Naturalist" by, 454 Davie, adventures in South America, of John, 436 de Berreo, Antonio, Spanish gov- ernor of Guinea, 75 de Castro, Don Beltran, victory of, 43 de Courcy, Admiral, 297 de Francia, Caspar Rodriguez, 384- 386 Delight, voyage of the, 60 de Navares, Heronima, letter of, 37 de Rute, Juan, 17 de Souza, Martin Alonzo, 59 Desire, voyage of the, 63 Devereux, career of General, 176-178 Dias, Francisco, 202, 204 Dinner, a typical Colombian, 272 Diplomat, character of German South American, 541 necessary characteristics of the British South American, 544 Document, South American (1797), 164, 165 Dona Maria, Queen of Portugal, 346, 360 X Drake, fate of John, 56, 57- Dream, Drake's, 35 Dutch, English join with, 72 E el Dorado, Sir Walter Raleigh seeks, 74 Elizabeth, Queen, shows favor to Drake, 29, 36, 526 renames Hawkins' ship, 42 English, Expedition to Venezuela by General, 175 character of Mrs., 186 Colombia's freedom announced at home of Mrs., 186 language, as taught to Don Pedro I, 339 Englishmen, regarded as pirates, 55 circumnavigate the world, 29, 62 in service of Spain, 102 aid revolution in South 'America, 142 emigrate to Guiana, 157 volunteer in Argentine revolution, 196 get pearl fishing rights, 274 as shopkeepers in "Brazil, 320 INDEX 579 Englishmen — contirmed empressed into Buenos Aires squadron, 383 Esmeralda, capture of frigate, 198 Lautero's fight with, 204 Esquemeling, history of freebooting by, 85, 8(j "Bucaniers of America," by, 426 F Fahy, Father, 487 Falkland, founding of islands of (1766), 161 British ejected from, 161 restored by Spain to England, 161 description of, 161 Argentina takes possession of, 162 becomes penal settlement, 162 present prosperity under British of, 162 naval battle of, 162 Dr. Samuel Johnson on, 433 books on, 480 Fandango, as danced in Colombia, 452 Fenten, disastrous voyage of Ed- ward, 51 fights with Spanish fleet, 55 Ferguson, escape of Colonel, 226 Fields, Father Thomas, 106 Forest, characteristics of the South American, 396, 405-407 French, English join with, 72 aid Dom Pedro I to escape from Brazil, 344^363 aid Queen of Portugal to escape from Brazil, 358-360 and British blockade Buenos Aires, 378 early illustrations of South Amer- ican Indians by the, 431 Friendship, English and Portuguese end, 47 of Bolivar for the English, 227 Frobisher, Martin, 36 Fructuoso, Gaspar, 10 G Galleon, capture by Anson of Ma- nila, 130 Game, types of South American, 270 Garibaldi, South American service of, 378, 379 Gas, Bogota first illuminated by, 187 Gauchos, habits of the, 201, 252, 406, 473, 474 Gaunt, John of, 6 Germans, in South America, 328, 530 employed as troops by Brazilians, 328 revolt against their officers, 333 increase trade greatly with South America, 532 compete with British in South America, 537, 541 methods and organization in South America of, 541, 542 prosperity of South American, 545 unpopular to-day in Brazil, 546 future policy in South America of, 547 Goats, abolishment on Juan Fernan- dez of, 89 on island of Juan Fernandez, 126 Gondomar, 79 Gongo Soco, mines bought by the British, 326 Gordon, Geographical Grammar by, 427-429 Grenfell, Admiral, 335-337 Gringo, origin of word, 253 Grubb, W. Barbrooke, the "Living- stone of South America," 491 Guanaco, hunt of, 133 Guatavita, lake of, 271 Guayaquil, capture of, 230 character of army of, 247 William Brown exchanged for governor of, 231 Guiana, explorations of, 77, 398 voyages to, 156 Raleigh's description of, 156, 398 cultivates sugar, tobacco, cattle, 157 British immigrants to, 157 series of wars in, 157 revolt of negroes in, 158 emancipation of slaves in, 158, 159 characteristics of, 159, 160, 399 books about, 478-480 Guinea, ship of Edward Cotton wrecked on, 60 Hadfield, "Brazil, the River Plate, etc.," by William, 458 Hakluyt, Richard, accoimt of Span- ish prizes by, 45 collection of South American voy- ages bv, 42.3-^25 Hall, Captain Basil, 166, 448 580 INDEX Hall — continued friendship with San Martin, 215, 238 bandits' experience with, 217 adventure with Peneleo, 221, 222 records life on South American Pacific Coast, 239, 448 account of a Chilean ball by, 244 Hamilton, sole right to navigate steam vessels on Orinoco given to Colonel James, 187 Harcourt, Robert, 77 Hart-Dyke, exploit of Admiral, 390- 392 Hastings, Gilbert of, 5 Hawkins, William, 4, 8, 11, 16, 17 Sir John, 14, 19, 37 Sir Richard, son of John, 40, 42 observations of Sir Richard, 426 Heath, "Jolly," 373 Helps, "Spanish Conquest of Amer- ica," by Sir Arthur, 458 Henry, Prince, the Navigator, 6, 7 Hispaniola, Island of, 21 Hotels, British establish South American, 258 Rio famous for British, 372, 373 Huallaga, river, 277 Huantajaya, story of lady of, 210 Himt, R. J., the South American In- dian missionary, 491 Illustrations, in early British geo- graphical works, 431 Independence, South American War of, 164 British leaders in War of, 166, 197 British seamen in War of, 183 Bernardo O'Higgins enlists in War of, 191 Colonel Mackenna enlists in War of, 194 Captain Basil Hall records first years of War of, 238 complications vnth United States in War of, 239 chief benefit from the War of, 264 Indians, South American, 13, 267, 268, 270, 277, 278, 413, 414, 417, 491 prove friendly to Drake, 32 are friendly to Captain Wallis, 133 Araucanian, 219 in Chilean service, 223 war exercises of, 223 Indians — continued New Testament translated for Peruvian, 247 sacred lake of, 270 incident of Darwin with Fuegian, 407 Wallace describes customs of for- est, 414 missionaries to, 491 Inquisition, established in Lima, 19 in Lima, 102, 246 Invalids, taken on Anson expedition, 118 Investments, British, in South Amer- ica to-day, 526 Irish, in Spanish America, 109, 110, 487 South American partnership with, 110 enlist for Venezuelan service, 170, 171, 176 capture town of Rio de la Hacha, 179 thanked by Bolivar and Colombian Congress, 180 in command of first settlement in Brazil, 281 duped into immigration to Brazil, 328-330 Brazil's treatment of the, 331 mutiny against Brazilians, 332 sent back from Brazil to Ireland, 334 domestic servants come to South America, 485 28,000 Irish in Argentine Repub- lic (1865), 485 sheep farmers found college at Buenos Aires, 487 prosperity in river Plate district, 487, 503 Islands, Porto Santo, 4 Madeira, 4 of Santa Catherina, 120, 121 Pitcairn's, 134 Falkland, 161, 162 of Tocujos, 281 of Trinidad, 293 Jesuits, in Brazil, 105, 106 fight with bucaneers, 107 Joao, Prince of Portugal and King of Brazil, 283-289, 295, 296 opens commercial exchange with Britain, 319 Johnston, Rock-salt mines granted to Colonel, 187 INDEX 581 Journey, of Lieutenant Smyth and F. Lowe, 275-279 Juan Fernandez, significance of is- land of, 88, 98 Anson's visit to, 123, 125, 126 American ship visits, 135 first hermit of, 94 Judith, Drake's first ship, 24 Keymis, Captain, 77 King James I, grants patent to Rob- ert Harcourt for all country be- tween Amazon and Essequibo, 77 Kingsley, admiration for Charles Mansfield of Charles, 461 Lancaster, Blanche of, 6 James, history of, 69 Las Casas, Bishop, 13 Lautaro, Chilean frigate, 203 Ledger, llama transported to Aus- tralia by, 508-510 Leigh, Captain, 77 Liberation, Northern War of, 170- 187 British engaged in War of, 170 end of War of, 187 Benavides in War of, 218 Captain Hall records War of, 238 conditions after War of, 248 occupations of British after War of, 257 Lima, inquisition in, 19, 102, 246 San Martin captures, 216-217 bull fighting at, 236 theater in, 238 ladies of, 240 Consul Rowcroft killed in, 241 stage coach established in, 242 ball in honor of Bolivar in, 245 Englishman superintends mint of, 249 Liman, Richard, 102 Limon, Richarte, 17 Lisbon, capture of city of, 4 Llama, transported first to Aus- tralia (1858), 508-510 Lopez, Carlos Antonio, orders Brit- ish to build railroads in Para- guay, 521 Francisco Solano, 386-388, 469 permits British to enter Para- guay, 465 Lopez — contimt ed renews work on railroads (1886), 522 Lowe, South America crossed by F., 275 Lynch, Madame Eloisa, 387 M Machico, to\vn of, 10 Machin, story of Robert, 8 Mackenna, Colonel John, 193-196 McGregor, Sir Gregor, 170 Madeira, discovery of, 10 Anson's fleet stops at, 120 Wallis' fleet stops at, 133 twice occupied and twice restored by British, 530 Manby, Bogota illiuninated by gas by Colonel, 187 Mansfield, career of Charles B., 461- 471 character of, 462, 550 Marriage, of Philippa to King John of Portugal, 6 of Mary of England to Phillip II of Spain, 103 Martilini, Captain Roberton's blood- feud with, 224 taken prisoner to France, 225 Martinez, Juan Apostol, 202 Maw, Lieutenant H. Lister, first Englishman to descend Ama- zon, 454 Mendoza, Pedro de, 12, 17 life in, 202 Miller, General, 166 William, 202-213, 368 Mines, Colonel Johnston granted rock-salt, 187 English speculate in PeruWan, 249, 251 South America invaded by men from Cornish, 261, 262 Imperial Brazilian Mining Asso- ciation of London buys, 326 British, in South America, 482 Miranda, General, the South Amer- ican patriot, 142 places South American Document before British Cabinet, 165 son of, 274 Missionaries, meet convicts, 136, 435 found Lancasterian schools, 247 translate New Testament for In- dians, 247 fail to convert Fuegians, 407 in South America, 489-493 582 INDEX Missionaries — continued first missionary society in South America established ( 1814)-, 490 Monkey, characteristics of the howl- ing, 409 Montevideo, convicts and mission- aries meet at, 136 British besiege, 149 Spanish fleet sunk oflf, 229 Gauchos besiege, 252 blockaded by Admiral Brown (1843), 378 besieged by Argentina, 381, 385 cholera sweeps, 390 description of ladies of, 438 British population of, 488 paved with British flag-stones, 488 Monuments, British honored by South Americans with, 213 Morality, of John Hawkins, 21 of Bolivar, 186 Morgan, Sir Henry, 82, 94 Morphi, Don Carlos, governor of Paraguay (1766), 109 Murray, Reverend J. H., visits Uru- guay and Argentina, 488, 489 Musicians, on the Pelican, 31 loaned by Captain Rogers to the Portuguese, 96 Mutiny, on voyage of Captain Am- brose, 122 N Narbrough, Admiral Sir John, 427 Naturalist, the British, in South America, 395^19 "Voyage of a Naturalist," by Charles Darwin, 454 "A Naturalist on the River Ama- zon," by Bates, 458 Navigators, Iberian, Portuguese, 4 Prince Henry the Navigator, 6 English, 14 obtained first records of South America, 423 Navy, founding of Chilean, 198 Pacific Ocean cleared of Spanish, 198, 207 British officers command Chilean, 203-205 deeds of Chilean, 207 founding of Argentine, 229 Admiral Brown commands Argen- tine, 247 Admiral Cochrane builds up Bra- zilian, 303 type of sailor in Brazilian, 303 character of Argentine, 376 Negroes, introduction into South America, 13, 20 imported to Buenos Aires, 108 revolt in Guiana, 158 great size of Bahia, 286 use warming pans as sugar skim- mers, 292 story of the "diamond" and the, 324 Brazilian army largely composed of, 328 of Rio attack Irish, 330-333 well treated in Brazil as slaves, 366 purchase freedom from Brazil and return to Africa, 369 New Testament, translated for Peru- vian Indians, 247 Nitrates, Britisli South American industry in, 483 O Ogilby, "History of South America" by John, 426 O'Higgins, Ambrose, career of, 110- 114, 190 Bernardo, career of, 114, 115, 189- 193 O'Leary, career of Colonel, 227 Orinoco, Sir Walter Raleigh sails up, 74, 75 Osomo, Colonel Mackenna becomes governor of, 193 Oxenham, story of John, 27 Oysters, British get exclusive rights to fish for pearl, 274 Padilla, succeeds Admiral Brion, 184 Paez, guerilla leader, 168, 173 wins battle of Carabobo with aid of British and Irish, 180 Panama, the "golden road" of, 86 sack of, 94 failure of British at, 129 astronomical observations taken at, 252 British consulate at, 269 Paraguay, English settle at, 103 description of a ball in, 469 exclusion of foreigners from, 104 missionary work in, 490 Father Fields in, 107 Don Carlos Morphi, governor of, 109 Great Britain makes treaty with (1845), 280 INDEX 583 Paraguay — continued founding of despotic rule in, 385 visited by Charles Mansfield, 461- 471 Australian colony in, 506 introduces railroads (1854), 521 Payta, capture by Anson, 128 Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, 313, 328, 331, 337 abdication and flight of, 340-363 Pedro II, the Emperor, visits a United States steamer, 299 first and only white monarch born on American soil, 348 acclaimed as Emperor by Rio de Janeiro, 353 Pelican, Drake's ship, 30 name changed to Golden Hind, 33 Peneleo, Captain Hall's adventure with, 221 Penguin, Island; ship Delight touches at, 60 men from ship Desire kill 14,000 penguins, 66, 68 Perestrello, Bartholomeu, 4 Pernambuco, Lancaster seeks, 70 Admiral Cochrane suppresses rev- olution at, 310 Pert, Sir Thomas, 16 Peru, Bernardo O'Higgins, Viceroy of, 114, 115, 189 William Miller commands cavalry of, 209 San Martin's policy in, 215 New Testament translated for In- dians of, 247 English speculate in mines of, 249, 251 aids British to cross continent, 276 acknowledges value of British sur- veys, 279 origin of "The Present State of Peru" (1805), 434 "Conquest of Peru," by W. H. Prescott, 457 Philip, of Spain, 29 Pig, Sir Francis Head's storv of the, 442 Pitcairn's Island, discovery of, 134 Placentia, Island of, 67 Plate, River, 57, 58, 236 British expedition to, 141, 144, 152 William Brown's ship \vreckcd at mouth of, 229 naval actions in, 382 Robertson expedition to river, 385 Plate — continued "States of River Plate," by Wil- , fred Latham, 473 condition of Irish in, 487 Pope, Alexander VI delimits globe between Spanish and Portu- guese, 19 Popham, Sir Home, 143-149 Porter, Sir R. Ker, 241 Portuguese, end of friendship with English, 47 Lancaster refuses to treat with, 73 cordiality to" English, 95 armed collisions with English in Brazil, 281,^282 Court moves to Brazil, 285 abandon port of Bahia to Brazil- ians, 3()5 control ends in Brazil, 305 beggars in Brazil, 317 have a king (Dom Pedro I) for six days, 338 Prescott, "Conquest of Peru," by W. H., 457 Preston, Captain Amyas, 77 Priests, hostile to British in South America, 183 character of some South Ameri- can, 263, 413 Prisoners, Spanish and English ex- change, 140 fate of British, in South Amer- ica, 154 Puerto Cabello, capture of, 186 Q Quakers, begin anti -slave trade cam- paign in Brazil (1852), 369 R Race-Course, Pacific Coast's first regular, 206 Raids, by English on Spanish com- merce, 44 Railroads, British prestige in South America due to their, 517 difficulties of building Soutli American, 519 William Wheelwright founder of South American, 520 Chile gets first of South Amer- ican, 520 introduced into Paraguay (1854), 521 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 4, 74, 78, 79 description of Brazil by, 76 description of Guiana by, 156, 426, 427 584 INDEX Kaleigh — continued description of South American In- dian by, 431 Rancagua, battle of, 195 Recife, capture of, 71 Rennie, practical jokes of Mr., 269 Revolution, beginnings of South American, 142 British assist South American, 152, 196 Irish assist South American, 170, 171 battle of Carabobo, 180 conditions following, 238 chief benefit of the, 264 character of a South American, 388-390 Ringrose, Basil, 90, 92 Rio de Janeiro, Captain Rogers's expedition to, 95 Portuguese Court arrives at, 288 British church built at, 290 British mercantile community at, 291, 321 opera or ballet in, 298 blockaded by British fleet, 301 commercial exchange opened in (lo20), 319 English pot-houses at, 322 table mutton introduced at, 322 Irish immigrants arrive at, 329, 330 German and Irish uprising in, 333 acclaims little emperor, Dom Pedro II, 353 rioting in, 357 slave market glutted, 367 British hotels famous in, 372 direct steamship line from South- ampton to, 516 British post office in, 517 Rio de la Hacha, storming of, 25 capture by Irish Legion of, 179 Riquelme, Isabel, mother of Ber- nardo O'Higgins, 189 Roberton, career of Captain, 224, 225 Robertson, Dr. William, writes standard work on South Amer- ica, 434 Rodil, Spanish general, 237, 241, 242 Rogers, Captain Woodes, 95, 96 Rosas, General, 376, 382 Royal Mail, Steam Packet Company extends service to Brazil, 515 Rush, exploit of Captain, 180 Rutter, John, 102 S St. Lawrence, British despoil tomb of, 182 San Juan de Ulloa, fight at, 25 San Julian, execution at, 32 San Martin, career of, 167, 199, 215- 217, 257 Santa Catherina, island of, 121 Santaf6cino8, character of the, 384 Santiago, Chilean capital of, 205, 242 receives William Miller, 205 Benavides hanged in, 223 Santos, Portuguese-English troubles at, 47, 53 captured by Cavendish (1591), 63 Sao Vicente, burning by Cavendish of, 64 Schools, South America introduced to Lancasterian, 247 public examination in schools at Bogota, 273 Scotch, colony in South America, 498 Selkirk, Alexander, abandonment and rescue of, 94, 97 Sheep, British South Americans be- gin to raise, 498, 499 Slave Trade, founder of negro, 7 beginnings of, 21 in eighteenth century, 108 extended to all South America, 108 abolished in Guiana, 158 introduced by British into Brazil, 365 conditions of Brazilian, 366 Sloth, picturesque description of the, 430, 456 Smith, Sir W. Svdney, 284, 287, 289, 293, 295-297 Smuggling, by English vessels, 108 Smyth, journey across. South Amer- ica by Lieutenant, 275 Snake, capture of the great Coula- canara, 400-402 Sobremonte, Viceroy of Buenos Aires surrenders to British, 145 Society, Bogota center of Anglo- South American, 186 character of South American, 250 South America, colonial period in, 101 criminals in, 109 greatest British subject in, 114 beginnings of revolution in, 142 fate of British prisoners in, 153 INDEX 585 South America — continued asks British military aid, 165 Admiral Cochrane commands navy of, 166 conditions of soldiering in, 172 erects monuments to British, 213 popularity of Captain Thomas Brown in, 236 receives British consuls, 240 diplomatically equipped, 241 courtesy and hospitality in, 243 Lancasterian schools established in, 247 mining boom in, 250 British survey coast of, 251, 275 character of society in, 256 British occupations in, 257 Cornish miners come to, 261 British trade methods with, 264, 527 table habits in, 266 shooting game in, 270 sport in, 271, 511 Lieutenant Smyth and F. Lowe cross, 275 position of foreigner in, 374 grimmest chapter in history of, 388 policy of revolutions in, 388, 389, 390 British naturalists in, 395-419 nature of tropical forests in, 396 visited by Charles Darwin, 404- 408 in English print, 421-480 John Ogilby's history of, 426 early British ignorance of, 427- 434 as illustrated in early British books, 431 "Letters on," by J. P. and W. P. Robertson, 445 "Wanderings in," by Charles Waterton, 454 British financing of, 482, 525 nitrate industry in, 483 British banking system in, 484 church and missionaries in, 486- 493 Scotch colony in, 498 sheep raising and cattle industry in, 498-500 meat-shipping industry in, 500 Welsh colony in, 506 influence of British sport on, 511 British shipping and railway achievements in, 512-524 first cable laid to (1874), 523 South America — continAied British financial assistance to, 525, 526 nature of British progress in, 526 Germans in, 530 British good faith in, 530, 531 British trade falls off with, 531, 533 British diplomats in, 543 present German unpopularity in, 546 future German policy in, 547 United States trade policy toward, 548 future relations of British with, 549-551 Spain, raiding of commerce to, 44 openly at war with England, 62 policy toward bucaneers, 81 South American policy of, 102, 135, 169 Admiral Cochrane conquers navy of, 198 last stronghold in South America (Lima) captured, 217 treatment of British prisoners by, 226 William Brown destroys fleet of, 229 General Rodil, last hope of, 237, 242 policy of Brazil influenced by, 281 Spaniards, enmity against English, 25, 37, 422, 423 attack Andrew Barker expedition, 39 courtesy to Sir Richard Hawkins, 44 courage against bucaneers, 86 methods in South American War of Independence, 169 deprived of property and social position, 246 Spruce, Richard, botanist, avplorea South America, 415-419 Straits, of Magellan, 33, 64, 133 Sugar Loaf, Moimtain, ascents of, 372 Summers, Captain George, 77 Sumpter, American Minister, resents Brazilian regulations, 315 Superstition, of the English, 41 of tlie Indians, 271 of the Irish, 332 Surrender, of British to the Argen- tines, 150 Tagus river, 4, 6, 7 586 INDEX Talmayancu, Araucanian Indian, 202 Teola, German regiment kills their Brazilian major, 332 Theater, in Lima, 238 in Rio de Janeiro, 298 Tierra del Fuego, visited by Cap- tain Cook, 135 Tinian, island of, 130 Tison, Thomas, 17 Tocujos, British settlement on is- land of, 281 fight between British and Portu- guese at, 282 Tortuga, island of, 84 Tramways, British South American system of, 523 Treasure, British find Barcelona, 182 Treaty, of Windsor (1386), 6 Trinidad, British locate island of, 293 Tristao, NuQo, 4 U Ucayli, British first navigators of river, 278 United States, South American trade policy of, 548 Uruguay, British in, 488 first railroad in (1868), 523 Uruguayana, the, 38^ Ushant, 6 Utrecht, treaty of, 108 V Valparaiso, Colonel Mackenna made governor of, 194 Lord Cochrane arrives at, 205 first regular race-course in South America at, 206 cricket and life in, 206, 207 prominent British merchants in, 237 account of a ball at, 244 British population in 1823 of, 247 Venezuela, climate and conditions in, 172 General English's force in, 175 General Devereux's force in, 177 Sir R. Ker Porter appointed Charge d'Affaires to (1835), 241 Cornishmen employed in mines of, 262 first railroad (1873) in, 523 Venner, Captain, 71 Voyages, Columbus, 4 English, 4 first equatorial, 8 William Hawkins, 17 Robert Reniger, 19 Thomas Borey, 19 Thomas Pudsey, 19 Sir John Hawkins, 19, 22, 23 Sir Francis Drake, 23, 26, 36 around the world by Drake (1577), 29 Oolden Hind, 35 last expedition of Drake (1595), 37 Andrew Barker, 38 Richard Hawkins, 40 Edward Fenton, 51 Robert Withrington, 58 Delight, 60 Thomas Cavendish, 61, 63 James Lancaster, 70 Sir Walter Raleigh, 74, 78 Captain Woodes Rogers, 95 Captain Clipperton, 97 Commodore George Anson, 117- 131 Commodore Bvron, 131-132 Captain Wallis, 132-34 Captain Cook, 134 H. M. S. CornwaUis, 138 Sir Home Popham, 143 General English, 175 Colonel John Mackenna, 193 Captain Thomas Brown, 236 H. M. S. Cambridge, 240-243 Captain Henry Foster, 250-252 Agamemnon, 293 Dom Joao VI, 317 J. P. Robertson to River Plate, 385 Charles Darwin to South Amer- ica, 404-408 Admiral Sir John Narbrough, 426 "Captain R. Boyle," 432 W Wallace, A. R., explores Amazon re- gion, 408, 412-415, 458 Wallis, Captain, 132 Warspite, British ship, acts as ref- uge for Dom Pedro I of Brazil, 344-363 Waterton, career of Charles, 397- 404, 454 Welsh, colony in South America, 506 INDEX 587 Wheelwright, William, introduces Wilson, career of Colonel Bedford, steam navigation to Pacific 227 (1840), 513 W., minister to Bolivia, 241 career of, 519-521 Withen, feat of Major, 186 Whitall, John, makes profitable Withrington, Robert, 58 Portuguese marriage, 48 starts British trade with Brazil, 50 Z end of, 59 Whitelocke, Lieutenant-General, sur- Zarco, Joan Gongalves, 4, 10 renders to the Argentines, 150 o XT en -J CD 2 1 Los Angeles -t mp tttJ'T'^*'** book is DUE on the last date stamped beloi lOf ^' Form L9— Series 444 Form L-9-35m-8,'28 JAN 9 1S47 m^ ^m I' ^^ — ^^i^-S' c?,«» "^ \V\EUNIVER% ^U)SANCn£r> I 3 ^^ so S m. ^ ■M - - ^mmcfo/: %Hvaan-# ^OFCAlfFOff/^ ^5J\EUNIVER% ':IDS- y