To this order no attention was paid by us, and we took on board whatever was required, remaining further to repair the Valdivia.  On the 16th we sailed, and on the 25th anchored at Callao, where we found the Prueba under Peruvian colours, and commanded by the senior Chilian captain, who had abandoned the squadron!  On our arrival she was immediately hauled in close under the batteries, with guns housed, and ports closed, whilst she was so crammed with troops that three died on the following night from suffocation; these steps being taken to prevent her sharing the fate of the Esmeralda.  To calm their fears, I wrote to the Government that there was no intention of taking her, otherwise I would have done so, and at midday too in spite of any such precautions.

Lima was at this time in an extraordinary condition, there being no less than five different Peruvian flags flying in the bay and on the batteries.  The Protector had passed a decree ordering that all Spaniards who might quit the place should surrender half their property to the public treasury, or the whole should be confiscated, and the owners exiled.  Another decree imposed the penalties of exile and confiscation of property upon all Spaniards who should appear in the streets wearing a cloak; also against any who should be found in private conversation!  The punishment of death was awarded against all who should be out of their houses after sunset; and confiscation and death were pronounced on all who possessed any kind of weapons except table-knives!  A wealthy lady in Lima was so annoyed at the rigour of these decrees, that her patriotism overcame her prudence, and having called the Protector ill names, she was compelled to give up her property.  She was then habited in the garb of the Inquisition,—­a garment painted with imaginary devils!—­and taken to the great square, where an accusatory libel being fastened to her breast, a human bone was forced into her mouth—­her tongue being condemned as the offending member—­and then secured; in which state, with a halter round her neck, she was paraded through the streets by the common hangman, and afterwards exiled to Callao, where after two days she died from mental anguish arising from the treatment she had received.  Such was the liberty conceded to Peru.

In the midst of this national degradation, the Protector had assumed the style of a Sovereign Prince.  An order of nobility was established, under the title of “The Institute of the Sun,” the insignia being a golden sun suspended from a white ribbon, the Chilian officers who had abandoned the squadron coming in for a full share as the reward of their subserviency.