myself from a country which I had vainly hoped would have afforded me that tranquil asylum which, after the anxieties I had suffered, I felt needful to my repose.  My inclinations, too, were decidedly in favor of a residence in Chili, from a feeling of the congeniality which subsisted between my own habits and the manners and customs of the people, those few only excepted who were corrupted by contiguity with the Court, or debased in their minds and practices by that species of Spanish Colonial education which inculcates duplicity as the chief qualification of statesmen in all their dealings, both with individuals and the public.

I now speak more particularly of the persons late in power—­ excepting, however, the late Supreme Director—­who I believe to have been the dupe of their deceit; and I do assure you that nothing would afford me greater pleasure, for the sake of the ingenuous Chilian people, than to find that with a change of Ministers, a change of measures has also taken place, and that the errors of your predecessors, and their consequent fate, shall operate as an effectual caution against a course so destructive.

Point out to me one engagement that has been honourably fulfilled—­one military enterprise of which the professed object has not been perverted—­or one solemn pledge that has not been forfeited; but my opinions on this want of faith, at various periods of the contest, when everything was fresh in my recollection, are recorded in my correspondence with the Minister of Marine, and more particularly in my private letters to His Excellency, the late Supreme Director, whom I unavailingly warned of all that has happened.  My letter also to San Martin, in answer to his accusations—­a copy of which was officially transmitted to your predecessor in office—­contains a brief abstract of the errors and follies committed in Peru; as my public letters and those documents are, of course, in your possession, I shall abstain from trespassing on your attention with a repetition of facts with which you are acquainted.

Look to my representations on the necessities of the navy, and see how they were relieved!  Look to my memorial, proposing to establish a nursery for seamen by encouraging the coasting trade, and compare its principles with the code of Rodriguez, which annihilated both.  You will see in this, as in all other cases, that whatever I recommended in regard to the promotion of the good of the marine, was set at naught, or opposed by measures directly the reverse.  Look to the orders which I received, and see whether I had more liberty of action than a schoolboy in the execution of his task.  Look back into the records of the Minister of Marine’s office, and you will find that, while the squadron was nearly reduced to a state of starvation, provisions were actually shipped at Valparaiso, apparently for the navy, but were consigned to Don Luiz de Cruz, and disposed of in such a way as to reflect eternal