CHILI. 21 



we enjoyed in Conception, we could not refrain 

 from nieliuicholy reflections on the political crisis 

 in which this country is engaged. 



He who enters neutral between two parties in a 

 civil war, sees only, in the crowds on both sides, 

 wild intoxication and hatred. We saw only the 

 royal party, which the liberals, remembering the 

 history of the mother-country, call Moors. Com- 

 pared with the numerous splendid female circles, 

 we saw only a few men, officers and functionaries of 

 the king, and a ragged, miserable, wretched, and 

 motley soldiery. 



Many individuals of the patriot party, which 

 was then oppressed, were in the state prisons, 

 which had been enlarged, by adding a church to 

 them ; and were employed in building the fort, 

 which was erecting to keep the city in awe. 

 Some were sent to the island of Juan Fernandez; 

 others among them, and many of the clergy, had 

 assembled in Buenos Ayres, under the flag of their 

 native country, which, after the fall of Carthagena, 

 which we saw celebrated with enthusiastic joy, was 

 represented to us as entirely vanquished. 



And Chili, which Molina describes as a terres- 

 trial paradise, where a fruitfid soil is adapted to 

 every species of cultivation, whose riches in gold 

 and silver, corn, delicious wine, fruits, productions 

 of all kinds, timber, oxen, sheep, aiul horses, are 

 immense, languishes in fetters, without navigation, 

 commerce, or industry. The smuggling trade of 



c 3 



