EVENTS SUCCEEDING THE ELECTION. 319 



up, and no further attempt was made to disturb tin- public peace. Confidence among commer- 

 cial mm, however, was slow to return; and days- elapsed before their warehouses were freed 

 from their many holts and bars. No person of note hod been recognised among the insurgent* 

 at any time. According to the government paper, their only visible leader was a tailor, their 

 only object pillage; but it is stated that blackened and otherwise disguised faces moved wherever 

 work was to be dune, ami it will hardly be supposed that rotoa were desirous of concealment. 



A similar but more successful outbreak had been made by the miners at Chafiarcillo on the 

 very previous evening. So numerous are the laborers, that with any concert of action the 

 adminiatradores and mayordomos have no chance, although assisted by a guard ; and thus, after 

 a shot or two, the picket of soldiers very prudently retreated to the Descubridora mine. Rifling 

 the mining houses of San Francisco and San Jose, then two of the wealthiest in the mineral 

 district, and destroying their works as far as possible, the mob next went to Juan Godoi, where 

 similar excesses were perpetrated. All the stores were broken open, and the money and goods 

 carried out of doors ; and not contented with depriving the owners of as much as they could carry 

 off, oil, turpentine, spirits, and molasses, were emptied over bales of goods and bags of flour. 

 As occurs during every sack, the vilest passions were indulged without restraint ; and when 

 these human brutes had glutted their appetites for violation, conscience began the germination 

 of fear, and the larger number absconded with their ill gotten booty in the direction of Huasco 

 and Freirina. At 3 o'clock A. M. news of the outrage reached the city of Copiapo, and twelve 

 hours afterwards a hundred men were on the spot ready to attempt the restoration of order. 

 But they came too late to secure the riotous leaders, and found only those whom partial 

 drunkenness had rendered indifferent to their fate, and honest workmen who had taken no 

 part in the disgraceful proceedings. Indeed, it is probable that most of the robbers had departed 

 before the express left Chailarcillo for the city, and that this fact was mode known by him ; else 

 what could the Intendente have expected to accomplish with fifty cavalry and a like number of 

 infantry, against ten times that number of the most athletic men in Chile ? At Copiapo it was 

 supposed that the departure of the troops for Chafiarcillo would be the signal for a rise of the 

 lower orders ; but the police ascertained and seized the places where they were to have assembled, 

 made a number prisoners, and published a bando ordering all fire-arms to be deposited with 

 the public authorities, prohibiting all collections of more than four persons in one place at a time, 

 and constituting every citizen competent authority to arrest individuals violating either of the 

 preceding commands. At the latest accounts the orderly portion of the inhabitants were in the 

 greatest alarm, not knowing at what moment the five or six thousand rabble surrounding them 

 would be hammering at their doors for wealth, wives, and daughters. None thought of tranquil 

 sleep. Those on the spot say, in the newspaper, that the revolt had no political motive; and in 

 the same breath they assert that it was excited by unknown emissaries from the malcontents at 

 Coquimbo, who disappeared two hours after the pillage commenced, satisfied that their malig- 

 nant views would be fully carried out. Contemporaneous disturbances at Valparaiso, and the 

 tolerably well authenticated fact that, had it not been for timely warning, the city of Copiapo 

 would have suffered in like manner a few hours later, are strong circumstancial evidence of 

 concerted action beyond the means or ability of a mere mob to plan or execute. 



At Santiago there was "no peace for the wicked." In bed-rooms and closets, through 

 orchards, over the house-tops, and even through the acequias, emissaries of the police ferreted 

 out those suspected of expressing opinions against ministerial policy too strongly, and a forced 

 sojourn in the country for an indefinite period was the mildest castigation for the heresy. It was 

 of little moment that no overt act had been committed ; courts were often long in arriving at 

 conclusions, and then not always in the right way, and it was not required to establish so 

 unimportant a fact. It was only necessary for the President to know that any one advocated 

 openly the course of General Cruz, to entitle him to a billet from the chief of police, under the 

 commands of which he was compelled, at every hazard, to quit friends and business within 

 twenty-four hours. Nor was the persecution confined wholly to men; ladies also were included 



