emu. 



115 



:i.ui:il mercantile marine having 



- tlu- week liefnre tin- th-elara- 



.:-. tin-re appeared in 1806 only 15 



>>els in [ilaee <>t' 1,500 or 1,600 that 



.1 in tin- 1'ivvinii- years. 



relative maritime importance of tin- chief 



The following is the nationality of the vessels 

 entering the Chilian ports: 



On January 21st General Kilpatrick, ambas- 

 sador of the United States in Chili, addressed a 

 note to the Chilian Government, transmitting 

 the propositions of settlement which the cab- 

 hut of Washington had concluded to suggest 

 to the belligerents in the war of the allied 

 South American republics against Spain. The 

 following extracts from the reply, dated April 

 17th, of Alvaro Covarmbias, Chilian Minister 

 of Foreign Affairs, explain the proposition of 

 the United States, and the position of Chili: 



According to these propositions, Chili and her 

 allies on one side, and Spain on the other, should 

 appoint plenipotentiaries to Washington, authorized 

 tn meet in a conference presided over by a person 

 whom the President of the United States should 

 designate, for the purpose of agreeing upon terms 

 of a permanent peace which should be equitable, 

 just, and honorable for all the belligerents. In case 

 they should not arrive at a unanimous agreement, 

 tin- President of the United States should designate 

 n third State or sovereign, who should decide, as ar- 

 bitrator, the differences which the plenipotentiaries 

 might not succeed in arranging. Even now it is 

 easy to foresee that the manner of convention pro- 

 posed by the government of your excellency would 

 lead necessarily to an arbitration, pure and simple, 

 the same as frequently occurs between two nations 

 at difficulty with each other, with the sole difference 

 that in this case it would not be the parties them- 

 selves but the President of the United States that 

 would choose the arbitrator. To substantiate this 

 it will be sufficient for me to call to mind the ex- 

 travagant and unjust pretensions which Spain has 

 hr.d since before the commencement of the present 

 war, and the u-nacity with which she has adhered to 

 tin-in, until she has involved the republics of the 

 Pai-itic in a long and disastrous conflict. It is not 

 t'>_ be expected, therefore, that in the conference at 

 Wellington, Spain would show herself more favor- 

 able to tne voice of justice and conciliation. This ia 



much less probable since the Government of Spain 

 has not followed in the present war the course of 

 conduct which belonged to a civilized belli- 

 ami rather has augmented, by her manifest viola- 

 tions of international law, the grievance* suffered 

 by her adversaries, and has made herself liable for 

 reparation. However moderate might be the de- 

 mands of Chili and her allies, they could not cease 

 to be proportionate to the magnitude of the insults 

 and damages which have been received, and in con- 

 sequence would be too distasteful to the pride of 

 Spain to presume with reason that they would be 

 accepted by her willingly. The frustration of the 

 object of the conference would lead to arbitration, 

 and although the government of the republic has al- 

 ways been partial to this method of solution, it be- 

 lieves it would not be able to accept it without certain 

 reservations. 



These reservations are inspired as much by the 

 irregular conduct of the enemy, to which I have just 

 alluded, as by the bases of convention which other 

 mediating powers have previously made, and which 

 Chili has not hesitated to reject. First, it is consid- 

 ered that the bombardment of Valparaiso was an 

 act of hostility, inexcusable and meriting the most 

 severe reprobation, whether it be regarded in the 

 light of the present general principles of internation- 

 al right which make the criterion of the ideas and 

 sentiments prevailing in bur epoch, or with reference 

 to the consequences and sad precedents which it 

 may tend to create. The opinions of civilized nations 

 have universally execrated this deed ; and after so 

 incontestable a verdict it would not be possible to 

 agree that the qualifications of the odious character 

 of the bombardment should be referred to an arbi- 

 tration. Therefore, my governme.nt believes that in 

 this respect the fixing of the kind of reparations 

 which Spain may be obliged to make to Chili and 

 her allies in consequence of the bombardment would 

 only be a matter of arbitration, and in no manner a 

 decision upon the legitimacy or illegitimacy of that 

 most reprehensible abuse of power. 



In the second place, I cannot fail to take into con- 

 sideration that in the propositions of convention 

 which have been previously made by other media- 

 tory States, there figured the condition that the bel- 

 ligerents should reciprocally return the prizes made 

 during the course of hostilities. According^ to this 

 condition, Spain would gratuitously receive the 

 war-steamer Covadonga, captured by the Chilian 

 corvette Esmeralda in good and true combat, and 

 Chili would give up, without compensation, that 

 lawful as well as valuable trophy. I say without 

 compensation, for Spain would not be able to return 

 to the republic even the merchant-ships captured by 

 her naval forces, burned as they have been by those 

 same forces. The Government of Chili would deem 

 it prudent on accepting the arbitration to leave out 

 of the arbitrator's power this inadmissible condition. 

 It would consider necessary also the previous step 

 of explaining in a precise manner the different sit- 

 uations which the contending parties in the present 

 war occupy ; situations which have been wont to be 

 confounded in the propositions of settlement before 

 alluded to. In the present war there is only one 

 aggressor, which is Spain, and four injured parties 

 Chili, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador ; the first two in 

 a direct manner, and the last two indirectly. What- 

 ever might have been the motives of complaint which 

 the Spanish Government had against Chili and Peru, 

 it is an evident and incontrovertible fact that to get 

 redress she did not begin by exhausting the pacific 

 means of diplomacy, nor did she respect the laws of 

 international right, and that the occupation of .the 

 Chincha Islands on the 14th of April, 1864, and the 

 blockade of the ports of Chili on the 25th of Sep- 

 tember, 1865, were acts of unnecessary hostility, ir- 

 regular in their form, and unjust in their motives. 

 Consequently those aggressions of Spain constituted 

 *by themselves alone an outrage, as unmerited as it 



