738 



PERU. 



PERU, CHILI, AND THE UNITED STATES. 



was, as already recorded, organized, with 

 Sefior Garcia Calderon at its head, and under 

 the protection of the Chilian authorities, Cal- 

 deron " pledging himself to conduct his gov- 

 ernment upon principles not opposed to the 

 fundamental conditions demanded by Chili for 

 the final arrangement of peace." The failure 

 of this and other efforts to the same end is 

 briefly stated in the following extract from a 

 circular which the Minister of Foreign Affairs 

 of Chili addressed to the diplomatic agents of the 

 republic abroad, under date December 21, 1881. 



Thus it is that Chili could not conclude a peace with 

 Fibroin, who, after his defeat at Miraflores, proved 

 his inability to form a serious government outside of 

 Lima, an-1 finally fell, overthrown by the intrigues of 

 Calderon and tho rebellion of his soldiers ; nor with 

 Garcia Calderon, who, lacking authority in the first 

 period, and who, when beginning to acquire it, per- 

 verted it in the name of an intervention * irreconcila- 

 ble with the honor and the sovereignty of nations such 

 as Chili and the United States. The last acts of Cal- 

 deron, his public declarations against the capital con- 

 ditions of peace, and the abuse against Chili and Peru 

 of which he was guilty in encouraging a supposed for- 

 eign intervention, obliged our military authorities to 

 make an end of the attempt at government made by 

 Garcia Calderon in February last. 



On learning that Montero had adhered to 

 the Arequipa and Puno declaration in favor of 

 Calderon, the Chilian Government ordered tho 

 arrest of Calderon and his minister, Galvez, 

 who accordingly were taken to Valparaiso in 

 November. Pi6rola, abandoned by Montero 

 (then in Cajamarca in the north), and probably 

 also by Caceres, who had been appointed by 

 the Arequipa Congress second Vice-President 

 of the Republic, Montero being the first, re- 

 turned to Lima, and publicly declared his 

 intention to renounce all further pretensions to 

 power (December). Sefior Don Adolfo Guer- 

 rero, late secretary to General Lynch, had been 

 appointed political chief of Lima. As an- 

 nounced in President Arthur's message 'to Con- 

 gress in December, special envoys were sent to 

 Peru and Chili " with instructions which it is 

 hoped will bring these powers into friendly 

 relations." These envoys, Messrs. Elaine and 

 Trescott, arrived at Callao on December 22d. 

 It was presumed that Mr. Elaine would, on 

 reaching Santiago, take charge of the United 

 States legation left vacant by the death of 

 General Kilpatrick. 



The part played by Bolivia in the long con- 

 test is little short of inexplicable. The decla- 

 ration of war was the outgrowth of a quarrel 

 between Chili and Bolivia, about the owner- 

 ship of a strip of desert. Peru not only took 

 sides with Bolivia, but actually threw out the 

 challenge to Chili, and, with little effective aid 

 from Bolivian contingents, has borne the brunt 

 of the war, and expiated her folly with her 

 ruin ; while Bolivia, save the almost inevitable 

 sacrifice of her sea-board, undoubtedly damag- 

 ing to her commercial interests, will have sus- 

 tained no serious losses, territorial or financial. 



* See the article PEEC, CHILI, AND THE UNITED STATUS , 

 in this volume. 



PERU, CHILI, AND THE UNITED 

 STATES. After the failure of tho peace con- 

 ference held on board the United States steam- 

 ship Lackawanna at Arica, on October 22, 25, 

 and 27, 1880, in pursuance of the offer by this 

 Government of its good offices as an arbitrator 

 between the belligerents, there is nothing of 

 note to record on diplomatic relations with 

 the Republics of Peru and Chili, until June 

 26, 1881, when, in accordance with instruc- 

 tions from Secretary Elaine, Minister Chris- 

 tiancy formally recognized the government 

 of the Provisional President, Sefior Garcia 

 Calderon. In July Minister Christiancy pre- 

 sented his letters of recall, and on the same 

 day the new Minister, General Stephen A. 

 Hurlbut, presented his credentials to Presi- 

 dent Calderon at the little village of Magda- 

 lena, Lima being then in the hands of the Chi- 

 lians. On the 23d of August, Aurelio Garcia y 

 Garcia, Minister of Foreign Affairs under Pie"- 

 rola, addressed to Minister Hurlbut a letter 

 dated "The Ministry, Ayacucho," a town in 

 the interior, where Pi6rola had set up the sem- 

 blance of a government after his flight from 

 Lima. The purpose of this letter was to per- 

 suade General Hurlhut to recognize Pierola as 

 "the constitutionally proclaimed President" 

 and lawful head of the government in Peru. 

 In reply our Minister assured Senor Garcia y 

 Garcia that it would scarcely become him to en- 

 ter into a discussion upon the internal affairs of 

 Peru, " but," continued he, " as in your letter to 

 me you have opened the road to such discussion, 

 I propose frankly to expres? rny opinion, so 

 wording it as to wound as lightly as possible." 

 He then points out that in seizing the supreme 

 power. and assuming an authority unknown to 

 the Constitution, Pierola committed revolution- 

 ary and lawless acts. The resolution he car- 

 ried out was " a crime against liberty " ; the 

 dictatorship was " a tyranny which was auto- 

 cratic and despotic in its construction, its title, 

 and its acts." Minister Hurlbut's letter con- 

 tinued as follows : 



Oppressed by an invader, the populace of Peru sub- 

 mitted to that autocracy in the belief that it would 

 conduct to victory. Foreign nations recognized it as 

 a de facto government, but they never recognized its 

 origin or its system. Under the Constitution the Aya- 

 cucho National Assembly has no right to exist, and 

 its resolutions possess no legal power beyond that of 

 the opinions uttered by an equal number of private 

 citizens. Consequently, its confirmation of tne full 

 and autocratic faculties of the ex-dictator, under his 

 new title of President, gives no greater legal weight 

 to his authority or pretensions. 



For this reason, and much to my regret, I find my- 

 self compelled to inform you that the decrees are bar- 

 barous and inhuman which have been recently issued 

 in Ayachuco with respect to the persons and prop- 

 erties of those who do not recognize Sefior Pierola, 

 and they place the government which adopts such 

 measures beyond the pale of the law. These unnat- 

 ural decrees, in my opinion, afford conclusive proof 

 that the government with which you are connected 

 owes its existence entirely to force and not to public 

 opinion. The government presided over by Sefior 

 Garcia Calderon does not pretend to be regularly and 

 perfectly established. It is provisional. It is sup- 



