254 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



the gazette, from the Edinburgh Philosophical 

 Journal. But these were detained in the depot, 

 instead of being placed under a hen ; which utterly 

 ruined all my hopes of rearing a new species of 

 birds in England. Titled personages in London 

 interested themselves in behalf of the collection, 

 but all in vain. And vain also were the public and 

 private representations of the first officer of the 

 Liverpool Custom-house in my favour. 



At last there came an order from the Treasury 

 to say, that any specimens Mr. Waterton intended 

 to present to public institutions might pass duty 

 free; but those which he intended to keep for 

 himself must pay the duty! 



A friend now wrote to me from Liverpool, re- 

 questing that I would come over and pay the duty, 

 in order to save the collection, which had just 

 been detained there six weeks. I did so. On pay- 

 ing an additional duty (for the moderate duty 

 first imposed had already been paid), the man 

 who had detained the collection delivered it up 

 to me, assuring me that it had been well taken 

 care of, and that a fire had been frequently made 

 in the room. It is but justice to add, that on 

 opening the boxes, there was nothing injured. 



I could never get a clue to these harsh and 

 unexpected measures, except that there had been 

 some recent smuggling discovered in Liverpool ; 

 and that the man in question had been sent down 

 from London to act the part of Argus. If so, I 

 landed in an evil hour; ''nefasto die;" making 

 good the Spanish proverb, ^' Pagan a las voces, 

 justos por pecadores;" at times the innocent suf- 

 fer for the guilty. After all, a little encourage- 



