INTRODUCTION. \g 



America can assume a national character, even now that the yoke of 

 Spain is virtually broken, for want of the internal material, if I may 

 so speak, to form a government. 



The whole system of Spain, while the colonies were kept close, 

 was, with regard to them, commercial, and not political. The vice- 

 roys were, in fact, after the first wars with the natives were over, no 

 more than the presidents of a set of monopolists ; their views were 

 bounded by their sordid and narrow mercantile interests, and the 

 government and occupation of Mexico and Peru were never looked 

 upon otherwise than as a means of acquiring riches, while the 

 freedom, happiness, or interest of the inhabitants was neglected. 

 Sloth and ignorance were the necessary consequences ; and when the 

 people roused, as from sleep, and asserted their independence, the 

 habits and ideas of the class, from which of necessity the chiefs and 

 governors were chosen, had been so moulded on those of the ancient 

 order of things, that they have followed the same path ; and regard- 

 ing the possession of power as merely that of the capital of a mer- 

 cantile company, they have speculated accordingly, and, by petty 

 trafficking, public and private monopolies, and trading schemes, have 

 injured the people they ruled, excited distrust among foreigners, and, 

 in many cases, ruined themselves. 



Such, at least, has been the case in Chile, and such I believe 

 it to have been in Peru and the provinces of La Plata. I am too 

 little informed of the facts relating to Columbia and Mexico, but, 

 from what has come to my knowledge, I suspect it has not been 

 very different with them : but it is time to return to the history of 

 Chile, of which alone I can speak with certainty. 



It was on the c 2'2d of June, 1810, that Carasco, captain-general of 

 Chile, having convened the inhabitants of Santiago to a meeting in 

 the palace square for the purpose of promulgating to them the orders 

 of the expatriated court of Spain to obey the French regency, that 

 the first popular tumult took place. Some private meetings had 

 been held before. The agents of the central junta were not inactive, 

 but no public occasion had yet appeared to call forth the public 



