IV PREFACE. 



actors or spectators in the great event, were kind enough to allow 

 her to write down, from their verbal account, the main particulars 

 which she has detailed. What was related by those still Royalists, 

 agreed in all facts with what was told by the patriots, and all with 

 the clear and spirited narratives of the Supreme Director, O'Higgins ; 

 whose liberality and politeness on this, as on every other point, to- 

 wards the writer, deserve her warmest acknowledgements. From 

 1818 to 1821 ample accounts were published in the gazettes of every 

 public occurrence, and every document was during that period laid 

 before the people. But sometime in the year 1821, it became 

 evident that the political speculations of the Protector of Peru, and 

 the commercial schemes of the ministers in Chile, were of a nature 

 not to be unveiled, and the public papers are accordingly very defec- 

 tive from that time. The writer cannot flatter herself that she has 

 been able to supply the deficiencies entirely ; but she trusts that the 

 leading marks she has been able to set up will be found sufficient 

 to induce others, more capable of the task, to fill up the outline 

 which she has but sketched. 



As the struggle in Spanish America was purely that of the colo- 

 nies with the mother country, the writer had of course nothing to do 

 with the mention of any transactions between the neutral trading 

 nations, whose vessels, either of war or of commerce, might be in 

 the seas of Chile, unless where a direct interference, as in the case of 

 Captain Hillier's guarantee of the treaty in the south of Chile, 

 renders it absolutely necessary. 



The Postscript to the Journal contains papers from which the pre- 

 sent political state of Chile may be understood. There is so much 

 of good in that country, so much in the character of the people 

 and the excellence of the soil and climate, that there can be no 



