184 JOURNAL. 



with ships of war, or of trade, for these hundred years to come, and 

 that she should hire the former, and employ foreign carriers in lieu 

 of the latter ; the interest of the nation which would in such case 

 be the gainer is so palpable, that I wonder it did not make the 

 Judge hesitate to offer or support it. But the simple-minded 

 Chilenos are no match for Genevese sagacity, united to North Ame- 

 rican speculation. 



Ath. — A great deal of interest has been excited by the circum- 

 stances under which the captain of an American trading vessel has 

 committed suicide : two years ago he was shipwrecked in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Cape Horn, and made his way with one or two wretched 

 companions along the coast in his whale boat to this place, subsisting 

 on shell-fish and seals. He returned to North America, where he 

 had a wife and family, and employed the greater part of his property 

 in fitting out a whaler, with which he hoped to redeem his past 

 losses, and on board of which he once more entered the Pacific. 

 But at the end of a long cruize he put into Valparaiso without a 

 single fish ; and after walking about in a wretched state of despond- 

 ence for two or three days, he retired to his cabin, wrote to his family ; 

 and leaving instructions to have his body committed to the deep, he 

 shot himself ! 



August 5th. — The news from the south is not of the most pleasant 

 nature : there has been a serious conspiracy at Valdivia; it was crushed 

 by stratagem. At some meeting, convened under I know not what 

 pretext, the whole of the officers implicated were so placed as that 

 each should find himself by the person employed to seize him, and 

 they were all accordingly secured. Their fate is not yet determined. 

 The expedition headed by Beauchef, that was to have gone to Chiloe 

 under the protection of the Lautaro, has, on this and other accounts, 

 but chiefly for want of provisions, been now so long delayed that 

 there are no hopes of its proceeding this season ; and Quintanilla has 

 probably another year in which to display a loyalty like that of the 

 old knights of romance, rather than any thing one meets with in 

 modern days. Shut up in the little port of San Carlos, surrounded 



