494 APPENDIX. 



power, which their own negligence and impolitic parsimony has brought to 

 decay, is now clearly perceived; and that they even propose to send out a 

 respectable naval force to the Pacific. When it is considered that the 

 squadron of Chile is promised only a moiety of the prize-money, the whole 

 being granted to the English navy, and without any of that emolument in the 

 shape of bounty-money which is allowed in England ; and when it is also 

 considered that Chile has been at no cost in our professional education, but 

 has been totally exempt from expense in rearing and educating officers for 

 her naval service, an expense to which England and all other naval powers 

 are subject; — it is not too much to require that our stipulated pay and prize- 

 money, which have been so long withheld, should immediately be paid. We 

 reject, with indignation, the opinion attempted to be impressed on the minds 

 of the officers and men by agents on shore — that every public mark of ap- 

 probation, of reward, and even our pay, have been withheld in consequence of a 

 notification from the Peruvian government, that unless the accusations against 

 those who have remained faithful to Chile is attended to with a view to 

 justify that government in the measures they pursued, the government of 

 Chile will incur the displeasure of those who have made themselves powerful 

 at their expense. But though we indignantly reject such an opinion, we 

 cannot help observing, that the exertions made in Peru to rear a navy, the 

 measures they have taken, and the success they have had, present a remark- 

 able contrast to that disregard and neglect which are here so prevalent, and 

 which tend so fatally to the downfal of a navy already reared. And if we, 

 the captains, were longer to abstain from informing the government that 

 such is the state of the ships of war that no operation of any difficulty or 

 danger could be commanded, and that even their safety, if ordered to sea, 

 would be endangered, we should not continue to deserve that confidence 

 which it has ever been our ambition to merit. Nor, if we were to dwell 

 solely on our own claims to the attention of the government, should we acquit 

 ourselves of our duty. 



" Permit us, therefore, to call to your notice, that since our return to Val- 

 paraiso with our naked crews, even clothes were withheld until the fourth 

 month had expired ; and during all this period no payment was made : 

 whereby the destitute seamen and marines could not procure blankets or 

 ponchos, or any covering to protect them from the cold of the winter, so 

 much more severely felt on returning from the hot climates in which they 

 had been for nearly three years employed. 



