ON THE COAST OF PERU. 
parts of the road; the last butchery of Modesto Larea, 
above thirty took place in Quito, for the 
immediate gratification of the President. 
A few escaped, or were spared, probably 
. & hundred and fifty out of four hundred 
and fifty, their original number. It may 
be supposed the troops who remained were 
not much conciliated by this plan of treat- 
ment. While the plenipotentiaries of New 
Grenada were still negotiating in Quito, in 
August 1832, the battalion of Flores, sta- 
tioned in the town of Latacunga, rose, 
murdered nearly all their officers, among 
whom was another Englishman, Lieutenant 
Colonel Masterson, plundered the town, 
and marched towards the province of 
Guayaquil. It might have been supposed 
that with such terrible examples before its 
eyes, the government would at least have 
suspended its system of plunder, and have 
maintained its few remaining troops, on 
which it relied to carry on a war so rashly 
commenced. The negotiations were broken 
off, the Bishop and Mr. Restrepo had 
scarcely left the country, when part of the 
troops stationed on the frontier line of the 
Juanamba, passed over to General Ovando, 
who immediately occupied the whole of the 
disputed territory without firing a shot, 
and dictated a peace which the Equatorian 
government was too happy to receive as 
the price of its existence. It was in the 
interval between the insurrection of the 
battalion Flores and the entrance of Ovando 
into Pasto, that I became implicated in the 
affairs of the government. On the even- 
ing of the 15th of September, an officer, 
with a detachment of soldiers, presented 
himself at my residence, in the suburbs of 
the city, with an order from the govern- 
ment that I should set off the next morn- 
ing for Guayaquil. The troops took pos- 
session of my house, sentinels were placed 
in every room and passage, and to make 
security doubly secure, a serjeant with a 
knife and pistol followed every step I took, 
whether from room to room, or from one 
part of the room to another. As no reason 
"was assigned for this extraordinary pro- 
ceeding, I requested an interview next 
morning with the Vice President, Don 
67 
who was acting on behalf 
of General Flores, then in Guayaquil. He 
received me with great courtesy, professed 
the utmost regret at the execution of his 
own orders, and told me the General knew 
of nothing against me, but that my person 
had been claimed by the Prefect of Guay- 
aquil, as he had heard (for he knew nothing 
about it), on suspicion of my being con- 
nected with a conspiracy which had been 
discovered there. It was easy to show 
that, nothing could be more illegal, or even 
ridiculous, than for a provincial magistrate 
to demand an individual should be sent to 
him a prisoner, without showing the least 
ground for such a proceeding, or proof of 
criminality. He readily agreed with me, 
and proposed as a sort of compromise, I 
should retire for a few days to any town I 
should prefer, giving me his word of honour 
I should there remain unmolested. We 
shall afterwards see how much worth is the 
word of honour of Don Modesto Larea, 
Vice President of the Equator. I offered 
to go to Ambato, till he should write to 
me. Inthe mean while my imprisonment 
was relaxed, or continued for form sake, 
and on the 18th I set out, accompanied by 
an officer, for my place of banishment. 
Flores, in the mean while, arrived from 
Guayaquil, and from Latacunga I directed 
my first expostulation on the arbitrary and 
illegal treatment I had experienced; and 
from Ambato I directed a second, through 
the Minister of the Interior, Don Jose 
Valdivieso : instead, however, of an answer 
to my complaints, an order arrived that I 
should continue my march to Guayaquil. 
I happened to have been taken ill on my 
arrival at Ambato, and the officer who had 
been appointed to conduct me, represented 
officially to the Government my inability 
to proceed in my then state of health. 
Flores had then again left Quito for the 
frontiers of Pasto, and my friend Don Mo- 
desto Larea replied through my friend Don 
Jose Valdivieso, that I should proceed at 
‘any rate. It must be observed, as a sup- 
plement to this act of treachery, that ten 
days after this order was issued, Valdivieso 
gave a counter-order, in consequence of 
