; 
i 
3 
b. 
ON THE ast OF PERU. 79 
the government, and being endowed with 
liberal principles, is, in my opinion, well 
calculated to promote the interests of the 
country. My poor friend Hall fell a victim 
at the first breaking out of the Revolution; 
and you cannot imagine how sensibly I felt 
his loss, he being the only person in this 
part of the world for whom I had formed 
a sincere attachment. As a man of high 
scientific acquirements, he would have 
been highly useful to you. In August, 
1838, I sent you a considerable collection 
of plants, furnished exclusively by himself, 
with an account of several expeditions he 
made, accompanied by M. Boussingault, 
to the volcanoes of Pichincha, Antisana, 
Cotopaxi, and Chimborazo, on which latter 
mountain they reached an elevation of 
above 19,000 feet, or upwards of 300 and 
odd feet above the point ascended by 
Humboldt. Let me know if it reached 
you safely." 
The MSS. has been safely received, and 
I cannot give a better proof of the value 
I set upon it, than by laying it before the 
Scientific public, at the very earliest oppor- 
tunity; and I shall close this subject with 
a few particulars, chiefly extracted from a 
letter from his accomplished widow. 
“Colonel Hall quitted England for South 
America in 1820, and fourteen years of 
Separation, gilded by hope, have termi- 
nated in bereavement forever! I presume 
you know that he published ‘Travels in 
da and the United States,’ in 1816 
' and 1817, and ‘Travels in France,’ in 
the following year. From the former 
country he brought many plants of the 
hardy kinds, (but mostly, if not all, were 
already known in this country), many of 
Which are now flourishing in this neigh- 
bourhood. I do not think he studied the 
Science of Botany, though he appeared to 
be well acquainted with it, till he visited 
those regions teeming with the grand, 
beautiful, and magnificent. On referring 
to the last two letters I received from him, 
(dated in March and August, 1833,) I 
. am but lately returned. The actual 
government of this Republic of the Equator 
is one of the most villainous and most 
detested that can be picked out of all the 
bad South American governments. It 
happened to get into a war, or rather 
squabble, with that of Bogata, and when 
on the point of being attacked, in Septem- 
ber last, got dreadfully frightened with th 
apprehension of an internal revolt. It did 
me the honour to suppose I had much 
influence here, as I cordially despised 
both it and its proceedings. I was ac- 
cordingly one evening seized in my house, 
by a party of soldiers, and sent out of the 
Equatorian territory into the Peruvian, 
which nearly touches on Guayaquil. I 
went as far as Payta, and after five months’ 
absence returned, because the Govern- 
ment, being able to prove nothing against 
me, thought fit to make a display of libe- 
rality. Several of the most respectable 
Englishmen were banished at the same 
time, and with the same regard to justice. 
I am preparing to send to Dr. Hooker an 
account of my excursions by Boussin- 
gault to Chimborazo, &c., and shall include 
my trip to Payta. I shall endeavour to 
send a collection of plants to Humboldt, 
to whom I remitted a parcel by Boussin- 
gault, who long ere this must be in 
France.’ 
“The last dated one prepared me for 
the fatal event which ensued.—' And so 
having nothing to hope for from England, 
I have taken the cause into my own hands. 
You will ask what I shall gain by this 
trouble? Nothing, perhaps, save revenge 
for my own wrongs, and liberty for a people 
who scarcely deserve it: besides, (and 
this concluding sentence does no less credit 
to his heart than the line of conduct he 
pursued was destructive to his own peace 
and happiness, and even to his life;) 
he concludes, *my respect for Chimborazo 
made me feel an interest in the condition 
of the inhabitants; and, as something good 
in man, amid a great deal of what is bad, 
is found every where, our social feelings 
are always liable to be called into action 
without any direct reference to present 
advantage.’ ” 
