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 
