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. 
4th. — 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 
