24 



DISTRESS OF LIMA. 



able ; or if any one had the advantage, it was the 

 donkeys, who from the absence of all business 

 were, for the first time in their lives, exempted 

 from labour. The men were miserable from un- 

 wonted privation, apprehended loss of fortune, and 

 wounded national pride. But the ladies, however 

 annoyed by these circumstances, in common with 

 the rest of the world, still maintained their pre- 

 rogative of having their own way ; a right which, 

 when acting in co-operation with the impenetrable 

 disguise of the saya and manto, give to manners 

 a tone and character that may be imagined, but 

 cannot well be described. Neither would it be 

 fair for a passing and busy visitor, like myself, 

 with his thoughts and attention occupied by other 

 objects, to give general opinions upon the habits of 

 a great city. But even had our opportunities and 

 leisure been greater, the moment was singularly 

 unpropitious, since scarcely any circumstance in 

 society occupied its wonted place. Even in families, 

 the effect of the times was deeply felt : a particular 

 view of politics was adopted by one member, the 

 opposite by another ; some acted from principle, 

 some from interest, others from fear ; thus sin- 

 cerity and confidence were banished, just at the 

 moment when the pressure of the war was most 

 urgent, and when a cordial union was the only 

 safeguard against the ruin and misery of the whole 

 house. 



Had my attention been less occupied in pre- 

 serving a prudent and circumspect line of conduct, 

 I might, undoubtedly, have noticed many incidents, 

 which, if properly described, would have served 

 to characterise the singular state of Lima at the 

 moment : but this being impossible, I could only 

 hope to catch occasionally some minute though 

 sufficiently portentous symptoms of the times. 



We of course paid our respects to the venerable 

 Archbishop of Peru, who professed himself much 

 attached to the English, and entertained us with a 

 discourse on the advantages of free commerce, and 

 the just exercise of other civil rights. This surely 

 was ominous. From the Archbishop's palace, we 

 crossed the square to an old lady's house, whom 

 we found, as well as her daughter, in deep grief. 

 The cause we did not inquire ; having for some 

 days known, although it had been concealed from 

 her, that her son, who had betrayed his allegiance 

 to his king, and gone over to the Patriots, had 

 been taken prisoner, and shot as a traitor. This 

 also belonged to the times. 



On the same day a lady applied to me for a 

 passage to Chili, where her husband then was, a 

 prisoner of war : she had succeeded, she said, 

 after much trouble, in obtaining permission from 

 the Government to leave Lima ; for such were 

 the suspicions of every one, that even a wife's 

 motives for joining her husband in prison were 

 looked upon with distrust, and made matter of 

 long debate in council. So little accustomed of 

 late was the poor woman to being treated with any 

 confidence or consideration, that when I frankly 

 promised her a passage, she could scarcely believe 

 it possible, and burst into tears. 



Very different tears, I suspect, were shed by 

 another lady whom we called upon immediately 

 afterwards. News had just arrived of her husband, 

 the Marquis of Torre Tagle, (afterwards a leading 

 public character,) having gone over from the 

 Royalist cause to that of the Patriots, while she, 



good lady, remained in the power of the Royalists. 

 Both she and her husband being natives of Lima, 

 and persons of wealth and high rank, their politics 

 had long been suspected to have a tendency to the 

 Independent cause, which offered to persons so 

 situated a great increase of fortune and con- 

 sequence ; and many people deemed the fair 

 lady's sorrow was not so deeply seated as her 

 tears implied. But hypocrisy was the ruling sin 

 of the hour. 



I dined one day with a party of gentlemen at a 

 pleasant country-house in Miraflores, a fashionable 

 bathing-place, six miles south of Lima. Villas 

 and ornamented cottages were thickly scattered 

 around us, but instead of being filled with company, 

 as in times of peace, no one was now to be seen, 

 although this was the height of the season : the sea 

 broke idly on the beach without wetting the feet 

 of a single bather ; not a guitar, nor a song, nor 

 the merry sound of a dance, was heard in any of 

 the bowers or shady verandahs ; no lively groups 

 were seated on the neat stone benches, tastefully 

 fitted up round the houses ; and the fine shady 

 gravel walks in the numerous gardens round the 

 villas were quite deserted, and all running into 

 weeds. The gay multitude, who formerly gave 

 animation to this spot, were now drawn into the 

 capital ; the only place where they could feel 

 secure ; and where they derived, or sought to 

 derive, a melancholy consolation from companion- 

 ship ; and soon forgot, in the pressure of want and 

 the immediate apprehension of violence, those 

 enjoyments once deemed absolute necessaries of 

 life. 



From the highest to the lowest person in society, 

 every one felt the increasing evils that crowded 

 round the sinking state. Actual want had already 

 begun to pinch the poor ; the loss of almost every 

 comfort affected the next in rank ; and luxuries of 

 all kinds were discarded from the tables of the 

 highest class. Military contributions were heavily 

 exacted from the moneyed men ; the merchants 

 lost their commerce ; the shop-keepers their wonted 

 supplies. Even the Viceroy himself held his power 

 by no enviable tenure ; being surrounded by a 

 suspicious and turbulent population, and by an 

 army, to whose criminal insubordination alone he 

 owed his authority. The city was invaded by a 

 cautious and skilful general on land, and blockaded 

 by an enterprising commander at sea ; and to wind 

 up the evils of this ill-fated city, many of those 

 men from whose steady and sincere support much 

 might have been expected, were wasting their 

 time in useless reproaches and recriminations. 



Two years antecedent to this period, when an 

 attack from Chili was first seriously apprehended, 

 it had been suggested by some clear-sighted indi- 

 viduals, that the trade of Lima should be thrown 

 open ; whereby the treasury, filled by the increased 

 receipts of the customs, would be able to meet the 

 expenses of a defensive war. As these very per- 

 sons were amongst the number who derived the 

 greatest benefit from the existing monopoly, it was 

 much to the credit of their sagacity, that they 

 foresaw more ample personal profits from a fair 

 competition, than from their portion of monopoly. 

 Simple and effectual as the above proposal seemed, 

 as far as the immediate security of the state was 

 concerned, the local authorities hesitated to adopt 

 it without licence from Spain: every one ac- 



