ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SIXTH EDITION. 



After the lapse of more than eighteen years since the voyage was made of which 

 those volumes give a hurried, but faithful sketch, I have been called upon to revise them 

 for their republication, in a new and cheaper shape, better suited, as I am led to hope, to 

 the taste of a large class of readers whom it is essentially important to interest in the class 

 of topics here treated of. 



South America, when I visited it in 1820, 1821, and 1822, was in a state of violent revo- 

 lution from end to end, and the field being so vast and conrplicated as to render any detailed 

 account impossible, I conceived that I should be doing more justice to the subject to extract 

 from my journal only such points as appeared best calculated to give a general, but, at the 

 same time, a just impression of the momentous scenes then passing. 



I adopted this course, on the principle that would have guided me in describing the 

 ravages of an earthquake, which I might have happened to witness, where any attempt to 

 describe the whole would manifestly lead to confusion ; while the narration of a selected 

 few of those circumstances which actually fell under my own observation, might, if faith- 

 fully painted, help to elucidate the whole catastrophe. 



A similar work, or one executed on the same plan, at the present moment, after an 

 interval of nearly twenty years, would unquestionably afford matter for one of the most 

 interesting, and perhaps useful, comparisons between promise and performance that the 

 political world has ever witnessed. 



Such a task, however, could be executed only by an eye-witness, who with equal oppor- 

 tunities to those which I enjoyed, and no less fidelity and diligence, should unite higher 

 powers of observation, and greater capability of giving them effectual expression. For 

 the describer of the present state of things in South America would be required, not 

 to relate what he should actually see, as I have attempted to do, but to trace and expose 

 the causes, as well as the probable consequences, of the dreadful state of confusion — 

 amounting in some places almost to anarchy — which, to the sorrow of every lover of 

 political freedom and of social improvement, too deeply characterises the society of that 

 magnificent continent. 



Nevertheless, when preparing this edition for the press, I set on foot some inquiries — 

 not indeed with a view to any change in the text — but to the introduction of such expla- 

 natory notes, as might help to throw light on the progress of those stupendous events of 

 which I saw only the commencement. But I soon discovered that, so far from these 

 researches enabling me to furnish information to others, they only tended still further to 

 mystify my own notions ; at last I gave up the inquiry in perfect despair, resolving neither 

 to touch a word of my original narrative, nor to add anything new. 



These volumes, therefore, must bo taken now, as they were at the time of their com- 

 position, twenty years ago, as a brief, but exact, account of the state of things existing in 

 South America, :it the termination of the mighty struggle between Spain and her colonies, 

 a moment necessarily of the highest interest in the history of that, as of every other 

 country which, having long boon dependent, has at length dissevered the connexion. This 

 transition state it was my good fortune to witness, and I have endeavoured to describe it 

 faithfully. 



London, March, 1840, 



