POLITICAL HISTORY OF CHILI. 221 
predecessors. It adopted at once the most energetic measures to 
establish order; introduced a necessary severity, which produced a 
hue and cry against it, in the country. But it was not diverted from 
its purpose. It went on reforming abuses, nipping revolution in its 
bud, and banishing the most refractory; by a salutary terror awed 
the many factions, and pursued vigorously its career of improvement 
in every branch of government. No one felt disposed to give it 
credit. All its acts were ascribed to one or other of the former 
parties. Every one spoke of them as being proposed, projected, or 
introduced by O'Higgins, Freyre, or Pinto, forgetting that their 
good intentions were never carried out, and that it w T as the abuses 
permitted by them that led to civil war. The present administration 
proved itself fit to rule. It wielded its power energetically but 
beneficially. Its vigilance never slept ; and the parties which occa- 
sionally showed symptoms of movement, have at last made up their 
minds to come into the fold of good citizens. 
The actual president at the time of our visit, was General Joaquim 
Prieto, a man of unblemished private character, full of benevolence, 
but who, no doubt, had he been left to the direction of his own feel- 
ings and judgment, at several periods of his official career, would by 
his mistaken lenity, have brought upon his government the fate of all 
the preceding ones. Fortunately for the lovers of order, he had for 
several years to aid him, as minister of war and the interior, Diego 
Portales, one of those master spirits a country but rarely produces ; 
a man whose early life was engaged in commerce, but who in the 
progress of revolutions, evincing more than ordinary utility, became 
a prominent politician, and eventually one of the leading men of the 
country. From his resolute and unbending temper, he was permitted 
to become the head of a party, and soon gained such an ascendency, 
that they abandoned themselves to his guidance. He might have 
obtained the presidency, had ordinary ambition directed him, but, 
impelled by a more noble one, he chose to attach himself to the ad- 
ministration as one of its ministers, in order, as subsequent events 
proved, that he might be better able to carry out the plans he medi- 
tated. He possessed a resolution in his political career which never 
swerved from what he conceived his duty, or what he thought the 
interests of his country required. He had the unyielding temper of 
a reformer; and never w r as one more wanted in any country. He 
recommended the establishment of a militia system, with a view to 
check every future military interference in the government; and 
vol. i. 50 
