214 POLITICAL HISTORY OF CHILI. 



at some non-compliance with his orders as captain-general; but 

 instead of returning to his family, started off to join the party of the 

 President in Valparaiso, setting himself in opposition to the Junta, and 

 calling upon all the officers to join him. Unfortunately, some of the 

 foreign officers did so. He embarked from Coquimbo with troops, 

 and thence proceeded to the south, landed, and was met at Lircai by 

 General Prieto's army, on the 17th April, 1830, when Freyre was 

 entirely defeated. This offence resulted in his banishment. Most of 

 the foreign officers were killed ; it is said, after they had surrendered. 



The elections now went forward; Don Francesco Tagle was re- 

 turned President, and Don Tomas Ovalle as Vice-President : both ex- 

 tensive land proprietors and respectable men. The first soon resigned, 

 and Ovalle exercised the honour but a short time, dying soon after his 

 accession. The President of the Senate acted until elections were 

 again held, when General Prieto was returned President, July 14th, 

 1831, and continued to hold the office at the time of our visit. 



It appears throughout the history of the different administrations 

 which have ruled the country since its separation from Spain, that all 

 have been directed by a common spirit of advancement to the country. 

 All their decrees prove this, and under any one of them, had they 

 retained power but a few successive years, it would have prospered. 

 As the people of Chili (that is to say, the mass of the population,) are 

 proverbial for their apathy, and disposed to submit to authority without 

 questioning its origin, the main error of the early administrations was 

 their extensive lenity towards political offenders, whose turbulent spirit 

 and restless ambition no clemency checked. The impunity with which 

 such disorganizers returned to their intrigues after repeated pardons, 

 and the too liberal, or, more properly speaking, visionary schemes of 

 government, no doubt operated to produce the sudden and frequent 

 changes of government, before any one of them had had time to 

 mature plans of improvement or organize a system of legislation, or a 

 mode for the proper administration of laws. A want of energy and 

 resolution of purpose encouraged factions to hope for success in their 

 attempts to gain the ascendency. Imaginary abuses were charged 

 home against each successive ruler, and the country was a prey to 

 convulsions. This state of affairs prevailed in a greater or less degree 

 till 1831, when the present administration came into power. Its course 

 was totally different from its 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 



