POLITICAL HISTORY OF CHILI. 215 



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 was the 

 abuses permitted by them that led to civil war. The present adminis- 

 tration proved itself fit to rule. It wielded its power energetically but 

 beneficially. Its vigilance never slept ; and the parties which occa- 

 sionally show T ed 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 umblemished 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 pro- 

 gress of revolutions, evincing more than ordinary ability, 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 was 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 when 

 it was opposed, on the ground that it would only endanger the peace 

 of the country to place arms in the hands of the people, he answered, 

 " No ! depend upon it, the only way to secure permanent order, is to 

 create a power in the people which may be enlisted on their side; and 

 if this should declare against the government, it would be evidence 

 enough that it ought no longer to rule, for such a power should consist 

 of the best portion of the population of the country. The first object 



