ML 



rjy^ AUTHORS PREFACE. 



FOUR years have elapsed since I promised to pub- 

 lish the present Essay on the Civil History of 

 Chili, as a continuation of the one formerly written 

 on the Natural History of that country. Engage- 

 ments of this kind are, however, from their nature 

 conditional. When I undertook this work, it was in 

 full confidence of being in a short time in possession 

 of the necessary materials to complete it. The first 

 volume of the Abbé Olivares^ manuscript I had 

 then in my possessim ; this, with what works had 

 appeared in print, supplied me with sufficient docu- 

 ments until the year 1665; and I was in constant 

 expectation of receiving from Peru the second volume 

 of the same author, in which he has brought the sub^ 

 ject down to a late period. 



In this hope I was disappointed. This volume, on 

 which I had so confidently relied, I have never re- 

 ceived, and have been in consequence compelled to 

 seek from various other sources the i? formation 

 which it would have given me. The wars of the 

 natives with the Spaniards being, hoxvever, the only 

 proper subject of Chilian History, and but two having 

 occurred since the above period, the first in 1722 



and the second hi 1 767, / have been enabled, by thé 

 Vol. II 1 



