Vi PREFACE. 



most liberal and enlightened of their administrators. They 

 were before under the necessity of transmitting their MS. pro- 

 du6tions, destined for impression, to the capital of Spain, 

 where they were in most instances lost to the public, either 

 through the cupidity of the correspondents to whom the re- 

 mittances, intended to defray the expcnces, were made, or 

 through the restraints which are imposed, in every arbitrary 

 government, on those who dare to give a full scope to their 

 opinions. Those of the literati of Peru, on subje6ts apper- 

 taining to the policy of states, have been occasionally pro- 

 nounced with a boldness and a decision which mark a strong 

 spirit of independence, in the periodical works estabhshed, 

 within these few years, in the capital and other parts of that 

 kingdom. 



By one of those casualties* (if this term can be applied to 

 events arising from the preponderance of a formidable marine, 

 and from an heroic ardour carrying with it a resistless force), 

 by which Great Britain has appropriated to herself, in her 

 different contests with Spain, so great a share of the colonial 

 treasures belonging to the latter nation, several volumes of a 

 periodical work, printed at Lima, and richly stored with 



* The capture of the St. Jago, bound from Callao, the port of Lima, to Cadiz, 

 in 1793. 



intelle&ual 



