SOUTH AMERICA. 241 

 personages in London interested themselves in behalf of Third 



1 n • 1 n • • A 1 • 1 1 Journey. 



the collection, but all m vain. And vain also were the 



public and private representations of the first officer of 

 the Liverpool Custom-house in my favour. 



At last there came an order from the Treasury to say, 

 that any specimens Mr. Waterton intended to present to 

 public institutions might pass duty free ; but those which 

 he intended to keep for himself must pay the duty ! 



A friend now ^vrote to me from Liverpool, requesting 

 that I would come over and pay the duty, in order to save 

 the collection, which had just been detained there six 

 weeks. I did so. On paying an additional duty, (for 

 the moderate duty first imposed had already been paid,) 

 the man who had detained the collection, delivered it up 

 to me, assuring me that it had been well taken care of, 

 and that a fire had been frequently made in the room. 

 It is but justice to add, that on opening the boxes, there 

 was nothing injured. 



I could never get a clue to these harsh and unex- 

 pected measures, except that there had been some recent 

 smuggling discovered in Liverpool ; and that the man in 

 question had been sent down from London to act the 

 part of Argus. If so, I landed in an evil hour ; " iiefasto 

 die;" making good the Spanish proverb, " Pagan a las 

 veces, justos por pecadores ;" at times the innocent suffer 

 for the guilty. After all, a little encouragement, in the 

 shape of exemption from paying the duty on this collec- 



2 I 



