On the twenty-first of September, 1822, the news arrived in Chile, that Don Bernardo Monteagudo had been deposed from the ministry, and exiled from Peru.
The following are extracts from the papers published in Lima:
"Lima had scarcely obtained a glimpse of a flattering futurity, when a cunning, froward, and saucy individual, a traitor to the confidence of the government that had elevated him to the ministry, began to stifle our patriotism and its defenders. This insolent minister rewarded all praise-worthy services with the most gross invectives, and the most scandalous persecutions. His intriguing ambition filled our gazettes with a multitude of decrees in opposition to the plans which he himself had prescribed. His decrees were written that they might be read, not that they might be obeyed.
"Unfortunately for us, the genius of the revolution, San Martin, had to absent himself twice from our capital, to meet the Washington of Colombia. This perfidious oppressor availed himself of his absence to manifest the whole perversity of his soul. Until that period his persecutions were underhand, but they now became barefaced. All Spaniards were considered rich, they, their families and property, consequently became the prey of his insatiable avarice; and at the same time, those patriots who had contributed most to the success of the liberating army were persecuted to the utmost extremity. He formed a long list of proscriptions of men who were to be exiled for ever from their native country, and whose only crimes were their patriotic virtues, for the extinction of which he had formed a nest of the vilest spies, who unceasingly watched the steps of every man of honour. Great God! what an epoch of misery!
"Every honourable citizen found in Don Bernardo Monteagudo (this is the name of the monster of whom we speak) an enemy who at any price would have sacrificed him. How many victims has he not sacrificed in his one year's ministry! More than eight hundred honourable families have been by him reduced to extreme indigence, and the whole city to a state of misery.
"Among the patriots at Lima, nothing was thought of but where they might find an asylum in a foreign land. Without agriculture, commerce, industry, personal security, property, and laws, what is society but a mansion of the most afflicting torments!
"The religion of our forefathers suffered an equal persecution in its ministers and its temples; these were deprived of their riches, not for the service of our country, but for the reward of espionage, and to deceive us with useless trickeries. The satellites of this bandit were equally despotic with himself, and committed, under his protection, the most horrid crimes. This is not a proper place in which to insert the baseness with which he abused the delicacy and debility of females. Fathers of families **** every man was intimidated; every feeling man wept because all were the victims of the caprice of this insolent despot, who made an ostentation of atheism and ferocity.
"It is impossible to recapitulate his actions; volumes would be necessary to shew to the world the arbitrary crimes of this factious individual. It would appear, that for the commission of so many offences he must have had some cause that impelled him, for they could not possibly be the effects of ignorance. It was impossible to believe that by insulting and ruining every one; plundering our property; despising the ingenuity and talents of the Peruvians; and endeavouring to introduce anarchy, he could be long tolerated in this capital.
"His ambition was unlimited, having constituted himself the arbiter of the government. He had the assurance to dictate orders and decrees in opposition to those of the provincial statute, subscribing to them the name of the supreme authority; thus bringing it into contempt. Such conduct, when the enemy's army was within twenty leagues of Lima, and our government scarcely established, proves that his views were directed to undermine the state. Was the reducing of Peru to the most degrading slavery, that of obeying his capricious will, the means to make us happy or even himself?