The mountain Indian in particular, whose knowledge and usefulness our patriotic friend would fain improve and enlarge, long inured to servitude, and only acquainted with the rudest arts of life, has never arrived at a correct idea of the extent of his privations, or of the nature of those primary political rights which, by skilful combination and promises, (though himself too ignorant to reason on the merits of the cause,) he was at length goaded forward to assert, and for some time to sustain with manly energy. Thus have the meekest and most submissive of men, through vigorous exertions on the part of the few who conceived and originated the plan of their independence, been stirred up to despite their unjust rulers, and trained to the use of fire-arms, at the very sight of which they formerly trembled. The effect of such education must for some time be productive of disorder; for, to apply a homely illustration, the fire that is lit by the husbandman to destroy overgrown and noxious weeds, cannot always be checked before it scorches the cane or the corn field; and so it is with hostile passions, which when once excited, though for a good and patriotic purpose, cannot always be quelled at pleasure, or at once restrained within the limits of perfect order and rational liberty. Of this the recent history of Peru affords ample evidence, for, since the close of General Gamarra’s troubled government, there has scarcely been a lull of temporary peace in that ill-fated country.[27] It is asserted by those who best knew this influential man’s counsels, that, during his four years’ rule, he crushed no fewer than fourteen conspiracies more or less matured against his person or government: yet at the expiration of his lawful term of presidentship, to which dignity his artful schemes conducted him on the ruin of his predecessor, the beloved General La Mar, he had scarcely relinquished his high office in January 1834, when he was seen to rear the standard of rebellion, and hasten the downfall of his country by authorizing insurrection with his example. Although frustrated in this shameful revolt, in the year following he was again at the head of an armed faction, and in open and sanguinary rebellion. But finally, after the disastrous battle of Yanacocha, and total dispersion of his surviving partisans, he came to Lima for refuge against the united and victorious force of his legitimate foes, the Peruvian president Orbegoso, with his Bolivian ally, Santa-Cruz. And here in the capital, while receiving the condolence of his mortified friends, and mourning the loss of his heroic wife, the renowned Panchita,[28] whose heart in his utmost adversity was presented to him by a confidential female friend, enclosed in a glass,—he had little leisure to weep over it. Ere his awakened sorrow was soothed, he was arrested on a rough military warrant, and, in company with several of his friends or adherents, once more hurried away into banishment by the stern orders of the impetuous General Salaverry, a rival leader, less artful and wary, but more active and daring than himself.
Lest anything should be wanting to crown the accumulated miseries of a distracted and afflicted people, his excellency the provisional president of the republic, Don Jose Louis Orbegoso, in his address to the Peruvians, dated Tarma, January 4th, 1836, and published in the Redactor of Lima on the 9th day of the same month, solemnly affirmed and promulgated that “the very laws, dictated with the pure intention of securing happiness to the commonwealth, had concentrated within themselves the elements of her destruction. These laws had proved a safeguard to the seditious, and had been the bulwarks of rebellion. Through their operation the executive had been forced to feel the volcano at its feet, though unable to prevent an eruption. Yes, under the overseeing eye of the government, the revolutions had been hatched and brought forth, reared and strengthened into maturity.”
This acknowledgment, from a president duly invested with extraordinary or dictatorial powers, renounced every rational idea of government, and virtually declared the incapacity of the supreme authority to protect the person, property, or rights of the citizen, or to sustain the necessary subordination of society. By this government, which so frankly declared its own imbecility, men either faithless or inept were, perhaps for want of better, appointed to fill offices of high trust and power; and in this way was kindled the train of that sanguinary revolution, which, in the year 1835, burst forth like the flaming combustibles and poisonous eructations of an overwhelming volcano; spreading consternation, outrage, and desolation over the wide range of its fearful sweep. But, during the whole of this tumultuous period, the Limenian mob, made up, though it be, of mixed and most variegated castes, illustrated by their example how slow the mind is to cast off early and deeply rooted habits; for, after the lapse of so many years of civil dissension, they showed that, as a whole, they still retained the feelings of public subjection (unfortunately not turned to account by any steady government) to which, in olden times, they were habituated under the jurisdiction of the Spaniards. For several days during this period there was no sort of police in the capital. The government and garrison had abandoned it, and shut themselves up within the fortress and castles of Callao; but yet the populace showed a singular measure of forbearance, and the instances of outrage and pillage committed in the streets were exceedingly few.
At this conjuncture of danger and uncertainty, foreign property in the capital was guarded by marines, English, French, and American, from their respective vessels of war on the station: but, for several months previously to these days of general panic and dismay, the capital had been the theatre of daily broils; the banditti and soldiery being engaged in ceaseless though irregular contest for the mastery both within and without the walls. The inhabitants were affected with a sort of nervous infirmity, or morbid susceptibility of impression, proceeding from the unsubdued feeling of impending danger.
E l’aspettar del male è mal peggiore
Forse, che non parrebbe il mal presente:
Pende, ad ogn’aura incerta di romore,
Ogni orecchia sospesa ed ogni mente;