"Bodmin, November 3rd, 1869.
""My dear Sir,
"Forty-seven years are now passed since I had the great pleasure of meeting your father in Peru, and I have a vivid remembrance of the gratification afforded to my messmates when he came to dine with us on board H.M.S. 'Aurora,' then lying in Callao. I was then a lieutenant of that beautiful frigate, and was introduced to your father by Mr. Hodge, of St. Erth, with whom I had become acquainted in Chili. I remember your father delighting us all on board the 'Aurora' by his striking description of the steam-engine, and his calculation of the 'horse-power' of the mighty wings of the condor in his perpendicular ascent to the summit of the Andes. Your father's strong Cornish dialect seemed to give an additional charm to his very interesting conversation, and my messmates were most anxious to see him on board again, but he left shortly after for the Sierra.
"The Pasco-Peruvian mines were those which your father was engaged to superintend before he left England, and he had actually managed, by incredible labour, to transport one or two steam-engines from the coast to the mines, when the war of independence broke out, and the patriots threw most of the machinery down the shafts. This fearful war was a deathblow to your father's sanguine hopes of making a rapid fortune. About a year after this terrible disappointment (I think in 1822), the 'San Martin,' an old Russian fir frigate, purchased by the Chilian Government, sank at her anchors in Chorillos Bay, ten miles south of Callao, and your father entered into an engagement with the Government in Lima to recover a large number of brass cannon, provided that all the prize tin and copper on board which might be got up should belong to him. This was a very successful speculation, and in a few weeks your father realized about 2500l. I remember visiting the spot with your father whilst the operations were carried on, and being astonished at the rude diving bell by which so much property was recovered from the wreck, and at the indomitable energy displayed by him. It was Mr. Hodge, and not I, who then urged in the strongest manner that at least 2000l. should be immediately remitted to your mother. Instead of this, he embarked the money in some Utopian scheme for pearl fishing at Panama, and lost all!
"I had the honour of dining with Lord Dundonald on board the crazy frigate 'Esmeralda,' which carried his flag in Callao Bay, but I never heard of the gallant conduct of your father in swimming off to his ship and advising him of an intended assassination. I fancy that this must have occurred before I came on the station, probably in 1820, or 1821.
"Believe me, "My dear Sir,
"Very sincerely yours,
"James Liddell."
Trevithick's floating caissons for the sunken ship of Margate Bay in 1810[130] were similarly applied in 1821 in the Bay of Callao. In Lima he became acquainted with Lord Dundonald, whom he warned of a plot on his life, discovered in his friendly intimacy at the residence of President Bolivar. Those two remarkable Englishmen were alike in their daring inventiveness, and not unlike in face and person.
We have traced Trevithick's steps from his landing at Lima in 1817 to the destruction of the mine machinery by the civil wars, and his departure from there about 1822. But one link in the chain has been nearly lost. During some portion of those five years he visited Chili, and set to work mines which are still producing large and profitable quantities of copper. The late Mr. Waters, an eminent Cornish miner, who for many years managed some of these mines in the neighbourhood of Valparaiso, said that Trevithick's name was better known to the miners there than to the miners in Cornwall. This statement was made in the Dolcoath account-house at a public meeting, the speaker and the writer being both on the committee of management.
Simon Whitbarn, of St. Day, informed the writer that at Copiapo and at Coquimbo he had seen large heaps of copper ore, apparently unclaimed, which the people said had been raised by Don Ricardo Trevithick. About 1830 a miner, returned from South America, made a claim for wages for watching mineral left behind by Mr. Trevithick.
To further illustrate this history, we have a report written by himself:—