Apart from the monetary, the diplomatic credit of Peru has always been respectably sustained at the Court of St. James’s. The corps at present consists of Don Manuel de Mendiburu, minister plenipotentiary; Don Francisco de Rivero, consul-general, 78, Grosvenor-street, Grosvenor-square; Don Emilio Altheus, D. M. Espantosa, and Major D. S. Osma, attachés. Consul’s-office, 6, Copthall-court. Consuls—J. E. Naylor, Liverpool; R. J. Todd, Cardiff; John G. Dodd, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Edward Wright, Dublin.
England is represented in Peru by Mr. S. H. Sullivan, chargé d’affaires at Lima; salary as such £1,700 a-year, besides the usual £1 per diem allowed to all functionaries of that class discharging consular duties. Until last year (1853) the diplomatic salary was £2,000. At Callao, the port of Lima, the salary of the consul (Mr. J. Barton) has also been reduced from £500 to £200, but the fees of office still make the post very lucrative. At Islay, the vice-consul, Mr. T. Crompton, receives £500; and at Arica and Payta, Mr. G. H. Nugent and Mr. Alexander Blacker, vice-consuls, £300 and £100 respectively.
[8] CHILI.—Though probably none of the Spanish conquests in South America were effected with greater ease than that of Chili—a sort of dependency on the Incas of Peru, and faithful to their cause long after it was lost at head-quarters—nowhere were the natives impressed so much at first with the superiority of the invincible stranger, a sum equivalent to half a million of ducats being presented to Almagro, in recognition of his ‘divinity’ when he crossed the Cordilleras; yet none of their acquisitions, subsequently, cost the conquerors more trouble. Notwithstanding the scandalous cruelties of the invaders, it was not till 1546, ten years after Valdivia (a second lieutenant of Pizarro’s) had entered their country, that resistance was wholly put down. The Chilians, the last in being subdued, were also among the first to take advantage of the troubles of the mother country in her decrepitude and decline. On the invasion of Spain by the French, and the rout of the Spanish Bourbons in 1809, Chili, affecting to be solicitous for the sovereignty of Ferdinand VII., and to be desirous of administering the government of itself in his name, established a junta in the capital, St. Jago, in 1810, and ultimately avowed itself a decided separatist. Spain, however, was still able to make head against the revolutionists; and after a series of encounters, in which fortune alternated rapidly, she vindicated her authority by a very decisive victory at Rancagua, in 1817. This, however, did not prevent the popular party triumphing at Chacabuco, in the same year, and seizing on the capital. Again the king’s troops succeeded at Chancarayada; but, once more, and conclusively, the republicans carried all before them in the eventful battle of Maypu, in 1818, though it was not till the beginning of 1826 that the province was finally freed from the presence of the peninsular cohorts, and declared independent, the old country itself, however, refusing any such recognition till 1842, when a treaty of peace and friendship was signed at Madrid, and ratifications exchanged in 1845. Throughout these wars the most conspicuous revolutionary leader was General San Martin, a soldier of Irish origin, as his name imports,[9] being one of the many of his countrymen whom the struggles for independence brought forward in the Spanish colonies, in none more so than in Chili, the first Supreme Director, as the officer elected by the juntas was originally called, being Barnardo O’Higgins, with whom were associated Col. O’Leary, General Miller, and numerous others ‘racy of the soil’ of saints and shillelaghs. Of all the European celebrities, however, who figured on the stage of South American strife, none are to be compared to the heroic Lord Cochrane, now the venerable Admiral Earl Dundonald, who, having fitted out a ship of his own in England in the cause of the patriots, and being appointed to the command of the Chilian fleet, coöperating with the land forces of Bolivar, displayed that characteristic skill and enterprise which have so preëminently distinguished him throughout his chivalrous and romantic career, some few incidents of which will be found mentioned in our notice of a congenial and no less heroic spirit, Admiral Grenfell, of the Brazilian service, in which Dundonald played a conspicuous part.
From what we have said already, both of Mexico and also of Peru, it will naturally be inferred that Chili has suffered greatly from internal disorders; but, unlike those countries, she has contrived to avoid a very onerous national debt; and consequently her credit abroad is comparatively very good; indeed, better probably than that of any South American state, save Brazil, whose securities rank next to those of Great Britain itself. The recent gold discoveries in California and Australia have immensely increased her export trade, and will continue to do so for an indefinite period; while a large source of domestic revenue has been opened up by the possession of guano islands (of which more hereafter), second only in extent, and scarcely second in richness, to those treasures of a like kind whereof we have spoken under the head of Peru, the example of which country is followed as to the maintenance of the price of the article at an exorbitant rate.
The Chilian diplomatic and consular corps in England consists of Spencer N. Dickson, consul, 8, Great Winchester-street, London; W. W. Alexander, consul, Bristol, Cardiff, and Newport; William Jackson, consul, Liverpool; Thomas W. Fox, jun., consul, Plymouth; James H. Wolff, consul, Southampton; John W. Leach, consul, Swansea. The British diplomatic and consular corps in Chili consists of the Hon. E. J. Harris, chargé d’affaires at the capital, St. Jago, salary £1,600, and the usual consular allowance of £1 per diem; consul at Valparaiso, Mr. Henry Rouse, salary £300, reduced from £700; consul at Coquimbo, Mr. David Ross, salary £300; and vice-consul at Conception, Mr. Robert Cunningham, salary £250—all exclusive of fees.
[9] His aid-de-camp was General John O’Brien, afterwards accredited by the Banda Oriental, or State of the Uruguay, as diplomatic representative to England, where he contributed greatly to familiarise the British public with the bearings of the Plate Question, and to popularise the cause of Monte Videan resistance to the aggression of Rosas. In this object he was essentially assisted by his learned and accomplished countryman, Mr. W. Bernard Macabe, a distinguished London journalist, and well-known author in historical and miscellaneous literature, who discharged the duties of acting consul-general for the Uruguay in London for some years, till the end of 1852, when he proceeded to Dublin, where he has since prosecuted his intellectual avocations with his customary assiduity and success. The General, we believe, is now residing in honoured retirement, in his old age, in the neighbourhood of Valparaiso, on a property allowed him by the Government of Chili, to whose original independence his exertions materially contributed.
[10] The subject of this poem is the establishment of the Portuguese empire in India; but whatever of chivalrous, great, beautiful, or noble, could be gathered from the traditions of his country, has been interwoven into the story. Among all the heroic poets, says Schlegel, either of ancient or modern times, there has never, since Homer, been any one so intensely national, or so loved or honoured by his countrymen, as Camoens. It seems as if the national feelings of the Portuguese had centred and reposed themselves in the person of this poet, whom they consider as worthy to supply the place of a whole host of poets, and as being in himself a complete literature to his country. Of Camoens they say,
Vertere fas; æquare nefas; æquabilis uni
Est sibi; par nemo; nemo secundus erit.
Few modern poems in any language, have been so frequently translated as the ‘Lusiad.’ Mr. Adamson, whose ‘Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Camoens’ must be familiar to the reader, notices one Hebrew translation of it, five Latin, six Spanish, four Italian, three French, four German, and two English. Of the two English versions one is that of Sir R. Fanshawe, written during Cromwell’s usurpation, and distinguished for its fidelity to the original; the other is that of Mickle, who, unlike the former, took great liberties with the original, but whose additions and alterations have met with great approbation from all critics—except, as indeed was to be expected, from the Portuguese themselves.—Dr. Cauvin.—In the course of the present year (1854) another English version, from the pen of Sir Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, and formerly on the staff in the Peninsula, has been issued by Messrs. Boone, of Bond-street, in one volume, with an engraving, said to be an excellent likeness, of the poet.