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British Consular Reports on the Trade and Politics of Latin America, 1824–1826

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

In my despatch No. 12 I mentioned that M. Rivadavia had promised me some materials for the formation of a general report upon the state of this Government. I have lately received through him several notices thereupon, which have enabled me to draw up the paper which I have the honor to enclose, and which will be found to contain a general summary of the rise and progress of this State since the first declaration of its independence in 1810.

By the next packet I hope to be able to send you the report upon commercial matters to which I have alluded in the same despatch.

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Reports
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Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1940

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References

page 1 note 1 1796–1882. Appointed consul-general at Buenos Aires on 10 Oct. 1823. Chargé d'affaires 24 May 1825–16 Sept. 1826, and 31 July 1828–11 Oct. 1831. Negotiated and signed the treaty of 2 Feb. 1825 between Great Britain and the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata. Returned to England in 1832. There is a life of Parish by Nina L. Kay Shuttleworth, (1910).

page 1 note 2 25 April 1824, F.O. 6/3.

page 1 note 3 Bernardino Rivadavia, 1780–1845; secretary of war and then of the treasury to the first triumvirate, instituted in Sept. 1811, and subsequently triumvir; commissioner to Europe, 1815–20; secretary of government and foreign affairs, July 1821–May 1824; envoy to Great Britain and France, 1825; president of the United Provinces, Feb. 1826–July 1827.

page 1 note 4 A report on the government and institutions of Buenos Aires was drawn up for Parish by Ignacio Núñez, then an under-secretary. Núñez afterwards accompanied Rivadavia to England and there published his report, with considerable additions, under the title of Noticias históricas, politicas, y estadisticas, de las Provincias Unidas del Rio de la Plata … London, 1825Google Scholar. An English translation appeared in the same year, and a French edition in 1826. Cf. Núñez to Parish, 15 June 1824, F.O. 354/7; Parish to Núñez, 27 June 1824, F.O. 354/3.

page 2 note 1 25 May 1810, on which day a junta at Buenos Aires displaced the authority of the Viceroy, is commonly regarded as the beginning of Argentine independence. In December this junta was enlarged and in Sept. 1811 it was replaced by the first triumvirate. The first triumvirate gave way to the second in Oct. 1812, and this in turn was replaced by the directorate in Jan. 1814. The office of director had been exercised by six different persons when a Congress of 32 deputies meeting at Tucumán appointed Juan Martin de Pueyrredón (infra, p. 6, n. 1) supreme director on 3 May 1816, and on 9 July promulgated a Declaration of the Independence of the United Provinces of South America. A more general account of the history of this period will be found in Kirkpatrick, , History of the Argentine Republic, pp. 59130Google Scholar, and a more detailed in Levene, , History of Argentina, pp. 220–99Google Scholar. The Declaration of Independence is printed in Kirkpatrick, p. 241.

page 2 note 2 Infra, no. II.

page 2 note 3 The passages in square brackets have been scored through in pencil.

page 3 note 1 Charles IV abdicated on 19 March 1808, and Ferdinand the Well-Beloved was forced to renounce the throne on 10 May. On 6 June Napoleon proclaimed Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain and the Indies. The famous revolt in Madrid, which was the prelude to the national uprising against the invader, had already occurred on 2 May.

page 3 note 2 Letters and proclamations were sent out by Napoleon to the Spanish officials in the Indies, and expeditions to Mexico and Buenos Aires contemplated. The agents sent to Caracas were driven from the city by an infuriated mob on their arrival in July 1808; and the Marquis of Sassenay, dispatched to Buenos Aires in May, was expelled by the Porteños and imprisoned by the authorities at Montevideo. Miller, , Memoirs of General Miller, i. 359Google Scholar; de Sassenay, Marquis, Napoléon I et la fondation de la république Argentine (Paris, 1892), pp. 145–55, 188–91Google Scholar; Robertson, W. S., ‘The juntas of 1808 and the Spanish colonies’, E.H.R., xxxi (1916), pp. 573–5, 584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 3 note 3 The Viceroy of New Spain summoned a junta which met at Mexico City on 9 Aug. 1808; the audiencia of Chuquisaca deposed its president on 25 May 1809, and there were various disturbances at Buenos Aires in 1808 and 1809. The principal juntas, set up in the name of Ferdinand VII, were as follows:— La Paz, 16 July 1809; Quito, 10 Aug. 1809; Caracas, 19 April 1810; Buenos Aires, 25 May 1810; Santa Fé de Bogotá, 20 July 1810; Santiago de Chile, 18 Sept. 1810.

page 3 note 4 The Cortes of Cádiz, summoned by the Regency which had been set up in Jan. 1810, met on 24 Sept. of that year, and its sessions continued till 14 Sept. 1813. The Americans had 29 representatives. It was responsible for the celebrated constitution of 18 March 1812.

page 4 note 1 Notably, the demands of the Americans for equal representation, for free trade, and for the abolition of government monopolies were alike rejected. On the legislation and attitude of the Cortes see Zimmerman, A. F., ‘Spain and its colonies, 1808–1820’, H.A.H.R., xi (1931), pp. 448–55Google Scholar; and Walton, , Exposé of the dissentions of Spanish America, pp. 282–9.Google Scholar

page 4 note 2 Before the Cortes met the Regency had decreed the blockade of Caracas (31 Aug. 1810) and Venezuela declared her independence on 5 July 1811. Walton, , op. cit., app. p. xGoogle Scholar; and infra, p. 273, n. 2.

page 4 note 3 For the proffered English mediation in 1812 and the attitude of Cádiz see Webster, nos. 493–508.

page 4 note 4 However impolitic the conduct of the Cortes may have been, that of Ferdinand VII on his restoration in 1814 was infinitely worse. There was no declaration of independence in the La Plata region till 1816, though the acts of the constituent assembly which met in Jan. 1813 certainly implied independence. On the work of this assembly see Varela, , Historia constitutional, ii. 268303Google Scholar. Its sessions, together with those of succeeding congresses, are printed in Emilio Ravignani's great work, Asambleas constituyentes Argentinas … (Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, 5 vols., 1937–8).

page 5 note 1 In point of fact, Buenos Aires had waged almost continuous war on two fronts since 1810. For the real circumstances under which the struggle for independence began see the references supra, p. 2, n. 1.

page 5 note 2 Supra, p. 2, n. 1. It was the assembly of 1813, not of 1816, that created the directorate.

page 5 note 3 Infra, p. 90, n. 2; p. 107, n. 2.

page 6 note 1 Juan Martín de Pueyrredón (1776–1850) was supreme director from May 1816 to June 1819, when he was succeeded by General José Rondeau. The office of director was not abolished till Feb. 1820. By way of contrast to Parish's judgment, which, it is interesting to notice, he does not repeat in his Buenos Ayres and the provinces of the Río de la Plata (1852), pp. 85–6Google Scholar, I quote the words of Varela, , Historia constitutional, iii. 209Google Scholar, ‘San Martín, Belgrano y Pueyrredón, tienen, sobre todos los demás próceres argentinos, la inmensa ventaja de no haberse sentido contaminados por la influencia de los partidos en que se dividieron los mismos argentinos, ni haber sido perturbados un soloinstante por ambiciones personales ó por intereses bastardos.’ Faced with a difficult external and internal situation, Pueyrredón did everything in his power to assist San Martín in his organization of the great army of the Andes which was to liberate Chile. Varela discusses his work in ibid., iii. 182–211.

page 6 note 2 Carlos Luís de Borbón, nephew of Ferdinand VII. Pueyrredón favoured Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans. Lucca was suggested by the French Government, and the suggestion was well received by Pueyrredón's successor, Rondeau, and by the Congress of Tucumán. The story of these monarchical designs is told in detail in Villanueva, , Bolívar y el General San Martín, pp. 90160Google Scholar, and in Belgrano, Mario, La Francia y la monarquía en el Plata (1818–1820) (Buenos Aires, 1933)Google Scholar. See also Webster, i. 30, and B.F.S.P., vi. 10851100Google Scholar. These schemes were only the last in Buenos Aires, if the most serious, of several fruitless monarchical plans. Since 1814 Rivadavia had been engaged in Europe in negotiations for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under a Spanish prince. He had approached Charles IV, through an intermediary, on behalf of the Infante Francisco de Paula, and had then gone himself to Madrid. From Madrid he proceeded to Paris to further the cause of Louis Philippe. Rivadavia's activities, partly discussed in Villanueva, op. cit., have been more fully revealed in Belgrano, Mario, Rivadavia y sus gestiones diplomáticas con España, 1815–1820 (2nd ed., Buenos Aires, 1934)Google Scholar; Ravignani, E., ed., Comisión de Bernardino Rivadavia ante España y otras potencias de Europa, 1814–20, (2 vols., Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Buenos Aires, 1933–6)Google Scholar; and Robertson, W. S., France and Latin-American independence (Baltimore, 1939), pp. 158 ff.Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 The opposition between Buenos Aires and the provinces which had been erected or had erected themselves out of the old viceroyalty is one of the fundamental facts of early Argentine history. The situation was already dangerous when in April 1819 the Congress at Buenos Aires promulgated a highly unitary constitution which presupposed a large degree of centralisation. The jealousies of the provinces, fearful of the power and influence of Buenos Aires, as well as of the monarchical designs of the Government, were at once intensified, and the constitution provided the immediate occasion or excuse for that ‘anarchy of 1820’ which swept away the National Government. The caudillos of Entre Ríos and Santa Fe marched against the Director and defeated him at Cepeda (1 Feb. 1820); the congress and directorate vanished and only a rudimentary federation, adumbrated in the Treaty of Pilar (23 Feb. 1820), remained. Cf. Varela, , Historia constitutional, iii. 265–8, 348Google Scholar, and Ravignani, , Historia constitutional, i. 301–38, 373Google Scholar. Buenos Aires and Santa Fé were at war within four months of the signing of the treaty.

page 7 note 2 Infra, p. 16.

page 8 note 1 Carlota Joaquina, sister of Ferdinand VII and wife of the future João VI of Portugal, at the time prince regent in Brazil. Carlota claimed to rule over South America in the name of her father. The intrigues of this designing woman with a group of exiles from Buenos Aires at Rio de Janeiro and at Buenos Aires and Montevideo are discussed by Rubio, J. M., La Infanta Carlota Joaquina y la politica de España en América, 1808–1812 (Madrid, 1920)Google Scholar. Ruiz-Guiñazú, , Lord Strangford y la revolución de Mayo, pp. 8094Google Scholar, describes the romantic rôle played by Admiral Sir Sidney Smith.

page 8 note 2 Supra, p. 6, n. 2.

page 8 note 3 The province of Buenos Aires appears to have had at least 24 governors in the one year 1820. Zinny, Antonio, Historia de los gobernadores de las provincias Argentinas (5 vols., ‘La Cultura Argentina’, 1920–1), ii. 2043.Google Scholar

page 8 note 4 The provincial government of Buenos Aires under Martin Rodríguez (Sept. 1820–April 1824) and his successor, Juan Gregorio de las Heras. Rodriguez appointed Rivadavia his secretary of government and foreign affairs, and Manuel José García (1784–1848) his secretary of the treasury. The reforms which Parish now describes were in the main due to Rivadavia's initiative.

page 8 note 5 In the midst of the ‘anarchy of 1820’ both Buenos Aires and Córdoba advocated the meeting of a general congress, though they differed on its place of meeting. On 24 Nov., through the mediation of the governor of Córdoba, a pact was signed between Buenos Aires and Santa Fé, and it was agreed that a congress should assemble in the city of Córdoba. Buenos Aires accepted this result with a bad grace, and it was not until March 1821 that deputies from Buenos Aires actually arrived in Córdoba. Levene, R., La anarquía de 1820 en Buenos Aires desde el punto de vista institutional (Buenos Aires, 1933), pp. 151–6, 184–8Google Scholar; Ravignani, , Historia constitutional, i. 339–42Google Scholar; ii. 123–74. For the later history of this congress see infra, p. 16, n. 1.

page 10 note 1 In British Museum, Add. MSS. 33545, fos. 596–7, is a letter from Rivadavia to Jeremy Bentham, dated 26 Aug. 1822, which I cannot forbear to quote. ‘Depuis le dernier instant’, writes Rivadavia, ‘que j'eus l'honneur de passer avec vous, il y a plus de 18 mois, je n'ai cessé de méditer vos principes en matière de législation; et à mon retour ici j'ai éprouvé une satisfaction bien grande en voyant les profondes racines qu'ils jettaient et l'ardeur de mes concitoyens à les adopter. Vous verrez, Monsieur, que le Réglement de notre chambre des députés ci-joint, que j'ai eu l'honneur de lui proposer et qu'elle a sanctionné dans une de ses séances, est entièrement basé sur les incontestables et frappantes vérités contenus dans votre ouvrage sur la Tactique des Assemblées Legislatives; et dans la chaire de droit civil que j'ai fait instituer se professent les principes éterneles, démontrés si savement, dans votre cours de Législation. … Aussi donc vous saurez que je me suis appliqué à reformer les anciens abus de toute espèce, qui pouvaient se rencontrer dans l'administration; à empêcher que d'autres s'etablissent; à donner aux séances de la chambre des représentants la dignité que leur convient; à favoriser l'etablissement d'une Banque Nationale sur des bases solides; à réformer, après leur avoir assuré une indemnité juste, les employés civiles et militaires qui surchargiaient inutilement l'état; à protéger par des lois repressives la sûreté individuelle; à ordonner et faire exécuter des travaux publics d'une utilité reconnue; à protéger le commerce, les sciences et les arts; à provoquer une loi, sanctionnée par la chambre, qui réduit de beaucoup les droits de douane; à provoquer également une réforme écclesiastique bien nécessaire et que j'ai l'espérance d'obtenir: en un mot à faire tous les changements avantageux que l'éspoir de votre honorable approbation m'a donné la force d'entreprendre, et me fournira celle d'executer.’

page 10 note 1 Enclosures:—(i) Decree on the Character of the Junta of Representatives, 3 Aug. 1821; (ii) Law of Elections [14 Aug. 1821]; (iii) Reglamento que establece el orden de las operaciones, y la polícia de la sala de representantes de la provincia de Buenos Ayres… 26 07 1822Google Scholar. See the discussion of these laws and of the Ley del Poder Ejecutivo, 23 Nov. 1822, in Ravignani, , Historia constitutional, i. 351–5Google Scholar; ii. 90–117. Though there were 24 representatives for the city, there were only 22 for the province.

page 11 note 1 Enclosures:—(i) Law establishing the inviolability of property, 5 Sept. 1821; (ii) Extension of above decree to all property in the province, whatever its ownership, 21 June 1822.

page 11 note 2 Enclosure: Ley de Olvido, 7 May 1822.

page 12 note 1 Enclosure:—Decree relative to the establishment of the Registro Oficial, 24 08 1821Google Scholar. Official decrees had from time to time appeared in the Gaceta de Buenos Aires (1810–21)Google Scholar, in the Redactor de la Asamblea (1813–15)Google Scholar and in the Redactor del Congreso National (1816–20)Google Scholar. There are facsimile editions of each of these periodicals.

page 12 note 2 The law of 21 Dec. 1822 which abolished the personal fuero of the clergy, suppressed the tithe, reformed ecclesiastical administration and reduced the number of religious houses is in the Registro Oficial, ii, no. 1643.

page 12 note 3 The Lancasterian system of education was introduced into South America by Thomson, James. See his Letters on the moral and religious state of South America, written during a residence of nearly seven years in Buenos Aires, Chile, Peru, and Colombia (London, 1827)Google Scholar. For the educational reforms in Buenos Aires see Ingenieros, , La evolución de las ideas Argentinas, i. 381–5.Google Scholar

page 12 note 4 The University of Buenos Aires was inaugurated on 12 Aug. 1821. Ingenieros, , op. cit., i. 410.Google Scholar

page 13 note 1 The library, which later became the National Library, had been founded by Mariano Moreno and opened in 1812. It had over 17,000 volumes by 1823. See Revello, J. T., ‘La Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina’, Revista de Historia de America, no. 2 (Mexico, 1938), p. 69.Google Scholar

page 13 note 2 See Levene, , History of Argentina, pp. 367–8.Google Scholar

page 13 note 3 Martin Rodríguez (1771–1845), supra, p. 8, n. 4.

page 13 note 4 Besides the Registro Oficial and the Registro Estadistico may be mentioned El Argos de Buenos Ayres, La Abeja Argentina, El Nacional, El Ambigú, El Centinela, and El Republicano.

page 14 note 1 By decree of 24 Dec. 1821 the cabildo of Buenos Aires was suppressed. The political rôle that it had played could no longer be tolerated. The same law laid the foundation of a judicial and police system. See Ravignani, , Historia, constitutional, ii. 110–15.Google Scholar

page 15 note 1 The decided character of this opinion is interesting. It had some foundation. The Quadrilateral Treaty of 8 Feb. 1822 between Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Entre Rios and Corrientes, had recognized not only the necessity of summoning a General Congress but also that Buenos Aires was the only place in which it could meet. (Art. 13.) Registro Oficial, ii, no. 1572. And with one exception the provinces agreed in 1824 that the Congress should meet in Buenos Aires But they also safeguarded themselves. Varela, , Historia constitucional, iii. 424–5Google Scholar; iv. nos. 83, 84. Cf. also Levene, , History of Argentina, p. 368.Google Scholar

page 15 note 2 1816.

page 15 note 3 An expedition sent to Upper Peru in 1810, after initial victory, was repulsed at Huaqui on 20 June 1811. General Belgrano advanced to Potosí in 1813, but was forced to withdraw and in 1815 a fresh expedition to Potosí met with disaster at Sipe Sipe (23 Nov.).

page 15 note 4 Infra, no. IV.

page 16 note 1 Cf. supra, p. 8, n. 5; p. 15, n. 1. Though deputies from Buenos Aires had arrived at Córdoba in March 1821, the Congress found difficulty in organizing; and after the appointment of Rivadavia as secretary of government the powers of the Porteño deputies were so curtailed that it was obvious Buenos Aires would take part in no congress not held more under her immediate influence. The only result of this abortive Congress was a postal convention concluded between Buenos Aires and Córdoba in Dec. 1821. The history of the Congress is fully discussed in Ravignani, , Historia constitutional, ii. 178208.Google Scholar

page 16 note 2 Instrucciones que deben regir al Diputado de este Gobierno cerca de las demás Provincias de la antigua Unión, el primer dignidad de Presbítero, Presidente del Senado del Clero Doctor Dn. Diego Estanislao de Zabaleta. These instructions, dated 30 May 1823, are printed in D.H.A., xiii. 228–32Google Scholar. The general congress of the United Provinces began its sessions on 6 Dec. 1824.

page 16 note 3 This was the basis established in the Estatuto Provisional of 1815 and the Reglamento Provisorio of 1817. Cf. Varela, , op. cit., iv. no. 82.Google Scholar

page 16 note 4 The above, with the exception of Misiones, which is a territory, form the 14 provinces of modern Argentina. There are no reliable statistics for their population in this period, and no national census was taken till 1869. The following estimates afford some basis of comparison. Unless otherwise stated they are for approximately the same area.

(i) Brackenridge (1818), 550,000, (including the Banda Oriental). Voyage to South America, ii. 47.Google Scholar

(ii) Graham (1818), 489,000–523,000, (excluding Santa Fé, Entre Rios, Corrientes and Misiones). Manning, i. 494; A.S.P.F.R., iv. 227.Google Scholar

(iii) Parish (1836), 600,000–675,000. Buenos Ayres and the provinces … (1839), P. 393.Google Scholar

(iv) Parish (1847), 820,000. Ibid. (1852), p. 417.

I give the following comparisons for.what they are worth.

Buenos Aires:—1818, 105,000–120,000 (Graham).

1824, 163,216. Town, 81,136; country, 82,080. (Núñez, , Account of Rio de la Plata, p. 214.Google Scholar)

1836, 180,000–200,000. (Parish [1839], p. 393.)

1847, 320,000. (Ibid. [1852], p. 417.)

Provinces, excluding the riverine provinces (Buenos Aires, Santa Fé, Entre Ríos, Corrientes and the territory of Misiones):—

1818, 384,000–403,000 (Graham).

1824, 369,000 (Text).

1836, 340,000–385,000 (Parish).

1847, 410,000 (Parish).

See also infra, p. 34. The above figures do not include the uncivilized Indians, whom Graham estimated at about 160,000.

page 17 note 1 These provinces represent the old audiencia of Charcas, which was attached to the viceroyalty of La Plata on its foundation in 1776, and were to form the modern Bolivia. See infra, p. 208, n. 1. The figure suggested by Parish of course excludes the Indians. The estimate of Graham in 1818 was 444,000. Manning, i. 494. But see infra, p. 208, n. 4, where the population is more fully discussed.

page 17 note 2 On 24 July 1810 an assembly convoked by the governor of Paraguay, Don Bernardo de Velasco, declined to recognize the superior authority of the junta of Buenos Aires. In the following year Velasco was deposed and Paraguay established a junta of its own, of which one member was the remarkable Dr. José Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia (1766–1840). In 1813 Francia became one of the two consuls of the Republic of Paraguay (there seems to have been no declaration of independence), and in 1814 he was elected dictator. This position was conferred on him for life in 1816. He ruled the country with an iron hand till his death. In the early eighteen twenties he began that system which led by the end of the decade to the complete isolation of Paraguay from the outside world. Báez, , Ensayo sobre el Doctor Francia, pp. 56–7, 63Google Scholar; and also his Historia diplomática del Paraguay, i. 123–5, 134–5. 146, 209Google Scholar. See also infra, p. 49. Shortly before Francia's death the population was alleged to be about 220,000. Parish, , op. cit. (1852), p. 261.Google Scholar

page 18 note 1 Removed.

page 18 note 2 According to the census taken by order of Viceroy Vértiz y Salcedo in 1776 the city of Buenos Aires had then a population of 24,205 and the surrounding country of 12,925. D.H.A., xii. 120Google Scholar. Atthetime of the British invasions (1806–7) contemporary estimates varied from 40,000 to 70,000. See the discussion in Mitre, B., Comprobaciones históricas á propósito de la ‘Historia de Belgrano’ (2nd ed., Buenos Aires, 1881), pp. 4170Google Scholar. 45,000 seems to be the outside figure. Cf. Alsina, J. A., La inmigración Europea en la República Argentina, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 18 note 3 On 3 June 1824 Parish circularized the governors of the provinces requesting information on the extent, population, productions, and resources of their governments. F.O. 118/3. The replies are in F.O. 354/7. Cf. his Buenos Aires and the provinces.

page 19 note 1 Infra, nos. III and IV.

page 19 note 2 Infra, p. 87, n. 1.

page 19 note 3 Enclosures: (i) Memorandum presented by the commissioner of the Government of Buenos Ayres at the court of Brazil to the minister for foreign affairs at that court [15 Sept. 1823]; (ii) Resolution of the court of Brazil communicated by its respective minister to the commissioner of the Government of Buenos Ayres, 6 Feb. 1824; (iii) Report of Valentín Gómez to Bernardino Rivadavia, 12 April 1824. These papers are printed in Registro Oficial, ii, no. 1728, and B.F.S.P., xiii. 748–66Google Scholar. José Valentín Gómez (1774–1833), a priest who had embraced the revolutionary cause with enthusiasm, had been a distinguished member of the assembly of 1813 and he had been Pueyrredón's agent in Paris in 1819. He was sent to Brazil in Aug. 1823 with instructions to secure the evacuation of the Banda Oriental by Brazil and to promote friendly relations with that empire. Brazil, however, declined these overtures, and on Gómez's return both sides in reality prepared for war.

page 20 note 1 Juan Manuel de Figueredo arrived in Buenos Aires in July 1821 with a cordial letter from the Portuguese Minister announcing the intention of the court of Brazil to recognize the independence of the Argentine provinces. He seems to have died shortly after his arrival. Varela, , Historia constitutional, iii. 410Google Scholar; Ravignani, , Historia constitutional, ii. 220.Google Scholar

page 20 note 2 Treaties were signed with Chile on 5 Feb. 1819, and with Colombia on 8 March 1823. B.F.S.P., vi. 1154Google Scholar; xi. 310. In Jan. 1823 Caesar A. Rodney was appointed minister plenipotentiary of the United States to the government of Buenos Aires, and in Dec. 1823 Carlos de Alvear was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the United States. Rodney died in June 1824, six months after his arrival. The United States was chiefly represented in this period by the able and energetic John M. Forbes. Alvear arrived in Washington late in 1824, but returned to Buenos Aires shortly after.

page 21 note 1 Convención preliminar acordada entre el Gobierno de Buenos Aires y los Comisionados de S.M.C., 4 July 1823. Registro Oficial, ii, no. 1682; B.F.S.P., xi. 225Google Scholar. Commissioners had been sent out to the colonies by the liberal government of Spain in 1820. Those who first arrived in the Plata were rebuffed, but further commissioners were sent in 1822 empowered to negotiate provisional commercial agreements, but not to recognize independence. By the convention signed by the commissioners to La Plata and Rivadavia an armistice was agreed upon for eighteen months, commercial relations were to be renewed and arrangements made for a definitive treaty of peace. In Jan. 1824, Ferdinand VII, restored to absolute power by the French, disavowed the proceedings of all the commissioners sent to America. Robertson, W. S., ‘The policy of Spain towards its revolted colonies, 1820–1823’, H.A.H.R., vi. (1926), pp. 2146.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 On 1 Jan. 1820, when Ferdinand VII was assembling an army at Cádiz to be sent to America, occurred the famous revolt of Colonel Rafael Riego. In March the king was compelled to accept the Constitution of 1812, and on 6 July the Cortes met for the first time since 1814. French intervention in 1823 swept away all hope of liberal government, and on 1 Oct. Ferdinand, once more absolute, declared all the acts of the Cortes invalid.

page 22 note 2 Cf. Bases para la reforma militar … 28 Feb. 1822, Registro Oficial, ii, no. 1579.

page 23 note 1 See the interesting graph of the receipts at the custom house of Buenos Aires, the principal source of revenue, in Alvarez, , Estudio sobre las guerras civiles Argentinas, p. 76.Google Scholar

page 23 note 2 The amount of the forced loans between 1812 and 1821 has been calculated at $2,964,000. Hansen, , La moneda Argentina, pp. 255–7.Google Scholar

page 23 note 3 Infra, p. 53, and see the Leyes de Aduana of 14 Dec. 1821 and 25 Nov. 1822, Registro Oficial, i, no. 1559; ii. no. 1636. Pending the framing of the new tariff, the Government, on 21 Aug. 1821, established a provisional regulation reducing the import duties. Ibid., i, no. 1499.

page 23 note 4 “In 1821 commissioners were appointed to liquidate all claims against the government, most of which were for forced loans or for military service. A 6 per cent bond issue was created to extinguish revolutionary claims, while for those originating in obligations of the colonial government, 4 percent bonds were issued …” Peters, H. E., The foreign debt of the Argentine Republic (Baltimore, 1934), p. 11Google Scholar. Cf. Parish, op. cit. (1852), p. 371Google Scholar. In the funding of all claims on 28 March 1822 the Government recognized a total debt of $4,500,000. Hansen, , La moneda Argentina, p. 249Google Scholar. The funding operation was followed by the establishment of the Bank of Discount of the Province of Buenos Aires by law of 20 June 1822, with a projected capital of $1,000,000, though the Bank began operations in September with very much less. Hansen, , op. cit., pp. 269–72Google Scholar; Piñero, Norberto, La moneda, el crédito y los bancos en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1921), pp. 6177Google Scholar. Some indication of British interests in these operations is afforded by a letter from J. P. Robertson, at Buenos Aires, to his grandfather, Parish of Bath, 11 June 1823, F.O. 6/1. Robertson stated that he held for himself and his friends eight shares in the Bank of $1,000 each, and $200,000 of the public funds. Woodbine Parish estimated that half the public debt of the country and the best part of the most valuable property was in British hands. Parish to Canning, 25 April 1824 (no. 12), F.O. 6/3. Cf. Mulhall, , The English in South America, p. 327.Google Scholar

page 24 note 1 Núñez, , Account of Rio de la Plata, p. 54.Google Scholar

page 24 note 2 (i) Revenue of Buenos Ayres in the years 1822 and 1823. (ii) Statement of the Public Debt of Buenos Ayres. Cf. Núñez, , op. cit., pp. 127–8Google Scholar. Total receipts, $4,931,386; expenses, $4,601,074. Cf. also B.F.S.P., x. 1014Google Scholar, which gives the figures for 1822. The public debt was estimated at $3,907,381, exclusive of the loan for $5,000,000 under negotiation in England, and $1,000,000 voted on 1 Jan. 1824 to meet certain outstanding claims. The loan was negotiated with Baring Bros, in 1824 at 85.

page 26 note 1 Parish reached Buenos Aires on 31 March, after a voyage of 12 weeks. He received his exequatur on 6 April. Parish to Canning, 6 April 1824, F.O. 6/3.

page 26 note 2 The number of British residents at Buenos Aires was already very considerable. Parish estimated that there were nearly 3,000. Parish to Canning, 25 April 1824, (no. 12), F.O. 6/3. 1,355 were registered at the consulate prior to January 1825, of whom 146 were merchants, 67 clerks, 93 tradesmen, and a large number labourers and carpenters. F.O. 354/8. By 1831 the number registered had grown to 4,072, and at least 1,000 were unregistered. Parish, , Buenos Ayres and the provinces [1839], p. 394Google Scholar. The British colony had taken root between 1808 and 1810, in which year it was said to consist of 124 persons. Alsina, , La Inmigración Europea, p. 12Google Scholar. In 1811 the British Commercial Rooms were founded, and in the same year a consul was appointed, who, however, was never recognized. Infra, p. 331, n. 2. The flourishing British community of 1818 is described by J. P. and Robertson, W. P., Letters on South America (3 vols., London, 1843), iii. 115–22Google Scholar. See also Dodds, James, Records of the Scottish settlers, pp. 35Google Scholar; Battolla, O. C., Los primeros ingleses en Buenos Aires, 1780–1830 (Buenos Aires, 1928)Google Scholar; Mulhall, , English in South AmericaGoogle Scholar; Pratt, E. J., ‘Anglo-American commercial and political rivalry on the Plata, 1820–1830’, H.A.H.R., xi (1931), pp. 303–6Google Scholar; Williams, J. B., ‘The Establishment of British commerce with Argentina’, H.A.H.R., xv (1935), pp. 4255.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 The report is signed by R. Montgomery, Thomas Duguid, Peter Sheridan, John Watson, W. M'Cracken, James Brittain and William Parish Robertson.

page 28 note 1 This report is also in B.T. 6/32, F.O. 354/8, F.O. 119/1, and F.O. 354/3. The first of these is the duplicate sent by Parish, the second is an original received by him from the merchants, and the remaining two are copies in his letter books.

page 28 note 2 On the fiscal and economic regime of the colony, which was profoundly modified in the course of the eighteenth century, see Ricardo Levene's introduction to D.H.A., v, particularly pp. lxxix–xcviiiGoogle Scholar. Till the latter half of the century Buenos Aires was very much an economic dependency of Peru, and it was against that viceroyalty that her first struggles for independence were directed. As far as Buenos Aires was concerned the Spanish monopoly had been a monopoly exercised in the interests not only of Spain but of the Seville and of the Lima merchants. The latter strenuously opposed concessions to the developing community on the Río de la Plata, and tried to maintain the monopoly of the old Porto Bello—Panama—Lima route. Except for periodic concessions for a limited trade with Brazil and for ‘register ships’ especially licensed by the crown, the port of Buenos Aires had been practically closed. Register ships, however, came with increasing frequency in the eighteenth century, especially after the suppression of the galleons in 1740 (infra, p. 111), and in 1767 a regular postal service was established with Coruña, the mail ships carrying merchandise as well as mail. It was not, however, till 1776 that Buenos Aires was permitted to trade with the other American colonies, not till the auto de comercio libre of 6 Nov. 1777–an action taken by Viceroy Cevallos on his own authority—that she was allowed to send goods overland to Peru, and not till 2 Feb. 1778 that the port was freely opened to trade with the qualified ports of Spain. D.H.A., v, pp. xxx–xxxiii, xli—xlviii, liv–lxi, 204, 373, 401Google Scholar; Acevedo, Antuñez y, Memorias históricas, pp. 120–9.Google Scholar

page 29 note 1 See the famous memorial of Mariano Moreno in 1809, ‘Representation á nombre de los hacendados de las campãnas del Río de la Plata …’ in Piñero, N., Escritos de Mariano Moreno (Buenos Aires, 1896), pp. 88224Google Scholar, which is in effect a trenchant indictment of the monopolistic system. At this time, when proposals for opening the port of Buenos Aires to foreign trade were being made, the monopolists and contrabandists collected nearly $1,000,000 to induce the Viceroy to keep it shut. A. Mackinnon to Canning, 29 Sept. 1809, F.O. 72/90. The extent of illicit commerce in the Río de la Plata is a subject by itself and cannot be discussed here; but it may be noted that in 1622 an interior Customs House was erected at Córdoba to prevent goods landed at Buenos Aires from being taken into the interior. The Portuguese colony of Sacramento (infra, p. 77, n. 1) played somewhat the same part in the Plata area that Jamaica played in the Spanish Main; and both in the contraband via Sacramento and the contraband with Rio de Janeiro the English were deeply interested.

page 29 note 2 The effect of the Bourbon reforms at Buenos Aires had been striking. Whereas scarcely 35 ships had entered the port of Buenos Aires between 1772 and 1776, 62 entered in 1792 and 77 in, 1796. Between 1792 and 1796 the annual average value of the commerce of Buenos Aires was $7,212,000, of which $2,545,000 were imports and $4,667,000 exports. Levene, , History of Argentina, p. 109Google Scholar; D.H.A., v. p. xxxviiGoogle Scholar. Further, whereas in 1777 the customs receipts at Buenos Aires were under $16,000, they rose to nearly $54,000 in 1778, and from 1791 to 1795 averaged nearly $400,000. Levene, , La Revolución de Mayo y Mariano Moreno, i. 230Google Scholar; Levillier, , Antecedentes de politica económica, ii. 486Google Scholar. The figures given in the text and appendix (p. 55) for 1796 omit the exports of gold and silver, estimated at $3,982,005, which brings the total exports to Spain to $5,058,882. Wilcocke, S. H., History of the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres (London, 1807), p. 526.Google Scholar

page 30 note 1 Walton, William, Present state of the Spanish colonies (2 vols., London, 1810), ii. 155Google Scholar, calculates that £100 worth of British goods purchased in Great Britain and shipped via Cádiz sold in America for £342. Even when Montevideo was in the hands of the British, the cost to the purchaser of British goods shipped direct was 60 p.c. above the prime cost. Auchmuty to Windham, 11 May 1807, W.O. 1/162.

page 30 note 2 Infra, p. 55.

page 30 note 3 The figures are correctly given in F.O. 354/8. By the reforms of 1778 (D.H.A., v. 401Google Scholar; vi. 21) the almojarifazgo, or import and export duty, was fixed at 7 p.c. on foreign goods and 3 per cent, on national goods on their export from Spain and the same amount on their arrival in the major ports of America, of which Buenos Aires was one. Foreign goods imported through Spain paid 15 p.c. import duty into Spain, 7 p.c. export duty from Spain and 7 p.c. import duty into America. Minor charges brought the duties on foreign goods up to 33⅓ p.c. Cf. Manning, i. 453. When in 1797 Spain found herself compelled to open her American ports to commerce with neutrals, the royal order of 18 Nov. (revoked two years later) expressly stated that foreign goods coming from foreign ports should pay the same duties as if they had come through Spain. D.H.A., vii. 134Google Scholar. The changes in the customs regulations are discussed in ibid., v, pp. lxxix–xcviii.

page 31 note 1 It should be remembered that the years 1796–1802, during which Spain and England were at war, were years of severe economic strain for the viceroyalty. In 1796 the exports from Buenos Aires had been more than $5,000,000; in 1797 they were less than $335,000. D.H.A., v, p. cviiGoogle Scholar. The customs revenue, which in the years 1791–5 averaged $389,569, fell in 1798 to $100,000. Levillier, , Antecedentes de política, económica, ii. 486Google Scholar; Levene, , Revolución de Mayo y Mariano Moreno, i. 230Google Scholar. The revenues rose steeply in 1802 and they have been estimated at $800,000 in 1803 and at $1,000,000 both in 1804 and 1805. Levene, loc. cit.; Alvarez, , Estudio sobre las guerras civiles Argentinas, p. 76Google Scholar. These figures, however, would seem to include the sisa, or fortification duty, and the derecho municipal de guerra (two branches of revenue which realized $288,224 in ready money in 1802, for example. Levillier, , op. cit. ii. 484Google Scholar) as well as certain charges from previous years. Cf. Alvarez, , op. cit., p. 73Google Scholar. These dues do not figure in the estimates given in the text above or in the accounts given in Appendix B (p. 55).

page 31 note 2 Viceroy Liniers directly encouraged trade between Buenos Aires and Brazil in 1808, as a sort of extension of the neutral commerce permitted in 1797. In three months alone its value amounted to £120,000. Levene, , Revolución de Mayo, i. 180–91Google Scholar; Manchester, , British preeminence in Brazil, p. 1161Google Scholar. The viceroy tolerated also the residence of British merchants and connived at their contraband trade. There is evidence of 31 British vessels entering the port between 1 Nov. 1808 and 1 Nov. 1809 with cargoes to the value of more than £1,000,000. Goebel, D. B., ‘British trade to the Spanish colonies, 1796–1823’, A.H.R., xliii (1938), pp. 309–10Google Scholar. His successor, Cisneros, faced with an exhausted treasury, reluctantly found himself compelled to recommend the opening of the port to British trade, and despite the opposition of the old Spanish merchants, this was done by act of a junta consultiva on 6 11 1809Google Scholar. D.H.A., vii. 379Google Scholar. This so-called decree of free commerce permitted a direct, rather than a free trade with England, and permission once given, Cisneros sought to modify or withdraw it in accord with the views of the Spanish merchants and the Spanish government. Levene, , op. cit., i. 232–3Google Scholar; Goebel, , op. cit., p. 312Google Scholar. On 25 May 1810, however, the authority of the viceroy was replaced by that of a junta which at once showed its desire to take advantage of the benefits of foreign commerce. A more liberal scale of export duties was established on 5 June; the port of Ensenada was opened on 29 May, followed by those of Maldonado and Río Negro; and on 14 July the export of the precious metals was permitted. Registro Oficial, i, nos. 15, 22, 57, 77; Gaceta de Buenos Ayres, 7 08 1810Google Scholar; Levene, , op. cit., ii, 188–95.Google Scholar

page 32 note 1 ‘The quantity of merchandise brought into these ports during the first six months’, wrote the American commissioner, Poinsett, ‘was equal to the former consumption of six years; and skates and warming pans were seen dangling in the shops of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo.’ Manning, i. 454. A British merchant at Buenos Aires estimated British property there in 1810 at ‘seldom less than £750,000 sterling’ and sometimes over a million. Mackinnon to Canning, 12 Aug. 1810, F.O. 72/107. Duties, however, were high, and the British merchants complained of them to the junta. Gaceta de Buenos Ayres, 19 07 1810Google Scholar. Mackinnon estimated that on some goods the duties amounted to 120 p.a, and on cottons from 54 p.c. to 70 p.c. Mackinnon to Canning, 21 Jan. 1811, F.O. 72/126. A decree of 9 Dec. 1813 instituted a general tariff of 25 p.c. on current prices, though on certain goods it rose to 50 p.c. Registro Oficial, i, no. 590. For the duties in 1816 see Recopilación de leyes y decretos de aduana desde Mayo de 1810 (Buenos Aires, 1860), p. 32Google Scholar; and for the provisional tariff of 21 Aug. 1821, and the tariffs of 14 Dec. 1821 and 25 Nov. 1822 (practically identical) see Registro Oficial, i, nos. 1499, 1559; ii, no. 1636. See also infra, p. 61.

page 33 note 1 An Account of the value of all exports from Great Britain to Buenos Ayres and of all imports from Buenos Ayres to Great Britain, for the three years ending the 5th January 1819 … Parl. Papers, H.C., 470 (1819), xviGoogle Scholar. 233. Cf. infra, pp. 344 ff.

page 33 note 2 Cf. supra, pp. 7–8, 17; infra, pp. 65, 82.

page 34 note a The population of the different provinces, as here estimated, considerably exceeds that of all former calculations. As no regular or exact census has ever been taken, it is impossible to speak with any degree of accuracy on the subject; but it may be observed that the estimate now made is still considerably lower than is generally calculated by those most conversant with the subject at the present day.

page 34 note 1 The figures for the two former groups not only exceed all earlier estimates but they are in excess of the lowest and highest estimates of Parish in 1836 by 200,000 and 100,000. Supra, p. 16, n. 4; Parish, , Buenos Ayres and the provinces (1839), p. 393Google Scholar. For the last group see infra, p. 208, n. 4.

page 34 note 2 Supra, no. I, passim.

page 35 note 1 Infra, p. 56.

page 35 note 2 Printed in Parish, , Buenos Ayres and the provinces (1839), p. 337.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 Infra, facing p. 57.

page 36 note 2 ‘The manufactures of Great Britain are become articles of primary necessity. The gaucho is everywhere clothed in them. Take his whole equipment —examine everything about him—and what is there not of raw hide that is not British? If his wife has a gown, ten to one it is made at Manchester; the camp kettle in which he cooks his food, the earthenware he eats from, the knife, his poncho, spurs, bit, all are imported from England.’ Parish, , op. cit. (1839), p. 338Google Scholar. Cf. Manning, i. 535.

page 36 note 3 F.O. 354/8 reads ‘Before 1820’.

page 37 note 1 Cf. infra, p. 45. On the United States trade, necessarily limited, since the United States and Argentina produced similar products, see Pratt, E. J., ‘Anglo-American commercial and political rivalry on the Plata, 1820–1830’, H.A.H.R., xi (1931), pp. 310–11Google Scholar. In 1824 and 1825 United States shipping to the Plata easily outdistanced English. Comparative Return of Trade at Buenos Ayres, 1822–6, F.O. 354/8. And Parish complained in 1825 that coarse brown linens from the United States sold at prices with which the English could not compete. Parish to Canning, 10 Oct. 1825, F.O. 6/9.

page 37 note 2 Supra, p. 17, n. 2; infra, p. 49.

page 38 note 1 Infra, p. 57.

page 38 note 2 The prices were not remunerative and the company was broken up. Parish, , op. cit. (1839), p. 342.Google Scholar

page 38 note 3 F.O. 354/8 reads ‘were it not that an impression prevails here’, etc. China confined all foreign trade to Canton, and by the monopoly of the East India Company the trade to Canton was entirely prohibited to all British vessels except those in the actual employment of the company. It was opened by 3 and 4 William IV, c. 93. See also infra, p. 191.

page 38 note 4 The American trade to Canton had begun as early as 1784. See Latourette, , The history of early relations between the United States and China, pp. 1318Google Scholar. The alarms of the British merchants about it at this time are reflected in Report [relative to the trade with the East Indies and China], 11 April 1821, Parl. Papers, H.C., 476 (1821), vii. 1–421. At Buenos Aires the Americans could deposit manufactured goods on the outward voyage and on return pick up native products to take on to Cuba or the United States. See also infra, pp. 139–40.

page 40 note a The only produce still furnished in considerable abundance by the Banda Oriental and Entre Rios is that of horse hides and hair. From being of inferior value this species of cattle suffered less than others in the general devastation.

page 40 note 1 This is something of an exaggeration. While there was an agricultural and wheat zone in the vicinity of Buenos Aires, Dean Funes went so far as to say in 1816 that the trade in hides always had been and always would be the true riches of the province of Buenos Aires. Denis, , La République Argentine, pp. 178–9, 190Google Scholar. The wheat of Buenos Aires was, however, exported to Paraguay, Montevideo, Havana and Brazil. Azara, , Descripción é historia del Paraguay y del Río de la Plata (written in 1806), i. 80.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 José Gervasio Artigas, 1764–1850, commonly regarded as the founder of the Uruguayan nation. On Artigas and the Banda Oriental see infra no. IV.

page 41 note 1 The name of one wealthy estanciero the foundation of whose fame and fortune was laid in the southern part of the province was Juan Manuel de Rosas. For the efforts of the government of Pueyrredón to regulate the division of the public lands with a view to extending and defending the frontiers see Cárcano, , Evolución histórica del régimen de la tierra pública, pp. 2533Google Scholar. Vacant lands were to be given to settlers on condition of occupation. The problem of the conquest of the desert and of frontier defence against the Indians was fundamental to the infant state. The cities were still oases in the wilderness. But the measures of the government both under the directorate and under Rodríguez tended to favour the large as against the small holdings, and circumstances were on the side of the cattleman rather than of the farmer.

page 42 note 1 Infra, p. 218

page 42 note 2 i.e. cured by drying in the sun.

page 43 note 1 Infra, facing p. 60.

page 43 note 2 Not printed. The exchange value of the dollar fell gradually from 48d. in Jan. 1821 to 44d. in Dec. 1822. It rose to 47d. in March 1823 and fell again to 44½ in Dec. Dry hides fluctuated between 32 and 52 reals the pesada in 1821, 40 and 52 in 1822 and 38 and 56 in 1823. Tallow fell from 18 reals the arroba in Jan. 1821 to 12 in Dec. 1822, rose from 12 to 22 by Oct. 1823 and struck an all time high at 40 in November.

page 44 note a See page 40.

page 45 note 1 Supra, p. 36.

page 45 note 2 Rivadavia's repeated efforts on behalf of an improved agriculture are described in Cárcano, , Evolución histórica del régimen de la tierra pública, pp. 16–7, 41–6, and 62–3Google Scholar. Immigration was encouraged and an immigration commission set up in April 1824, and two colonization enterprises were launched in England. By an arrangement with Rivadavia some 250 persons were sent out from England by Barber Beaumont in 1824, and in 1825 Beaumont joined in the Río de la Plata Agricultural Association for the purpose of settling the unemployed poor in Entre Ríos. The settlers sent out by the Association arrived, however, during the war between Buenos Aires and Brazil; and from beginning to end the whole enterprise was a disastrous failure. Beaumont took his revenge in his Travels in Buenos Ayres and the adjacent provinces (London, 1828)Google Scholar. The second enterprise, that of the brothers Robertson, was more successful. A contract was drawn up in March 1824 whereby the Robertsons agreed to make an agricultural settlement at Monte Grande, and the colonists were chosen ‘with a view at once to their agricultural skill and their religious and moral character’. They came mostly from the west and south of Scotland. By 1828 the colony consisted of some 514 souls; but its funds were by then exhausted and it came to an end during the wars of 1829. Dodds, , Records of the Scottish settlers, pp. 362.Google Scholar

page 46 note a In Appendix I will be seen the protecting duties laid on foreign wheat and flour. [See p. 61.]

page 46 note 1 F.O. 354/8 reads ‘from twenty to thirty annually’. The figures for 1792 and 1796 are given supra, p. 29, n. 2. There were at least 43 United States vessels in the various ports of the Río de la Plata in 1802–3, and between 1798 and 1810 at least 125 touched at Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Chandler, C. L., ‘United States merchant ships in the Río de la Plata (1801–1809), as shown by early newspapers’ and ‘United States shipping in the La Plata region, 1809–1810’, H.A.H.R., ii (1919), pp. 2654; iii (1920), pp. 159176Google Scholar. For British shipping in 1808–9 see supra, p. 31, n. 2. The British invasions, in 1806–7, of course, created an exceptional situation. The Robertsons, , Letters on Paraguay, i. 96–8Google Scholar, describe the ‘hundreds’ of ships awaiting the capture of Montevideo!

page 47 note 1 Infra, p. 60.

page 47 note 2 The words italicised indicate Foreign Office underlinings. The rivalry between Great Britain and the United States for the trade of Cuba was of old standing. The United States had maintained a consul or consular agent in Cuba fairly regularly after 1797, and the preëminence of their trade, in relation to British, had only been interfered with in 1808–9 and during the war of 1812. Nichols, R. F., ‘Trade relations and the establishment of the United States consulates in Spanish America, 1779–1809’, H.A.H.R., xiii (1933), pp. 289313Google Scholar; Goebel, D. B., ‘British trade to the Spanish colonies, 1796–1823’, A.H.R. xliii (1938), pp. 296303Google Scholar. Between 1793 and 1818, trade had been carried on, with intermissions, under temporary royal concessions or local regulations. On 18 Feb. 1818 a royal order declared the ports open to foreign commerce, and this permission was amplified by decree of the Cortes on 27 Jan. 1822. Finally on 9 Feb. 1824 Spain recognized a fait accompli and extended permission to trade to all American ports. Coronado, Zamora y, Biblioteca de legislación ultratnarina, ii. 271–2Google Scholar; Colección de los decretos y órdenes generales, viii. 250Google Scholar; B.F.S.P., v. 1004Google Scholar; x. 865; xi. 864. In 1824 the British agent at Havana reported that British shipping at Havana in 1823 was less than 17,000 tons, while that of the Americans between Cuba and their own ports was 83,000 tons, and the tonnage they employed in the carrying trade with the ports of other nations 24,000 tons. H. T. Kilbee to Planta, 6 Jan. 1824, F.O. 72/304. This superiority was ascribed to the fact that American vessels paid $1 per ton in tonnage dues and British vessels $2½, a differential rate which the local authorities defended on the ground that English port dues were higher than American. Kilbee to Planta, 2 May 1823, F.O. 72/375. As a result of Foreign Office remonstances Kilbee was able to report on 11 Dec. 1824 (F.O. 72/304) that in future the higher duty would also be levied on American ships. But American shipping continued to exceed British.

page 48 note 1 Paranaguá.

page 49 note 1 Rafts. F.O. 354/8.

page 49 note 2 See J. P. and Robertson, W. P., Letters on Paraguay, iii. 216–9.Google Scholar

page 49 note 3 Supra, p. 17, n. 2.

page 49 note 4 It must be admitted that Francia had not lacked provocation. In 1817, for example, Buenos Aires had prohibited the importation of Paraguayan tobacco until Paraguay should be incorporated ‘with the rest of the nation’. Báez, , Ensayo sobre el Doctor Francia, pp. 92, 101Google Scholar. Registro Oficial, i, no. 1037. 16 British subjects detained by Francia were eventually released through the interposition of Parish, but he failed to secure the release of the distinguished naturalist and companion of Humboldt's travels, Aimé Bonpland. List of British Subjects released from Paraguay … 5 April 1825, F.O. 118/2.

page 50 note 1 It lasted till Francia's death in 1840.

page 51 note 1 From 1760 to 1780 from 40,000 to 50,000 mules were sent annually from Salta to Upper Peru. See the discussion in Denis, La République Argentine, pp. 42–3.Google Scholar

page 51 note 2 A company which proposed to work these mines amongst others was floated in 1824 under an ‘authority’ improperly given by Rivadavia. When F. B. Head, in charge of its operations, arrived at Buenos Aires, he discovered that the mines had been disposed of to rival companies. In particular ‘several of the most wealthy and respectable merchants of Buenos Aires’, including at least one of the authors of the above report, had founded the Famatina Mining Company. After visiting what mines he could there was nothing left for Head to do but to return to England where he published his blistering Reports relating to the failure of the Rio Plata Mining Association (London, 1827)Google Scholar. The Famatina Mining Company itself was no more successful. See English, Guide to the companies formed for working foreign mines; Beaumont, J. A. B., Travels in Buenos Ayres (London, 1828), pp. 24–5.Google Scholar

page 53 note 1 Infra, p. 61. Ley de Aduana para el año de 1824 … 25 Nov. 1822, Registro Oficial, ii, no. 1636.

page 53 note 2 Cf. Statement of the receipt and expenditure of the Province of Buenos Ayres, 1822, B.F.S.P., x. 1014.Google Scholar

page 53 note 3 Infra, p. 62. See laws of 12 Dec. 1823 and 28 Nov. 1822, Registro Oficial, ii, nos. 1707, 1635.Google Scholar

page 53 note 4 Law of 23 Jan. 1822, ibid., ii, no. 1569.

page 54 note 1 Hansen, , La moneda Argentina, pp. 144–5.Google Scholar

page 60 note 1 In this appendix the shipping returns are given by Parish month by month. I give final results only.

page 61 note 1 Supra, p. 53, n. 1.

page 63 note 1 Canning to Hood, 10 Oct. 1823 (no. 1), enclosing instructions, F.O. 51/1. Hood had served as a purser in the navy and in 1817 had acted as a deputy judge advocate in the East Indies. He was promoted to the rank of consulgeneral at Montevideo on 18 Aug. 1830 and retired on 8 Feb. 1843. He died in 1874.

page 63 note 2 A copy of this report is in B.T. 6/32. For the history of the Cisplatino Province, see infra, no. IV.

page 63 note 3 Created on 24 May 1812 and re-established on 14 Feb. 1817.

page 65 note 1 Supra, pp. 33–4; infra, p. 82.

page 65 note 2 Supra, pp. 53–4, 61–2.

page 65 note 3 Infra, p. 83.

page 66 note 1 Treaty of commerce and navigation between Great Britain and Portugal, Rio de Janeiro, 19 Feb. 1810, B.F.S.P., i, 513–45.Google Scholar

page 68 note 2 In Dec. 1813 a 25 p.c. tariff had been established at Buenos Aires on goods imported into the United Provinces. Ready made clothing, liquors and oil paid 35 p.c. Registro Oficial, i, no. 590. This tariff appears to have been closely followed in that established by the Orientales at Montevideo in March 1815. Cf. De-María, , Historia de la República O. del Uruguay, iii. 57–8Google Scholar. The Portuguese authorities on entering Montevideo in general maintained the existing commercial and economic system, and a 25 p.c. tariff on manufactured goods was in force from 1815 to 1826. Cf. Jackson, John to Wood, Philips, 24 03 1827Google Scholar, F.O. 51/3. An additional 1½ per cent. appears to have covered certain city dues.

page 68 note 1 The eccentricities in spelling and grammar in this despatch are remarkable. On Hood's despatch of 31 Jan. 1826, (no. 6) in F.O. 51/2, Canning wrote:—‘Really if Mr. Hood cannot learn to write English, and something like grammar, I must send someone to replace him. Such a despatch as this is a disgrace to the office. The last sentence is perfectly unintelligible.’

page 68 note 2 ‘In acknowledging the receipt of your report on the state of the trade at Monte Video, I am directed to point out to you that one of the objects of H.M.'s Government in sending a consul to that place was that they might be furnished with detailed and authentick information of the state of affairs in that country, of the nature and stability of the Government, of its connections political and commercial with other neighbouring states, and of its views with regard to old Spain. The letters which have been received from you not giving information upon the foregoing points, I am to request that you will without delay supply this deficiency as far as may be in your power’. Planta, J. to Hood, , 20 11 1824Google Scholar, F.O. 51/1.

page 69 note 1 Carlos Federico Lecor, Barão da Laguna (1764–1836). Lecor arrived at Rio de Janeiro in March. 1816 with a picked detachment of troops from Portugal destined to conquer the Banda Oriental. On 4 June he was appointed captain general of the future province.

page 69 note 2 Manuel Belgrano, (1770–1820). Belgrano had been placed in command of the expedition sent by the junta of Buenos Aires to enforce its authority over Paraguay. Cf. supra, p. 17, n. 2. He was defeated by the Paraguayans at Paraguarí and Tacuarí in Jan. and March 1811.

page 69 note 3 Francisco Javier Elío (1767–1822), governor of Montevideo, 1807–10. In 1810 he returned to Spain and was invested by the regency with the authority of viceroy and captain general of the Río de la Plata, in succession to Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, who had been expelled by the junta of Buenos Aires. He landed at Montevideo on 12 Jan. 1811, was recalled to Spain in November of the same year and left Montevideo in December.

page 69 note 4 General Vicente Muesas.

page 69 note 5 On the creation and function of the regiment of Blandengues see Acevedo, , José Artigas, pp. 80–1.Google Scholar

page 70 note 1 Supra, p. 40, n. 2. The best short account of Artigas in English is the paper by P. A. Martin in H.A.H.R., xix (1939), pp. 215.Google Scholar

page 70 note 2 From his first arrival as Viceroy Elio adopted a threatening attitude towards Buenos Aires, which refused to recognize his authority. Buenos Aires had already been blockaded once by the authorities in Montevideo, and the blockade raised by English intervention, and now, in Feb. 1811, Elio declared war. Ruiz-Guiñazú, , Lord Strangford y la revolutión de Mayo, pp. 151–69, 184–7Google Scholar; Manchester, , British preēminence in Brazil, pp. 129–30Google Scholar. The reasons for the flight of Artigas are to be found as much in the threatening attitude of Elio as in his quarrels with Muesas. Acevedo, Artigas, pp. 356–8.Google Scholar

page 70 note 3 Revolt in the Banda Oriental began on 28 Feb. 1811, and on 18 May Artigas defeated the Spaniards at Las Piedras. He then laid siege to Montevideo where he was joined by the Porteño general, Rondeau. Meanwhile Elío appealed for Portuguese aid. The news both of the disastrous defeat of the Porteño troops at Huaqui in Upper Peru, and of the advance of the Portuguese, inclined the authorities of Buenos Aires to make terms, and an armistice was signed on 20 Oct. Calvo, , Anales, i. 356Google Scholar. There followed the famous emigration of the Uruguayan people to the banks of the Ayuí. Cf. Acevedo, , Artigas, pp. 357–83Google Scholar, and Anales historicos, i. 91110Google Scholar; Fregeiro, C. L., Estudios históricos sobre la revolución de Mayo (2 vols., Buenos Aires, 1930), i. 81135.Google Scholar

page 70 note 4 Manuel de Sarratea (1774–1849), a member of the first triumvirate, was appointed commander-in-chief of the army in the Banda Oriental. The conflict had been renewed early in 1812. Each side accused the other of infractions of the October treaty. Elío's successor, Vigodet, complained of the activities of Artigas, and the Porteños that the Portuguese troops remained in the province. War between Brazil and Buenos Aires was only averted by the diplomacy of Lord Strangford, the British minister at Rio de Janeiro, whose agent, Lt.-Col. Rademaker, concluded an armistice between the two governments on 26 May 1812. The Portuguese troops then withdrew. To Strangford's annoyance, Montevideo was not included in this armistice, and the Porteños began the second siege of the city in October. Calvo, Anales, ii. 53Google Scholar; Ruiz-Guiñazú, , Lord Strangford y la revolutión de Mayo, pp. 210–32Google Scholar; Manchester, , British preēminence in Brazil, pp. 131–4Google Scholar; Acevedo, , Artigas, pp. 394–8.Google Scholar

page 71 note 1 Gaspar Vigodet was appointed interim Governor of Montevideo on 5 Aug. 1810, during the absence of Elio, and in Nov. 1811 succeeded Elio as captaingeneral.

page 71 note 2 Disputes between Sarratea and Artigas culminated in a proclamation issued by Sarratea on 2 Feb. 1813, denouncing Artigas as a traitor. Fregeiro, C. L., Artigas, estudio histórico, documentos justificativos (Montevideo, 1886), p. 141Google Scholar. Mutiny among Sarratea's own officers, however, compelled him to retire. Meanwhile General Rondeau defeated the royalists at Cerrito, just outside Montevideo, on 31 Dec. Bauzá, , Historia de la dominatión Española, iii. 146Google Scholar; Acevedo, , Artigas, pp. 398416.Google Scholar

page 71 note 3 20 Jan. 1814. Hood neglects the real point at issue. A general constituent assembly of the United Provinces had met at the end of Jan. 1813, but this body, in June, refused to admit deputies from the Banda Oriental with instructions from Artigas, dated 13 April, which demanded a declaration of independence from Spain and the recognition of the provincial autonomy of the Banda Oriental in a federal system. The intention of Buenos Aires to replace Spanish authority in the Banda by its own seemed obvious, and in Dec. 1813 a provincial assembly, dominated by Rondeau, met at Capilla Maciel and was forced to recognize that authority. Barbagelata, , Artigas, pp. 260–1Google Scholar; Acevedo, , Artigas, pp. 416–49Google Scholar, and Anales, i. 130–51Google Scholar; Ravignani, , Historia constitutional, i. 217–22.Google Scholar

page 72 note 1 William Brown (1777–1857). For the career of this intrepid Irishman see Mulhall, , The English in South America, pp. 144–69.Google Scholar

page 72 note 2 Carlos María de Alvear (1788–1852), superseded Rondeau in command of the besieging forces on 17 May 1814. Montevideo surrendered on 20 June. On the broken capitulation see Bauza, , op. cit., iii. 194–9, 204–6Google Scholar; Acevedo, , Artigas, pp. 464–70Google Scholar. On 10 Jan. 1815 Alvear became Supreme Director of the United Provinces.

page 72 note 3 These statements are very inexact. For Alvear's negotiations with Artigas see Acevedo, , Artigas, pp. 483–4Google Scholar; Barbagelata, , Artigas, pp. 92–5Google Scholar. Varela, , Historia constitutional, ii. 412–15Google Scholar, expresses an Argentine view.

page 72 note 4 Miguel Estanislao Soler. The Porteño forces were defeated by Artigas's lieutenant, Fructuoso Rivera, at Guayabos on 10 Jan. 1815.

page 73 note 1 24 Feb. 1815.

page 73 note 2 Ignacio Alvarez Thomas, appointed provisional director of the United Provinces in April 1815. Artigas was now at the height of his power. He was widely acclaimed as the Protector of the Free Peoples, and Entre Ríos, Corrientes, Santa Fé, Misiones and Córdoba accepted his leadership, in the Liga Federal. On the fall of Alvear on 15 April 1815 the new authorities in Buenos Aires opened negotiations with the great caudillo, and a commission was sent to negotiate peace on the basis of the independence of the Banda. Calvo, Anales, ii. 293–8Google Scholar; Acevedo, Artigas, pp. 543–51.Google Scholar

page 73 note 3 Manuel José Garcia arrived at Rio in Feb. 1815 as the confidential agent of the Porteño Government. The object of Garcia's mission was first to secure, in negotiation with Strangford, an English protectorate over the Rio de la Plata; then he remained engaged in plans for the establishment of a monarchy under the house of Braganza. Calvo, Anales, ii. 232–4, 252–8Google Scholar; Ruiz-Guiñazú, , Lord Strangford y la revolutión de Mayo, pp. 263–7Google Scholar; Manchester, , British preēminence in Brazil, pp. 139–40Google Scholar; Villanueva, Bolívar y el General San Martín, pp. 2733, 53–7Google Scholar; Mitre, , Historia de Belgrano, iii. 182–4Google Scholar. The whole episode is highly controversial. The Uruguayan view is that the Portuguese invasion was agreed to by Alvarez, and tolerated if not encouraged by his successors, Balcarce and Pueyrredón. Acevedo, Artigas, pp. 591663Google Scholar. The Argentine view will be found in Mitre, Historia de Belgrano, iii. 182Google Scholar ff., and Saldias, Adolfo, La Evolutión republicana durante la revolución Argentina (‘Biblioteca Ayacucho’, Madrid, 1919), pp. 105–31.Google Scholar

page 74 note 1 Supra, p. 69, n. 1.

page 74 note 2 Fructuoso Rivera (1778–1854), destined to become in 1830 the first president of Uruguay.

page 74 note 3 For the actual course of the military operations see Acevedo, , Artigas, pp. 835–56Google Scholar, and Bauzá, , op. cit., iii. 282306Google Scholar. Some of the lieutenants of Artigas made terms in Dec. 1819, but Rivera did not enter into capitulation till March 1820 after the decisive defeat of Artigas at Tacuarembó on 22 Jan. De-María, , Historia de la República O. del Uruguay, iv. 95106.Google Scholar

page 74 note 4 He crossed the frontier on 23 Sept. 1820 and died on that same day in 1850, still in exile.

page 74 note 5 Convention for the incorporation of the Eastern Province of the River Plate with the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarve, 31 July 1821. B.F.S.P., viii. 1027Google Scholar. The congress met not in 1820 but in July 1821.

page 74 note 6 Dom Pedro proclaimed the independence of Brazil on 7 Sept. 1822 and was crowned emperor on 1 Dec.

page 74 note 7 Alvaro da Costa Souza de Macedo, Lecor's adjutant-general.

page 75 note 1 Da Costa and Lecor came to an agreement in Nov. 1823, in consequence of which the former embarked with his troops for Lisbon. Lecor entered Montevideo on 9 March 1824. On the whole of this episode and the abortive movement for the independence of the Banda Oriental see Acevedo, , Artigas, pp. 932–40Google Scholar; De-María, , op. cit., iv. 194278.Google Scholar

page 75 note 2 See De-María, , op. cit., iv. 202.Google Scholar

page 75 note 3 The constitution drawn up by the constituent congress of 1823 was rejected by Dom Pedro, who presented the nation with another ‘twice as liberal’ in 1824.

page 75 note 4 De-Maria, , op. cit., v. 1014Google Scholar; Sanmartin, Olyntho, Bento Manoel Ribeiro (Porto Alegre, 1935), p. 64, n. 1.Google Scholar

page 76 note 1 Montevideo was captured by Sir Samuel Auchmuty on 3 Feb. 1807, and was evacuated by General Whitelocke on 9 Sept. According to Robertson, on the capture of the town about six thousand British subjects entered ‘of whom four thousand were military, two thousand merchants, traders, adventurers; and a dubious crew which could scarcely pass muster, even under the latter designation’. Letters on Paraguay, i. 102.Google Scholar

page 76 note 2 At the close of the eighteenth century the population of Montevideo had exceeded 15,000. Azara, Descripción é historia del Paraguay y del Río de la Plata, i. 344Google Scholar. Brackenridge gives the population in 1818 as 7,000. Voyage to South America, ii. 47Google Scholar. This, however, is an under-estimate. See the census for 1813 and the incomplete figures for 1819 in De-María, , op. cit., ii. 174Google Scholar; iv. 179–81. The number can hardly have been much more than 10,000 in 1824. Cf. Caldcleugh, Alexander, Travels in South America, during the years 1819–20–21, (2 vols., London, 1825), i. 124Google Scholar; Núñez, , Account of Río de la Plata, p. 230.Google Scholar

page 77 note 1 Colonia del Sacramento was founded by the governor of Rio de Janeiro in 1680, and at once destroyed by the governor of Buenos Aires. Temporarily transferred to Portugal by the treaty of 1681, it was again captured by the governor of Buenos Aires in 1705 and again restored to Portugal in 1713. By the treaty of 1750 Colonia was to be surrendered to Spain. This treaty was annulled in 1761, but in the following year Colonia once more fell into the hands of the Spaniards, to be once more restored to Portugal in 1763. It was finally captured by the Spaniards in 1777 and by the Treaty of San Ildefonso, 1 Oct. 1777, remained in Spanish hands. Under the Portuguese Colonia had been the centre of a far-flung contraband trade. Cf. Levene, R., ed., Historia de la nación Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1936–), iii. 541–55Google Scholar. For the Portuguese claims see Manchester, , op, cit., p. 110Google Scholar, notes 2, 3, and 4.

page 77 note 2 Graham puts the figure for the Banda Oriental and Entre Ríos together as 50,000 in 1818. Manning, , i. 494Google Scholar. Núñez estimates 40–50,000 in 1824. Account of the Río de la Plata, p. 229.Google Scholar

page 80 note 1 (1756–1822), supra, p. 76, n. 1; cf. Webster, no. 22.

page 81 note 1 Cf. supra, p. 36. Hood reported in August that the United States trade was greater than that of any other nation, owing to an extensive carrying trade and the demand for flour. In the first six months of 1824 American shipping entering the port was more than five times the amount of British. Hood, to Planta, , 20 08 1824Google Scholar (no. 7), F.O. 51/1. A year later, however, it had almost ceased altogether. Hood, to Canning, , 13 08 1825Google Scholar (no. 24), F.O. 51/1.

page 82 note 1 Espalter, Mario Falcao, La Vigía Lecor (Montevideo, 1919), p. 210Google Scholar, gives the number of ships clearing from Montevideo as follows:—1815, 73; 1816, 74; 1817, 203; 1818, 262; 1819, 270; 1820, 255; 1821, 412.

page 82 note 2 Supra, pp. 33–4, 65. By reference to the table on p. 344 ff. it will be seen that British trade to Montevideo was negligible till 1820. It rose to over £90,000 in value in 1822 and then fell by more than two-thirds. These figures, however, are mainly useful for comparative purposes, and cannot be taken to represent actual imports. Thus while the real value of the goods exported in 1824 is put as £37,421, the 21 British ships that entered Montevideo in this year had a total cargo value of more than £75,000. Hood, to Canning, , 20 08 1824Google Scholar, 28 Jan. 1825, F.O. 51/1.

page 82 note 3 Supra, p. 74.

page 83 note 1 ‘British commerce during the whole of this year has been exceedingly tardy … this has arisen principally from the market having been forced far beyond its capacity …’ Hood to Canning, 13 April 1825 (no. 12), F.O. 51/1.

page 85 note 1 Cf. De-María, , op. cit., iv. 167.Google Scholar

page 86 note 1 Supra, pp. 61, 65–6.

page 87 note 1 Supra, pp. 19–20. Insurrection began once more in the Banda Oriental in April 1825 when Lavalleja led the famous expedition of the ‘Treinta y Tres’ for the liberation of his country. In October the congress of the United Provinces declared the Banda to be incorporated with themselves. War followed with Brazil till 1828, and resulted in the erection of the Banda Oriental into the independent state of Uruguay.

page 88 note 1 Antonio Manuel Corrêa da Camara, Brazilian consul at Buenos Aires, was appointed consul at Asunción on 31 May 1824 and was so recognised on 27 Aug. 1825. Archivo diplomatico da independencia (6 vols., Rio de Janeiro, 19221925), v. 245, 323Google Scholar. But see Báez, , Historia diplomática, i. 240.Google Scholar

page 88 note 2 By an arrangement between Lecor and Francia in April 1823, the port of Itapua on the Paraguayan Paraná was opened to trade. Báez, Ensayo sobre el Doctor Francia, p. 92.Google Scholar

page 90 note 1 There is a duplicate of this report in B.T. 6/61. Nugent was appointed consul-general for Chile on 10 Oct. 1823. He returned to England in June 1828, and though he did not again exercise the functions, he retained the office of consul-general till Oct. [?] 1832.

page 90 note 2 On 16 July 1810 the captain-general of Chile was forced to resign. Two months later, on 18 Sept., a cabildo abierto at Santiago elected a provisional junta to rule the country during the captivity and in the name of Ferdinand VII. A national congress met on 4 July 1811. But the first attempts at independence were ruined by internecine strife, and the country was reconquered from Peru in 1815. Final liberation came by the heroic march of San Martin across the Andes and the victories of Chacabuco (12 Feb. 1817) and Maipú, (5 04 1818)Google Scholar. On 15 Feb. 1817 a cabildo abierto at Santiago offered the government to San Martín. On San Martín's refusal of this honour, Bernardo O'Higgins, hero of the independence movement, was appointed supreme director; and on the first anniversary of Chacabuco Chile's declaration of independence was solemnly read. A constitution was framed in this same year, to be replaced by another in 1822, and by yet a third (also short lived) in 1823. In Jan. 1823 O'Higgins was forced to resign and in July he retired to Peru. He was succeeded on 4 April by Ramón Freire, who ruled till July 1826. Great constitutional and political disorder prevailed till 1831. According to a report made by the Syndic of the Consulado in 1796 the population of the country was then about 400,000 souls. The census of 1831–5 and that of 1843 give 1,010,332 and 1,083,801 respectively, but these figures are not above reproach. See Cruchaga, Miguel, Estudio sobre la organizatión económica, i. 147, 274Google Scholar. Cruchaga's estimate for the beginning of the nineteenth century is half a million. Ibid., i. 151.

page 91 note 1 Consul Rowcroft, who passed through Santiago in 1824 on his way to Peru, found the English merchants there ‘very few and inconsiderable’. (F.O. 61/2). But they were to be found at Coquimbo, Copiapo, Huasco, and above all at Valparaiso. It was not till after 1817 that Englishmen arrived in any numbers, but by 1824 they have been estimated at from 1,000 to 3,000 at Valparaiso alone. Journal written on board H.M.S. ‘Cambridge’, p. 22Google Scholar; Arana, Barros, Historia jeneral, xiii. 586–8; Vicuña Mackenna, The First Britons in Valparaiso, pp. 27, 36Google Scholar. Miers, however, in his Travels in Chile and La Plata, i. 446Google Scholar, considered these estimates much exaggerated and put the number of English at 400. Besides the large commission agents, the English in Valparaiso seem to have been a motley crew of traders, sailors and adventurers. ‘English tailors, shoemakers, saddlers, and inn-keepers’, wrote Maria Graham, ‘hang out their signs in every street; and the preponderance of the English language over every other spoken in the chief streets, would make one fancy Valparaiso a coast town in Britain.’ Journal of a residence in Chile, during the year 1822 … (London, 1824), p. 131Google Scholar. According, to Miers, (op. cit., i, 446–7)Google Scholar, many were ‘sailors, or persons in the lowest sphere of life’; and Robert Proctor, who, like Miers, was somewhat embittered by his experiences, described the town as ‘full of English, many of them of the lowest description and of the worst characters’, who acted as brokers and smugglers. Narrative of a journey across the Cordillera of the Andes, p. 109.Google Scholar

page 91 note 2 Anguita, , Leyes promulgadas en Chile, i. 326Google Scholar. This decree opened the ports of Valdivia, Talcahuano, Valparaiso and Coquimbo, and established an import tariff of 30 p.c. Despite the prevalence of old habits of contraband, its effect was to double the customs revenue at Valparaiso between January and August 1811. Arana, Barros, op. cit., viii. 274Google Scholar. For English attempts to force a trade before 1811 see infra, p. 127, n. 2.

page 91 note 3 I have been unable to see a copy of the Apertura i fomento del comercio i navegación (Santiago, 1813).Google Scholar

page 91 note 4 During the re-conquest of Chile the ports were again closed, and again opened in Feb. 1817. Manning, ii. 984. In Oct. 1822 the Minister of Hacienda presented a Reglamento de Comercio of 289 articles to the convention then sitting. This was sanctioned on 18 Oct. with the omission of 23 articles which constituted a highly protective tariff. Anguita, , Leyes promulgadas en Chile, i. 84102Google Scholar; Arana, Barros, op. cit., xili. 730–1Google Scholar. In the following year this law was abrogated and the Reglamento of 1813 re-established, but with certain modifications designed to prevent smuggling, and a new tariff. Arana, Barros, op. cit., xiv. 78Google Scholar; Ampliación al reglamento del libre comercio de 1813 i demás disposiciones consiguientes, 25 05 1823Google Scholar, Letelier, , Sesiones de los cuerpos lejislativos, vii. 166–70Google Scholar. This measure was approved on 27 June. The tariff attached to the Ampliación is printed infra, p. 103 ff.

page 92 note 1 Letelier, , op, cit., vii. 168–70Google Scholar; infra, p. 103 ff. Cf. Miers, , op. cit., ii. 200–1.Google Scholar

page 93 note 1 Cf. the complaint of the Minister of Hacienda on 26 04 1823Google Scholar that half the importations into Chile were made clandestinely. Letelier, , op. cit., vii. 78.Google Scholar

page 93 note 2 Consul Rowcroft complained that in 1824 Manchester white cotton goods, ‘good shirtings’, fetched less than 6d. a yard at Valparaiso (Memo, of 1 Nov. 1824, B.T. 6/60); and he estimated that from Valdivia to San Bias more than a year's consumption of cotton and other piece goods was on hand. Memo, iii. of 8 Oct. 1824, F.O. 61/3.

page 94 note 1 In 1826 10 British houses at Valparaiso urged the necessity of the protection of their trade by a British man-of-war on the ground that Valparaiso ‘very much exceeds all other ports on this side of the American continent in the magnitude and importance of its foreign trade. Scarcely a vessel doubles the Horn, without touching here for refreshments, or for orders: and according to the information of the agent on shore, the cargo is either sold, deposited, or it proceeds forward.’ Winter, , Brittain, , Waddington, , et al. , to Nugent, , 28 05 1826Google Scholar, F.O. 16/5. Buyers were accustomed to come down from as far north as Acapulco. See the Commercial Circular of Lezica Hnos. in 1829, in F.O. 354/8.

page 94 note 2 It is interesting to notice that in 1824 and 1825 American tonnage exceeded British. In 1825, 90 British vessels touched at Valparaiso and 70 American; in 1826, 79 British and 65 American. British tonnage in these years was 15,930 and 14,965; American was 17,695 and 15,406. Trade iv. Returns in F.O. 16/3 and 16/5.

page 94 note 3 The royalists in Chiloé capitulated on 18 Jan. 1826.

page 94 note 4 The Araucanians. See infra, p. 168.

page 95 note 1 In May 1824 Nugent sent his vice-consul, Matthew Carter, to reside as acting consul at Coquimbo. Carter was appointed consul there on 15 Feb. 1825, and, having returned to England in Feb. 1831, he was transferred to Cartagena (Spain) in June 1833. F.O. 16/1, 16/4, 16/16, and 16/22. Further information on the trade of Coquimbo will be found in Carter, to Canning, , 30 06 1825Google Scholar (no. 6), F.O. 16/4, but this adds little to what is here printed.

page 95 note 2 By Dec. 1825 the agents of three English mining companies, the Anglo-Chilian, the Chilian, and the Chilian-Peruvian Mining Associations, were resident at Coquimbo, and the numerous British residents there were anxiously seeking to establish a church. Carter, to Canning, , 31 12 1825Google Scholar, F.O. 16/4.

page 95 note 3 By decree of 18 Jan. 1826, coined gold and silver were allowed to be exported free; uncoined gold was to pay 4 p.c. per mark and uncoined silver 4 reals per mark. This decree is printed in Cruchaga, , Estudio sobre la v. organización económica, i. 40.Google Scholar

page 96 note 1 Cf. Miers, , op. cit., ii. 447–8Google Scholar. In 1790 the quantity of gold and silver brought to the mint had been $721,754 gold and $146,132 silver. Ibid., ii. 423. For Humboldt's estimate of the produce of the mines of Chile at the end of the eighteenth century see infra, p. 170, n. 3. Both Nugent and Carter wrote reports on the mines of Chile. See Carter, to Canning, , 3 10 1826Google Scholar (no. 13), and Nugent, to Canning, , 22 12 1826Google Scholar (no. 36), F.O. 16/5. According to Carter the annual average produce of the mines of Coquimbo from 1795 to 1810 had been $150,000 gold; $200,000 silver; and $200,000 copper. Production had been suspended between 1814 and 1817, but by 1825 it had increased to $200,000 gold; $600,000 silver; and $1,100,000 copper. Nugent reported an advance in the production of copper in Chile from an annual average of 16–17,000 quintals between 1803 and 1811 to 60,000 quintals between 1818 and 1825, and of silver from 25,000 marks between 1804 and 1812 to 40,000 marks between 1815 and 1825. The production of gold, however, he considered to have greatly diminished.

page 96 note 2 Carter calculated that in the nine years from 1817 20 p.c. of the produce of the mines of Coquimbo was exported directly to Europe, and that indirectly England and British India took 50 p.c. in payment for British and British Indian goods, the latter coming directly from India and the former in large part through the United States. Carter, to Canning, , 3 10 vi. 1826Google Scholar, F.O. 16/5. Nugent states that in 1816 ‘the Calcutta Country ships first made their appearance’, and that from then till 1824 they took two thirds of the copper produced, and England and the United States the remainder. The direct trade between Chile and Calcutta almost ceased in 1825–6, and the exports to the United States increased, a large part going indirectly to Calcutta. Nugent, to Canning, , 22 12 1826Google Scholar, F.O. 16/5. The non-arrival of British ships from India in 1825 was attributed to the Burmese war. Carter, to Canning, , 30 06 1825Google Scholar, F.O. 16/4.

page 97 note 1 In 1825 13 British vessels touched at Coquimbo with a tonnage of 2,340 and a cargo value of $90,927. In the same year 24 American vessels arrived, tonnage 6,951, invoice value of cargo $130,000. Trade Returns in B.T. 6/61 and F.O. 16/4. In 1826 the figures were:—British, 17 ships, tonnage 3,520, cargo value $134,065; American, 29 ships, tonnage 8,057, cargo value $110,823. Trade Returns, F.O. 16/5. The American lead in 1827 was yet more extensive, 6,754 tons to 2,740. F.O. 16/6.

page 97 note 2 A large part of these supplies still came overland from Santiago ‘in adhesion to an old and disadvantageous system of purchase, introduced by Spain, at a time when the port of Coquimbo was excluded from those ports in Chili to which vessels direct from Spain could discharge their cargoes’. The additional charges such a system entailed amounted to 50 p.c. Carter, to Canning, , 30 06 1825Google Scholar, F.O. 16/4. The system still continued in 1827. Carter, to Bidwell, , 31 12 1827Google Scholar, F.O. 16/6. According to Carter the city and province of Coquimbo took more than $1,000,000 of English manufactures annually.

page 99 note 1 Cf. treaties between [Chile and Buenos Aires, Jan. 1819], Chile, and Colombia, , 21 10 1822Google Scholar, and Chile, and Peru, , 23 12 1822Google Scholar. B.F.S.P., xii. 811Google Scholar; xi. 213; xii. 813.

page 99 note 2 The Chilian loan for £1,000,000 was issued by Hullet Bros, and Co. in 1822 at 70. The Government pledged the revenues of the state for the payment of principal and interest, and was in default by 1826. Arana, Barros, op. cit., xiii. 747–63; xv. 70–5.Google Scholar

page 100 note 1 The contract was made with the firm of Portáles, Cea i Compañia on 20 Aug. 1824, and is printed in Letelier, , op. cit., xi. 103–4Google Scholar. The company, however, was unable to fulfil its obligations, and at the end of two years its contract was annulled. The liquidation of its affairs roused great feeling, and the group which acknowledged the leadership of Diego Portales was known as the ‘Partido del Estanco’. Cf. Arana, Barros, op. cit., xv. 75–8.Google Scholar

page 101 note 1 See the Ampliatión al Reglamento del Libre Comercio, 1823, Letelier, , op. cit., vii. 166–8.Google Scholar

page 103 note 1 Ampliación al Reglamento del Libre Comercio, Art. 53.

page 103 note 2 Supra, p. 91, n. 4.

page 105 note 1 It should be ½ a real.

page 107 note 1 There is a duplicate of this report in B.T. 6/60. Thomas Rowcroft had been appointed consul-general for Peru on 10 Oct. 1823, and reached Callao on 8 June 1824. On 6 Dec, having dined on board H.M.S. Cambridge, then in harbour, he returned to Lima after dark, was fired on by mistake by patriot soldiers and mortally wounded. His successor, Charles Milner Ricketts (1776–1867), was appointed on 5 July 1825 and arrived at Lima on 15 Jan. 1826. He returned to England in May 1827, but remained consul-general till Jan. 1830. Ricketts had been appointed a member of the Supreme Council of Bengal in 1817; he was M.P. for Dartmouth from 1820–2; and he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1820.

page 108 note 2 Despite early manifestations of discontent and a formidable rising in 1814, Peru, the home of a privileged nobility and the seat of wealth and power, long remained the stronghold of the Spanish crown in South America. It was not until 28 July 1821 that her independence was proclaimed by the Argentine San Martin, whose army of liberation had arrived in the ships of Chile commanded by the Scottish Lord Cochrane. A year later the liberating streams from the north and the south met, when San Martin and the great Venezuelan liberator, Bolivar, held their celebrated and mysterious interview at Guayaquil. Thereafter San Martin, protector of Peru, withdrew, and in Sept. 1823, Bolivar, president of Colombia, himself arrived at Lima. But it was not until General Sucre, the Galahad of South America, had defeated the royalists at Ayacucho on 9 Dec. 1824, that the independence of Peru—and South America—was finally assured. Meanwhile, , on 10 02 1824Google Scholar, Bolivar had been appointed by a Peruvian congress dictator of Peru. In the two and a half years since independence, and while that independence was still contested, the distracted country had been ruled by an Argentine protector, a native junta of three, and two native presidents. A congress had met in 1822 and had promulgated a constitution in 1823. Its life was short. In Sept. 1826, Bolivar resigned his powers to General Santa Cruz and departed for Colombia, and at the end of November the constitution which he had drawn up for Bolivia was adopted by Peru with slight modifications, only to be rejected in favour of its predecessor early in the following year. This itself was abandoned for a fresh constitution in 1828.

page 108 note 1 The British settlement at Lima began in 1821, and by 1824 there were about 250 English residents, comprising 20 commercial firms with their clerks, and a few shopkeepers, public-house keepers and artisans. There were also some 16 British establishments or agencies at Arequipa. Rowcroft, to Canning, , 23 09 1824Google Scholar (no. 12), F.O. 61/3; Memoranda by Rowcroft, , 15 08, 18 09 1824Google Scholar, F.O. 61/2 and F.O. 61/3.

page 108 note 2 Supra, p. 93, n. 2.

page 108 note 3 Report on the Mines of Peru, Ricketts, to Canning, , 16 09 1826Google Scholar (no. 19), xiv. F.O. 61/8.

page 109 note 1 According to the census taken by order of Viceroy Francisco Gil de Taboada y Lemos, the population of the seven intendencies of Peru in 1796 amounted to 1,076,122. The ‘Spaniards’ numbered 135,755. The figure excludes a number of wild Indians. Fuentes, , Memorias de los vireyes, vi. app. p. 9Google Scholar. Humboldt's figure for 1823 is 1,400,000. Personal narrative of travels, vi. 127.Google Scholar

page 110 note 1 This statement is taken from the Mercurio Peruano, i. 275.Google Scholar

page 110 note 2 Supra, p. 108, n. 3. It is only possible to extract from this lengthy and comprehensive report the calculations made by Ricketts of the produce of the mines of Peru (comprising the intendencies of Truxillo, Tarma, Lima, Huamanga, Huancavelica, Cusco, Arequipa, and the new department of Puno) from 1780 to 1820. The total produce from 1780 to 1789 he estimates at 35.359 marks of gold, and 3,739,763 marks of silver. The mark of gold equalling $125 and that of silver $8½, at the rate of 4s. per dollar, this gives a total of £7,241,572. From 1791 to 1805 he calculates that the registered annual average produce of silver was $4,517,647, and of gold $412,966. During the next fifteen years he believes that silver production fell about $500,000 a year, but that gold remained fairly constant. But to these sums must be added the amounts clandestinely exported, which Ricketts estimates at one fourth of the whole. Thus the total average annual produce of gold and silver from 1791 to 1805 equals $4,930,613, together with $1,232,653 clandestinely exported, giving a total of $6,163,266. “This amount,’ says Ricketts, “corresponds very nearly with that estimated by Baron Humboldt for the same period, and I have reason to think that it exhibits a fair calculation of the average value of the precious metals produced in Lower Peru up to 1820 when the revolution took place.’ After that date he is of opinion that the produce of gold and silver fell to about $3,000,000 a year. For Humboldt's estimates see his Essai politique, ii. 602–3, 633.Google Scholar

page 111 note 1 15 Jan. 1529. Printed in Antuñez y Acevedo, Memorias históricas, app. no. 1.

page 111 note 2 The fleet convoyed to Tierra Firme was popularly known as the galleones, that which sailed to Mexico as the flota. Joseph de Veitia Linaje, in his famous Norte de la contratación de las Indias Occidentals (Sevilla, 1672)Google Scholar, lib. ii, cap. iv, sec. 29, p. 82, says that the flota in his time had been reduced to 3,000 tons. The system was suppressed in 1740. The flota of 1736 had contained 3,141½ tons, and the galledns of 1737, 1,891 tons. de Tejada, Lerdo, Comercio esterior de MéxicoGoogle Scholar, no. 2; Acevedo, Antuñez y, op. cit., app. p. xxxivGoogle Scholar. The flota was re-established in 1754 and the last sailed in 1776. In the above passage Ricketts is relying on an article in the Mercurio Peruano, i. 245Google Scholar. His use of the word ‘regulated’ is a mistranslation. The author of the article in question seems to have had in mind a statement by Miguel Alvarez Osorio in 1686, cited in Acevedo, Antuñez y, op. cit., p. 102Google Scholar, which placed the tonnage of the galleons at that time at 15,000, and that of the flota at 12,500. These figures may be accepted, perhaps, for the late sixteenth century, but not for the late seventeenth. See de Artíñano y de Galdácano, G., Historia del comercio con las Indias durante el dominio de los Austrias (Barcelona, 1917), p. 137Google Scholar. For the contraband trade see infra, p. 256.

page 111 note 3 Galleons sailed in 1721, 1723, 1730, 1737. Acevedo, Antuñez y, op. cit., app. p. xxxivGoogle Scholar. The first three brought back 34 millions of dollars. The fourth was a complete failure. Dionysio de Alcedo y Herrera, Aviso histórico, político, geográphico, con las noticias mas particulares del Perú … (Madrid [1740]), pp. 358–9.Google Scholar

page 111 note 4 This permission was accorded in 1740. Acevedo, Antuñez y, op. cit., pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

page 112 note 1 See the Ampliación de comercio libre a Buenos Aires, 2 Feb. 1778, D.H.A., v. 401–5Google Scholar, and the Reglamento y Aranceles Reales para el Comercio Libre de Española a Indias, 12 Oct. 1778, ibid., vi. 3–132. See supra, p. 28, n. 2, infra pp. 352–3.

page 112 note 2 ‘Disertación histórica y política sobre el comercio del Perú’, written by José Baquijano y Carrillo, Conde de Vista Florida, under the pseudonym ‘Cephalio’, in Mercurio Peruano, i. 209Google Scholar (20 March 1791, and following numbers). This article is for the most part translated in [Joseph Skinner] The present state of Peru (London, 1805), pp. 80134.Google Scholar

page 112 note 3 The ‘Relación de gobierno del excmo Señor Virrey del Perú, Frey Don Francisco Gil de Taboada y Lemos’ … gives the imports from the Peninsula in the quinquennium 1785–9 as $42,099,313, and the exports thereto as $35,979,339. Memorias de los virreyes, vi. app. p. 17Google Scholar. This relación was written by Hipólito Unanúe.

page 112 note 4 José Hipólito Unanúe (1755–1833), statesman, physician, economist, and philosopher. Unanúe was appointed Minister of Hacienda by San Martin in Aug. 1821, and in 1826 he became minister of foreign affairs and vice-president of the council of government. A staunch supporter of Bolívar, he retired from public affairs in September of that year.

page 112 note 5 Chile, of course, was never a viceroyalty. The memorandum to which Ricketts refers would appear to be Unanue's ‘Compendio estadístico del virreinato del Perú’, written in 1797, and based on his own Guía política, eclesiástica y militar del virreynato del Perú, which ran from 1793 to 1797. The Compendio is printed in his Obras científicas y literarias, ii. 346–61Google Scholar. What Ricketts means to say, and what Unanue does say, is that the figures for the inland trade of Peru from 1781 to 1790 are reasonably complete, but that from 1790 to 1795 he only possessed the figures for the trade of Peru with Europe.

page 113 note 1 Unanúe, , Obras, ii. 353–4.Google Scholar

page 113 note 2 Unanúe, , op. cit., ii. 354.Google Scholar

page 114 note 1 Unanúe, , op. cit., ii. 354–5Google Scholar. But Unanue gives the export of treasure in these years as $22,316,995, which gives an annual average of $4,463,399.

page 114 note 2 Supra, p. 110, n. 2, where the figures actually cited by Ricketts in his dispatch no. 19 are accurately given.

page 114 note 3 In 1816, however, the relatión of Viceroy Abascal complained that the state of the kingdom was deplorable; and the document could not have made very cheerful reading to his successor. ‘Relación del … D. José Abascal y Sousa’ in Odriozola, Documentos historicos del Perú, ii. 7.Google Scholar

page 115 note 1 The government of Mexico, however, by decree of 20 Dec. 1827, ordered the repatriation of old Spaniards, with certain exceptions. Colección de órdenes y decretos de la sober ana junta … iv. 131Google Scholar. For the Peruvian treatment of the Spaniards see Vargas, , Historia del Perú independiente, i. 265–7.Google Scholar

page 116 note 1 Infra, pp. 143 ff.

page 116 note 2 Infra, p. 195. Rowcroft's estimate of the amount of bullion shipped from the Pacific coast in the five or six years prior to 1824 was $40 million. Memo, of 14 Oct. 1824, B.T. 6/60. Half of this, he thought, was shipped without payment of duties. At the beginning of the revolution British merchants seem to have supplied patriots and royalists with impartial neutrality, but their complaints of losses, seizures, and forced loans were soon loud and long. In 1823 the house of J. P. and W. P. Robertson had eight ships en route for Lima with goods to the value of $600,000 (Robertson, W. P. to Parish, of Bath, 11 06 1823Google Scholar, F.O. 6/1); and $3 million of British capital was said to be tied up in credits and property at Arequipa alone in 1824. Memo, of Rowcroft, , 18 09 1824Google Scholar, F.O. 61/3.

page 117 note 1 Supra, p. 108, n. 3.

page 117 note 1 Supra, p. 93, n. 2. Miers states that at the time of Cochrane's capture of Arica the markets were glutted with English goods. Forty British vessels were said to- be detained at Arica on demurrage, ‘the cargoes worth little more than their freights, charges, and expences, and the supercargoes in absolute despair”. Travel in Chile and La Plata, ii. 59.Google Scholar

page 118 note 1 Supra, p. 108, n. 3; 110, n. 2. A loan for £1,200,000 was contracted with Frys and Chapman in 1822 at 6 p.c. £450,000 was issued in that year at 88, and £750,000 in 1824 at 82. A further loan for £616,000 at 6 p.c. was contracted with the same firm in 1825 and issued at 78. The government fell into arrears by October 1825.

page 119 note 1 The above figures are taken from the Mercurio Peruano, i. 232.Google Scholar

page 119 note 2 The children of slaves born after the declaration of independence were declared free by law of 12 Aug. 1821. A scheme of gradual compensated emancipation was introduced, and slaves serving in the army were freed. (Laws of 21 Sept. 1821 and 8 March 1822). Moreover, the importation of slaves was forbidden. But negro slavery continued to exist in Peru. F. García Calderon, Diccionario de la legislatión Peruana (2 vols., Lima, xxv. 1860–2), ii. 61Google Scholar; Vargas, , op. cit., i. 204, 242.Google Scholar

page 124 note 1 Infra, p. 195. Cf. Stevenson, , Historical and descriptive narrative, i. 349–50Google Scholar: ‘On entering a house in Lima, or in any other part of Peru that I visited, almost every object reminded me of England; the windows were glazed with English glass—the brass furniture on the commodes, tables, chairs, etc., were English—the chintz or dimity hangings, the linen and cotton dresses of the females, and the cloth coats, cloaks, etc., of the men were all English:—the tables were covered either with plate or English earthenware, and English glass, knives, forks, etc.; and even the kitchen utensils, if of iron, were English; in fine, with very few exceptions, all was either of English or South American manufacture.’

page 125 note 1 Not printed. Ricketts gives the following abstract of tonnage: British, 16,400 tons; American, 20,704; French, 2,796; Dutch, 674. Total, 40,574. The total number of ships arriving, including ships of war, was 368.

page 125 note 1 Infra, pp. 344 ff.

page 127 note 1 The ‘del credere’ is a premium in return for which the agent makes himself responsible for the payment of the debt to the principal.

page 127 note 2 During the winter of 1807–8 there is evidence of 11 British ships with a cargo valued at £933,000 clearing from Great Britain for Chile and Peru. The earlier of these sailed for the purposes of contraband, the latter, after the formation of the alliance with Spain, in the expectation of admission to colonial ports. Perhaps four or five of them actually went to the Pacific (some got no further than Buenos Aires), and four at least of these were captured by the Spaniards. Cf. Bros, Hullett, et al. to Canning, , 29 04 1809Google Scholar, F.O. 72/90. Apart from such attempts to force a trade a lucrative contraband was said to be carried on by English whalers under cover of the Nootka Sound Convention of 1790. Cf. Humboldt, , Essai politique, ii. 472Google Scholar. Viceroy Abascal complained that the growth of this contraband had ruined the native manufactures of Peru. ‘Relación del excmo Señor Virrey del Peru, D. José Abascal y Sousa’ … 1816, in Odriozola, , op. cit., ii. 23Google Scholar. See also Goebel, D. B., ‘British trade to the Spanish colonies, 1796–1823’, A.H.R., xliii (1938), pp. 316–17Google Scholar. After the opening of the ports of Chile (supra, p. 91, n. 4) and in the face of an increasingly difficult military situation and mounting expenses, affairs in the viceroyalty of Peru reached a crisis. Viceroy Pezuela, graphically describes the situation of the country on the eve of independence, the revenues daily diminishing, and the commerce both with the mother country and with the interior of South America cut off. Manifiesto en que el virrey del Perú Don Joaquin de la Pezuela refiere el hecho y circunstancias de su separación del mando …(Madrid, 1821), pp. 7583, apps. 26, 3040Google Scholar. Despite his measures to prevent contraband, necessity obliged him to permit some intercourse with foreigners. ‘Yo me veia frecuentemente apurado,’ he wrote, ‘por los clamores de la clase en propietarios que me pedian una admisión moderada de nuestros puertos de buques neutrales …: han sido muchas las veces en que porciones numerosas de los mismos comerciantes, tan celosos de su exclusivo tráfico, han reclamado las providencias de mi autoridad para que les permitiese introducir y extraer sus pertenencias en bageles estrangeros.’ (Ibid., pp. 79–80.) Between 1818 and 1820 special concessions had to be made both to natives and foreigners. In July 1818 it was actually proposed to open the ports of Peru to foreign trade, but the merchants of Lima subscribed a considerable sum to prevent this. (Ibid., p. 81, and app. 33.) The amount is stated to have been $740,000. (Staples, to Hamilton, , 12 10 1818Google Scholar, F.O. 72/215.) Such were the necessities of revenue that in the following year the Viceroy gave licenses to Spanish merchants, in particular to the house of Abadia and Arismendi, agents for the Philippine Company, to import goods in British vessels. Miers describes eight such licensed vessels sailing to Peru. Travels in Chile and La Plata, ii. 51–9Google Scholar. See also U.S. Cong. Senate Exec. Docs. 35 Cong. 1 Sess. xiii, no. 58, pp. 158, 335–6Google Scholar; Goebel, , op. cit., pp. 318–19Google Scholar. In 1819 it was reported that the port of Callao had been opened to British trade, subject to the approval of Spain. (Tupper, P. C. to Castlereagh, , 30 11 1819Google Scholar, F.O. 72/227.) Mrs.Goebel, , op. cit., p. 319Google Scholar, cites evidence to show that in 1820 Callao was opened to all neutral vessels, except such as carried the produce or manufactures of Chile. It should, however, be noticed that Viceroy Pezuela explicitly denies that the port was opened in 1820, though he admits that the measure of opening the ports was considered and that he was pressed to accede to it. Manifesto, pp. 81–2Google Scholar, app. 26. In view of the circumstances under which the Manifesto was written, this denial is perhaps not altogether convincing. In any event, whether there was any formal opening or not, foreign vessels did enter the ports of Peru.

page 128 note 1 By the Reglamento of 28 09 1821Google Scholar, the ports of Callao and Huanchaco were opened by the patriot government to trade with friendly nations. Goods in foreign bottoms were to pay 20 p.c.; those of Chile, Buenos Aires and Colombia, 18 p.c.; and those under the flag of Peru, 16 p.c. An export duty of 5 p.c. was placed on coined silver, and of 2½ p.c. on coined gold. This decree was published in the Gazeta del Gobierno de Lima, 6 10 1821Google Scholar. Arana, Barros, Historia jeneral, xiii. 501Google Scholar; Vargas, , op. cit., i. 204Google Scholar; Stevenson, , Historical and descriptive narrative, iii. 423–4Google Scholar. A further reglamento of 31 Oct., for the coasting trade, permitted foreigners to dispose of their cargoes without the interposition of a native consignee, on payment of 25 p.c. instead of 20 p.c. import duty (Stevenson, , op. cit., iii. 429Google Scholar), and on 28 March 1825 the third article of the Reglamento of Oct. 1821 was repealed, and foreigners thereby allowed to trade without the necessity of having Peruvian consignees. Gazeta del Gobierno, 31 03 1825.Google Scholar

page 128 note 2 In Sept. 1822 the independent Government imposed a forced loan of $400,000 on the city of Lima. The English merchants were required to pay $230,000. Through the interference of Capt. Prescott of H.M.S. Aurora, this sum was reduced to $73,000. Gibbs, Anthonyet al. to Canning, , 9 08 1823Google Scholar, F.O. 61/1; Miller, , Memoirs of General Miller, ii. 34Google Scholar; Soldán, M. F. Paz, Historia del Perú independiente, 1822–1827 (2 vols., Biblioteca Ayacucho, Madrid, 1919), i. 34–9.Google Scholar

page 129 note 1 In the absence of accredited ministers and consuls the British naval commanders were called upon to protect British rights and property; and they acted both as consuls and, on occasion, as plenipotentiaries. See Basil Hall's description in his Extracts from a journal, written on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, i. 41–4Google Scholar. Cf. also, Miers, , op. cit., ii. 60–1.Google Scholar

page 129 note 2 Ricketts, to Canning, , 10 06 1827Google Scholar (no. 17), F.O. 61/11, on the claims of British subjects against the Spanish and independent governments of Peru.

page 129 note 3 The reference is to the commercial crisis which set in in England towards the end of 1825. The failure of the mining speculations in South America was one of its notable features. See infra, p. 154, n. 1.

page 130 note 1 Ricketts, to Canning, , 22 07 1826Google Scholar (no. 14), F.O. 61/8.

page 131 note 1 Supra, p. 129, n. 2. The claims made by British subjects embraced a variety of heads—forced loans, seizures of goods in the customs house, nonpayment of bills, default on the interest of the loans, seizures of ships, and depreciated currency, to name but the most prominent. The total amounted to some $17,000,000. Ricketts regarded these claims unsympathetically. The merchants, he wrote, had only themselves to blame. They had adventured in a lottery and made great profits. They had made the most of the difficulties of the patriots, and they did not hesitate to magnify their grievances. On the currency question cf. Proctor, , Narrative of a journey across the Cordillera of the Andes, pp. 289–90.Google Scholar

page 132 note 1 The monopoly of gunpowder and tobacco was established on 11 Sept. 1826, and the Caja de Amortización on 22 Sept. Registro Oficial de la Repúblics Peruana, 4 10 1826Google Scholar. The purpose of the caja was to classify and liquidate the debts of the republic, to pay the interest and extinguish the capital, and to administer the funds destined for these objects.

page 132 note 2 Not printed.

page 133 note 1 Cf. Etat relevé sur les documens officiels, présentant le mouvement, par puissances, de la navigation et du commerce maritime de la France avec l'etranger, 1825, 1826, B.F.S.P., xv. 1262.Google Scholar

page 134 note 1 The importation of Spanish products was forbidden by decrees of 17 April xxxv. and 9 May 1825. Passmore, to Canning, , 29 09 1825Google Scholar (no. 3), F.O. 61/5.

page 135 note 1 On 29 March 1824 a royal decree authorised the establishment of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, and on 18 Aug. the king approved the articles of agreement of the company. Mansvelt, W. K. F., Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (2 vols., Haarlem, [19241926]), i. 6683.Google Scholar

page 135 note 2 A. Serruys.

page 137 note 1 According to Blok, English competition in the Levant and in South America proved so heavy that the Company was forced to wind up its activities in these regions, and to limit its operations to the East Indies. Blok, P. J., Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche volk (4 vols., 3rd edn., Leiden [1926]), iv. 256.Google Scholar

page 138 note 1 Cf. the statistics of United States trade with Latin America in Robertson, Hispanic-American relations with the United States, p. 197Google Scholar. The total figure of the domestic and foreign exports of the United States to Chile and Peru in 1825 is there given as $1,567,476.

page 138 note 2 Cf. supra, pp. 37, 83, 97, and see the table of the exports of flour in Pitkin, T., A statistical view of the commerce of the United States … (New Haven, 1835), p. 121.Google Scholar

page 139 note 1 William Tudor was appointed United States Consul at Lima on 9 Dec. 1823 and received his exequatur on 24 Dec. 1824. Robertson, W. S., ‘Documents concerning the consular service of the United States in Latin America”, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, ii (1916), p. 565.Google Scholar

page 139 note 2 Infra, p. 147.

page 140 note 1 Cf. supra, p. 38; and Latourette, , History of early relations between the United States and China, pp. 52–9, 6381.Google Scholar

page 140 note 2 See Nolan, L. C., ‘The relations of the United States and Peru with respect to claims’, H.A.H.R., xvii (1937), pp. 34–6Google Scholar. For the comparative tonnage xl. of British and American shipping in 1825–6 see supra, p. 125, n. 1.

page 141 note 1 On British interest in the mines of Peru see Ricketts, to Canning, , 16 09 1826Google Scholar (no. 19), F.O. 61/8.

page 142 note 1 Commercial Code of Peru, 6 June 1826. Infra, pp. 198 ff. Printed in the Registro Oficial de la Republica Peruana, 9 06 1826.Google Scholar

page 142 note 2 I.e., 3, 4, and 6.

page 144 note 1 Supra, p. 128, n. 1. Cf. Passmore, to Canning, , Arequipa, , 29 09 1825Google Scholar (no. 3), F.O. 61/5. ‘The rate of duty payable on goods imported at present is 35 per cent., (decree of the Liberator of the 17th of August), upon liquors 80, wines 48, and all description of furniture, wearing apparel, 35 per cent.’ There was much confusion in Peru in those areas which the fortunes of war placed now under royalist now under patriot regulation.

page 144 note 2 22 Sept. 1826, Registro Oficial de la Republica Peruana, 4 10 1826.Google Scholar

page 145 note 1 Cf. supra, p. 93, n.

page 145 note 2 Supra, pp. 53, 61; infra, pp. 247–9.

page 146 note 1 Art. 19.

page 146 note 2 Supra, p. 61; infra, p. 247.

page 147 note 1 22 Sept. 1826, supra, p. 132, n. 1; p. 144, n. 2.

page 147 note 2 On 4 Jan. 1827 the government imposed a duty of 80 p.c. on sanas bafetas, madapolanes, and other goods ‘comparable to the tocuyos of North America’. Registro Oficial de la Republica Ptruana, 13 01 1827.Google Scholar

page 148 note 1 Registro Oficial de la República Peruana, 4 10 1826.Google Scholar

page 148 note 2 Supra, p. 144, n. 1.

page 148 note 3 Miers, , op. cit., ii, 289–90.Google Scholar

page 148 note 4 22 Sept. 1826, Registro Oficial de la República Peruana, 4 10 1826.Google Scholar

page 149 note 1 Supra, p. 100, n. 1; p. 132, n. 1.

page 150 note 1 Reglamento de Comercio, 6 06 1826Google Scholar, arts. 48, 52. Infra, pp. 204–5. See also infra, p. 155.

page 150 note 2 Reglamento de Comercio, 6 06 1826Google Scholar, arts. 32–9. Infra, p. 203.

page 150 note 3 Supra, p. 108, n. 3.

page 152 note 1 ‘The mint is now conducted under British superintendence.’ Ricketts, to Canning, , 16 09 1826Google Scholar, F.O. 61/8.

page 152 note 2 See supra, p. 95, n. 3.

page 153 note 1 By reason of the small percentage which they received, the captains became responsible for the safe delivery of the bullion and coin on board their vessels. Miers relates the fraud perpetrated on Captain Mackenzie of H.M.S. Superb, who innocently signed double bills of lading, and was defrauded of $80,000. Travels, ii. 61.Google Scholar

page 154 note 1 English gives particulars of 26 Spanish American mining companies founded or projected in 1824 and 1825. Guide to the companies formed for working foreign mines … There is a succinct account of the mania in the article on Mining Companies in McCulloch, J. R., A Dictionary, practical, theoretical, and historical, of commerce and commercial navigation (London, 1832Google Scholar. Many editions).

page 154 note 2 Reglamento de Comercio, 6 06 1826Google Scholar, arts. 1, 43, 44. Infra, pp. 198, 204.

page 155 note 1 Originally levied at the rate of 2 per cent., the alcabala, or sales tax, was subsequently raised to 4 and then to 6 per cent. Zamora y Coronado, Biblioteca de legislación uttramarina, i. 146.Google Scholar

page 155 note 2 Infra, p. 204.

page 157 note 1 Simón Bolívar, (1783–1830), liberator of Venezuela and Colombia, dictator of Peru. Supra, p. 107, n. 2.

page 157 note 2 Infra, pp. 247–9.

page 157 note 3 Supra, p. 124, n. 1.

page 157 note 4 No treaty between Great Britain and Peru was signed till 5 June 1837.

page 158 note 1 Supra, p. 108, n. 3.

page 158 note 2 Infra, pp. 216–7.

page 158 note 3 Humboldt estimated the total population of Spanish America in 1823 as 16,750,000. Personal Narrative, vi. 127Google Scholar. This, by a slightly different calculation, he made up as follows:—Indians, 7,530,000; Mixed, 5,328,000; Whites, 3,276,000; Blacks, 776,000. Ibid., vi. 836. At the beginning of the nineteenth century he supposed that out of a total population of 14 or 15 millions there were some 3,000,000 Creoles and 200,000 Europeans. Ibid., iii. 438. For more detailed references see index.

page 159 note 1 On the various routes proposed for joining the Atlantic and the Pacific see Humboldt, Essai politique, i. 1227Google Scholar; and Robinson, , Memoirs of the Mexican revolution, ii. 265306.Google Scholar

page 159 note 2 Infra, p. 269. Humboldt gave currency to the story that a little canal in the ravine of Raspadura united the Atrato and San Juan. Essai politique, i. 25Google Scholar; Robinson, , op. cit., ii. 266–7.Google Scholar

page 159 note 3 Robinson, , op. cit., ii. 269–74Google Scholar; infra, p. 270.

page 160 note 1 The fur-trade. The Nootka Sound Convention of 1790 admitted the right of British subjects to trade and settle on the north-west coast of America in regions not occupied by Spain. ‘It was the first express renunciation of Spain's ancient claim to exclusive sovereignty over the American shores of the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas.’ Manning, W. R., The Nootka Sound controversy (Washington, 1905Google Scholar, reprinted from Am. Hist. Assoc, Ann. Rept., 1904), p. 462.Google Scholar

page 160 note 2 Cf. Robinson, , op. cit., ii. 306, 316–17Google Scholar. The quotation is not exact.

page 162 note 1 Infra, pp. 241–3.

page 162 note 2 Captain P. P. King and Captain Pringle Stokes, sent in 1826 to survey the southern coasts of South America. The survey was published in 1832 under the title of Sailing directions for the coasts of Eastern and Western Patagonia … See also [Robert Fitzroy] Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle, between the years 1826 and 1836 … (3 vols., London, 1839)Google Scholar. Volume i. contains the proceedings of Captain King's expedition.

page 163 note 1 H.M.S. Cambridge.

page 164 note 1 The figures are taken from the Mercurio Peruano, i. 232.

page 164 note 2 Supra, p. 154.

page 167 note 1 Supra, p. 94, n. 3.

page 167 note 2 Bernardo O'Higgins (1778–1842), son of Viceroy Ambrosio O'Higgins of Peru. Supreme director of Chile, 1817–23. Supra, p. 90, n. 2.

page 167 note 3 Vicente Benavides (1785–1822). Benavides, says Barros Arana, ‘attained greater celebrity for his crimes than for his services to the royal cause’. He had become a captain in the royalist forces before Maipú (1818), escaped death miraculously after Maipú, and finally rejoined the royalists in southern Chile, where he carried on a desolating and savage warfare from his headquarters at Arauco. He was captured and executed in 1822. Miller, , Memoirs of General Miller, i. 246–51Google Scholar; Arana, Barros, Historia jeneral, xii. 98102; xiii. 401–38.Google Scholar

page 168 note 1 Henry William Rouse, who had been appointed a vice-consul for Chile on 10 Oct. 1823, became Consul at Concepción on 18 Jan. 1827. F.O. 16/6. He was transferred to Valparaiso in 1837. He did not retire till 1870.

page 168 note 2 Jean-François de Galaup, comte de la Pérouse (1741–88), French navigator. Pérouse's expedition in search of the northwest passage and for the exploration of the Pacific reached Concepción in 1786 and Botany Bay in Jan. 1788. No more was heard of it till Captain Peter Dillon discovered its wreckage on an island near the New Hebrides. Dillon, P., Narrative and successful result of a voyage in the South Seas … to ascertain the actual fate of La Pérouse's expedition … (2 vols., London, 1829).Google Scholar

page 168 note 3 On O'Higgins' plans for emigration to Chile, see Arana, Barros, Historia jeneral, xiii. 590–12Google Scholar; xiv. 529–30. Under the directorship of Freire a colonization contract was concluded in London in 1825 between the Chilian representative, Mariano Egaña, and Richard Gurney and Antonio Quiroga, whereby a considerable settlement of Irish peasants was to be made on lands to the south of the Biobio. The project, however, came to nothing. Interesting evidence of O'Higgins' continued desire for an Irish colonization of southern Chile is found in his letter to Capt. Coghlan, , Lima, , 20 08 1831Google Scholar, F.O.16/16, enclosing a ‘Comparative Sketch of the natural and other advantages possessed by the United States and Chile respectively for constituting a maritime power of the first class in the new world’.

page 168 note 4 The lands in question were not perfectly in the possession of the Government, and were exposed to Indian attack. Spanish settlements were for the most part restricted to the north of the Biobio by necessity. For the negotiations with the Araucanians in 1773–4 see Arana, Barros, Historia jeneral, vi. 343–50.Google Scholar

page 169 note 1 A reference to the expedition of Hendrik Brouwer in 1643 and the attempted Dutch settlement in Valdivia. The Indians did not prove to be the loyal allies the invaders had hoped. Arana, Barros, op. cit., iv. 378–89.Google Scholar

page 170 note 1 Supra, no. V.

page 170 note 2 Molina, Abbé Don J. Ignatius, The geographical, natural, and civil history of Chili (2 vols., London, 1809)Google Scholar. Molina states that the quantity of gold dug annually in Chile, and paying the royal fifth, did not amount to less than four million dollars (i. 94). He had left Chile in 1767.

page 170 note 3 $2,060,000. Essai politique, ii. 611, 633Google Scholar, Cf. supra, p. 96, n. 1.

page 171 note 1 Supra, p. 93.

page 171 note 2 Supra, pp. 103 ff.

page 171 note 3 See supra, p. 87, n. 1. Brazil declared war on Argentina in Dec. 1825, and proceeded to blockade the River Plate. The Argentine fleet, however, under the command of Admiral Brown, brilliantly defeated the Brazilian naval forces. Levene, , History of Argentina, pp. 380–1Google Scholar. Peace was not finally made till 1828.

page 172 note 1 Infra, no. VII.

page 173 note 1 Till after the battle of Ayacucho the trade of Arequipa had been ‘a complete monopoly’, resting ‘in the hands of an individual of the name of Cotera, an old Spaniard, who acquired this ascendancy through his intimacy with the Viceroy La Serna’. Passmore, to Canning, , 29 09 1825Google Scholar (no. 3), F.O. 61/5. Through the influence of this individual, Arica, formerly a port of entry for Upper Peru, had been closed in favour of Quilca, which was 90 miles from Arequipa, and connected to it by a mule track, where the port was an open roadstead, and where there was no storage accommodation. Here Cotera was the principal consignee. Yet in 1824–5 two million dollars worth of European goods were there introduced for the supply of Cuzco and Upper Peru, and in 1825 between $450,000–1480,000 of British goods. In 1825 specie to the amount of a million dollars was exported from Quilca, as well as a considerable amount of smuggled plata piña. Rowcroft, Memo, on Arequipa, 18 Sept. 1824, F.O. 61/3; Passmore, to Planta, , 31 03 1825Google Scholar; to Canning, , 29 09 1825Google Scholar, F.O. 61/5.

page 173 note 2 José de la Serna e Hinojosa (1770–1832), the last Spanish viceroy of Peru. Le Serna replaced Viceroy Pezuela who was forced to resign as a result of a motín militar on 29 01 1821Google Scholar. He was captured at the battle of Ayacucho on 9 Dec. 1824.

page 173 note 3 Arica was declared a free port by decree of 22 Jan. 1825, and rose rapidly in importance. Passmore, to Canning, , 29 09 1825Google Scholar, F.O. 61/5. In the Reglamento of 6 June 1826 the port of Islay, a few miles to the south of Quilca, was substituted for the older port.

page 173 note 4 Passmore, to Canning, , Arequipa, , 29 09 1825Google Scholar (no. 3), F.O. 61/5. The more relevant information in this despatch has been incorporated in previous notes. Udney Passmore, a former Foreign Office clerk, accompanied Rowcroft to Peru as a vice-consul, was appointed acting-consul at Arequipa in 1824 and consul on 15 Feb. 1825. He retained the office till 1 April 1837 when the consulate was abolished.

page 174 note 1 ‘Articles of cutlery, glass, hard and earthenware, are generally sold from 70 to 100 per cent, above the invoice cost, and are always in much request.’ Passmore, to Canning, , 29 09 1825Google Scholar, F.O. 61/5.

page 174 note 2 Supra, p. 171, n. 3. The question whether the frontier province of Tarija and the district of Atacama belonged to Argentina or to Bolivia tended to strain relations between the two States.

page 175 note 1 ‘The rich valley of Tipuani near La Paz is held by different proprietors, and a person collected gold in one morning to the value of 70,000 dollars.’ Ricketts to Canning, 16 Sept. 1826 (no. 19), F.O. 61/8. The proprietors in question seem to have been Messrs. Cochrane, Robertson and Co., and Messrs. Begg and Co. of Lima. J. B. Pentland to Ricketts, 2 Dec. 1827, F.O. 61/12.

page 175 note 2 Franciscans.

page 176 note 1 The waters of the Beni and Mamoré mingle to form the Madeira which flows into the Amazon below Manaos.

page 176 note 2 Supra, p. 175, n. 1.

page 176 note 3 The Tipuani, Challana and Coroico all join the Mapiri, itself a tributary of the Beni.

page 176 note 4 Huanay and Muchanes.

page 176 note 5 Tadeo Haenke, naturalist and botanist, born at Kreibitz in Bohemia in 1761, came to Peru in 1790 in connection with the scientific expedition of Alejandro Malaspina, and died at Cochabamba in 1817. His ‘Memoria sobre los ríos navegables que fluyen al Marañón, procedentes de las Cordilleras del Bajo y Alto Perú’ (1799), and other writings, are printed in M. V. Ballivian y P. Kramer, eds., Tadeo Haenke, Escritos (La Paz, 1898)Google Scholar. The Memoria is translated in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, v. (1835). pp. 90–9.

page 176 note 6 Joseph Barclay Pentland (1797–1873), was sent to Bolivia by Ricketts for scientific and general purposes. Infra, p. 224. His report, dated 2 Dec. 1827, occupies almost the whole of a large folio volume, F.O. 61/12, and is of great interest. Pentland is said by the Dictionary of national biography, quite incorrectly, to have been accompanied on this expedition by Woodbine Parish. He was consul-general for Bolivia from 1836–9.

page 177 note 1 The Guano deposits on the Chincha islands were long a fertile source of revenue for Peru. Eight million tons were taken from these islands between 1853 and 1872. Markham, C. R., A history of Peru (Chicago, 1892), p. 486.Google Scholar

page 177 note 2 8 Sept. 1820. Supra, p. 107, n. 2.

page 177 note 3 Supra, p. 167, n. 2; p. 90, n. 2. O'Higgins lived on his estate at Montalvan for many years, dying at Lima in 1842.

page 178 note 1 Huaura.

page 178 note 2 Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616), author of the celebrated Comentarios reales … de los Yncas … (Lisbon, 16091617)Google Scholar. The reference is to the Chimu ruins in the valley of the Moche.

page 179 note 1 Supra, p. 28, n. 2; infra, p; 236, n. 1; p. 332, n. 1.

page 180 note 1 Infra, p. 243, n. 1.

page 181 note 1 Charles Marie La Condamine (1701–74), was one of the party of French savants who reached Quito in 1736 for the purpose of measuring an are of the meridian at the equator. For his descent of the Amazon see his Relation abrégée d'un voyage fait dans l'intérieur de l'Amérique Méridionale … (Paris, 1745).Google Scholar

page 181 note 2 Río Paute.

page 181 note 3 ‘Peregrinación por el Río Huallaga hasta la laguna de la gran Cocama, hecha por el Padre Predicador Apostólico Fray Manuel Sobreviela en el año pasado de 1790’, Mercurio Peruano, ii. 226–44Google Scholar. The Huallaga rises in the region of Cerro de Pasco. Geographical knowledge of the region described below still remains partial and incomplete. I have corrected obvious slips in Ricketts' transcription of place names from the Mercurio Peruano.

page 182 note 1 Marañón.

page 182 note 2 The provisional survey for The International 1:1,000,000 Map shows no direct connection between the sources of the Chipurana and the affluents of the Ucayali.

page 182 note 3 Mercurio Peruano, ii. 240. Originally these were Jesuit missions. See de Figueroa, P. Francisco, Relación de las misiones de la Compañía de Jesus en el Pais de los Maynas (Madrid, 1904)Google Scholar. On the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 their place was taken by the Franciscans and then by secular clergy.

page 183 note 1 Samuel Fritz (1654–1724), Jesuit missionary, celebrated for his work in the Upper Amazon. His map of the Marañon was published at Quito in 1707, and is printed in G. Edmundson's edition of the Journal of the travels and labours of Father Samuel Fritz … (Hakluyt Society, 2nd Series, vol. li. London, 1922).Google Scholar

page 183 note 2 ‘Peregrinación por los Rios Marañon y Ucayali á los Pueblos de Manoa, hecha por el Padre Predicador Apostólico Fray Narciso Girbal y Barcelo, en el año pasado de 1790’, Mercurio Peruano, iii. 4966.Google Scholar

page 183 note 3 The Urubamba, of which the Paucartambo or Yavero is a tributary, is the only stream of great size entering the river in this region.

page 184 note 1 The Beni is unconnected with the Ucayali system.

page 184 note 2 The boundary is actually more than five degrees further west.

page 184 note 3 Infra, pp. 241–2.

page 185 note 1 Infra, p. 226, n. 1; and p. 240.

page 185 note 2 Supra, p. 180; infra, pp. 243–4.

page 185 note 3 Decree of 20 Jan. 1823. Infra, p. 246, n. 2.

page 186 note 1 Infra, pp. 241–3, 337.

page 187 note 1 Cf. the figures in Thompson, , Narrative of an official visit to Guatemala from Mexico, pp. 480–9Google Scholar. Infra, p. 295.

page 187 note 2 Saravia, Miguel Gonzalez, Bosquejo politico-estadístico de Nicaragua (Guatemala, 1824)Google Scholar [?]. I have been unable to see a copy of this pamphlet.

page 189 note 1 Cf. infra, nos. XV and XVI.

page 189 note 2 Infra, 321–5, 328, n. 2.

page 190 note 1 See Bancroft, , History of California, ii. 653–70.Google Scholar

page 190 note 2 Infra, p. 332, n. 1; and p. 336.

page 190 note 3 Supra, pp. 139–41.

page 191 note 1 Cf. supra, p. 38. Under 53 George III, cap. 155, sees. 11 and 12, British ships could trade to Singapore only if they had a licence from the East India Company. Under 4 George IV, caps. 41 and 80, no such licence was required. Singapore passed into the hands of the East India Company in 1819. On its advantages as a free port cf. Part. Papers, H.C. 476 (1821), vii. 57Google Scholar. Report [relative to Trade with the East Indies].

page 191 note 2 ‘Observations on East India Products with suitable assortments for, and the current prices of the day in the Lima market.’ Not printed.

page 192 note 1 Infra, facing p. 206.

page 193 note 1 Supra, p. 129, n. 2.

page 193 note 2 Supra, p. 108, n. 3.

page 194 note 1 By May 1827 Ricketts despaired of the hope of political stability in Peru; and on his arrival in England he expressed the opinion that there was little utility in continuing the consulate-general. Ricketts to Canning, 11 May 1827 (no. 14); to Dudley, 20 Dec. 1827 (no. 21), F.O, 61/11, 61/12.

page 198 note 1 Supra, p. 142, n. 1.

page 204 note 1 In the actual Reglamento the port of Pisco was inadvertently omitted, and was added later. Registro Oficial de la República Peruana, 14 06 1826.Google Scholar

page 207 note 1 The boundary line ran through Lakes Titicaca and Uinamarca and followed the Desaguadero for a comparatively short distance.

page 208 note 1 The audiencia of Charcas was composed of the four provinces of La Paz, Potosi, Santa Cruz, and Chuquisaca. But to the assembly of July 1825 deputies from five departments—Chuquisaca, Potosi, La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz—were summoned; and these departments, by decree of 23 Jan. 1826, were recognised as the territorial divisions of the new republic. Lecuna, Documentos referentes a la creación de Bolivia, ii. 11Google Scholar, Oruro was added on 5 Sept. Pinilla, La creatión de Bolivia, p. 307.Google Scholar

page 208 note 2 A tributary.

page 208 note 3 Lake Poopó. I do not know on what evidence Ricketts grounded these singular statements.

page 208 note 4 J. B. Pentland estimated the population at 1,100,000, of which 200,000 were whites, 800,000 Indians, 100,000 mestizoes and 7,000 negroes. Of these last 4,700 were slaves. See supra, p. 176, n. 6. Cf. also Lecuna, , op. cit., ii. 225Google Scholar. The first census of Bolivia in 1831, with ingenuous precision, gives 1,083,540. Argüedas, Historia de Bolivia, p. 337Google Scholar. Ricketts has confused the population of Chuquisaca with that of La Paz; but Chuquisaca had long been famous as the seat of an audiencia, of an archbishopric and of a university.

page 209 note 1 Atahualpa, last of the independent Incas, was seized by Pizarro in the plaza of Cajamarca on 16 Nov. 1532.

page 209 note 2 The viceroyalty of La Plata was created in 1776. That of New Granada was first established in 1717, abolished in 1723, and re-established in 1739. The audiencia of Charcas, created in 1559, was attached to the viceroyalty of Peru till the foundation of that of La Plata. It returned to Peru after the outbreak of revolution in La Plata in 1810.

page 209 note 3 Upper Peru, in 1809, was the first scene of revolutionary disturbances in South America, savagely repressed from Peru. It then became a battle ground between the royalists of Peru and the patriots of Buenos Aires. Cf. supra, p. 3, n. 3; p. 15, n. 3.

page 209 note 4 José Canterac (ob. 1835), La Serna's chief-of-staff, was defeated at Junin by Bolívar on 6 Aug. The glory of Ayacucho belongs to Sucre. Supra, p. 107, n. 2; p. 173, n. 2.

page 209 note 5 Pedro Antonio de Olañete (1777[?]-1825), ultra-royalist general, attempted to maintain resistance in Upper Peru, but on 2 April 1825 died of wounds received in fighting against a portion of his own army that had declared for independence.

page 209 note 6 Antonio José de Sucre (1795–1830), born at Cumaná, is revered not only as the grand marshal of Ayacucho and the real founder of Bolivia, but for his patriotism, integrity, and self-abnegation during a long and distinguished service under Bolivar.

page 210 note 1 9 Feb. 1825. Lecuna, Documentos, i. 94.Google Scholar

page 210 note 2 Decree of 9 May 1825. Lecuna, Documentos, i. 202.Google Scholar

page 210 note 3 The assembly, representing the departments of La Paz, Cochabamba Chuquisaca, Potosí, and Santa Cruz, met at Chuquisaca, on 10 July 1825.

page 210 note 4 Declaration of Independence of the provinces of Upper Peru, 6 Aug. 1825. Lecuna, Documentos, i. 292Google Scholar; B.F.S.P., xiii. 859.Google Scholar

page 211 note 1 Decrees of 11, 15 and 19 Aug. 1825. Lecuna, Documentos, i. 304, 307, 315Google Scholar; B.F.S.P., xiii. 862Google Scholar. The proposed name for the new state was ‘República Bolívar’.

page 211 note 2 18 Aug. He remained in Bolivia till Jan. 1826.

page 211 note 3 For this legislation see Pinilla, , op. cit., pp. 250–63Google Scholar; Lecuna, , Documentos, i. 320507.Google Scholar

page 211 note 4 Decrees of 29 Dec. 1825. Lecuna, Documentos, i. 465–7.Google Scholar

page 211 note 5 Supra, p. 87, n. 1. For the mission of General Alvear and Dr. Díaz Vélez to Bolívar see Lecuna, , Documentos, i. 508–66Google Scholar; O'Leary, Bolívar y la emancipatión de Sur-América, ii. 477508.Google Scholar

page 211 note 6 Decree of 18 May 1826. Lecuna, , Documentos, ii. 140.Google Scholar

page 212 note 1 Proyecto de constitución para la República Boliviana, Lima, 1826Google Scholar. B.F.S.P., xiii. 875Google Scholar. The constitution was adopted with slight modifications after some months' discussion. There was one important change. Infra, p. 216, n. 2. For the alterations see Lecuna, Documentos, ii. 346–55.Google Scholar

page 212 note 2 Altered to one for each hundred.

page 212 note 3 Altered to twenty.

page 213 note 1 Altered to two-thirds.

page 213 note 2 Altered to thirty.

page 213 note 3 Altered to thirty-five.

page 214 note 1 The article was changed to read ‘The faculty of judging belongs exclusively to the tribunals established by the law’.

page 214 note 2 A mistranslation. The judges were to serve during good behaviour.

page 215 note 1 A mistranslation. Alienable is meant.

page 216 note 1 Cf. Belaunde, V. A., Bolívar and the political thought of the Spanish American Revolution (Baltimore, 1938), pp. 231–58.Google Scholar

page 216 note 2 The congress, however, added an article declaring Roman Catholicism to be the sole religion of the republic.

page 216 note 3 Ricketts to Canning, 18 Feb. 1826 (Secret), F.O. 61/7. Webster, no. 280.

page 217 note 1 Supra, pp. 51–2; 173–4.

page 217 note 2 Arica was the natural port for Upper Peru. Cf. supra p. 173, n. 1. The failure to secure it was a grave blow to the new state. Cf, Argüedas, Historia de Bolivia, pp. 287–95.Google Scholar

page 217 note 3 Decree of the Liberator, 28 Dec. 1825. Lecuna, , Documentos, i. 465.Google Scholar

page 217 note 4 Supra, p. 172. Cf. Argüedas, , op. cit., pp. 292–3.Google Scholar

page 218 note 1 Ricketts to Canning, 25 April 1826 (no. 2), F.O. 61/7. In part printed in Webster, no. 281. Infra, p. 223, n. 1.

page 218 note 2 Decree of 23 Dec. 1825, together with Reglamento de los aforos para las aduanas de la República Bolivia … printed in El Peruano Independiente, 8 04 1826Google Scholar. Lecuna, , Documentos, i. 461.Google Scholar

page 218 note 3 J. B. Pentland gives the imports in 1825 as £3,317,678 and in 1826 as $3,187,036. The exports in 1826 he puts at $3,613,750. The imports by way of Arica were almost double those from Buenos Aires, and of the foreign goods imported two-thirds were said to be British. Pentland to Ricketts, 2 Dec. 1827, F.O. 61/12. See supra, p. 176, n. 6.

page 218 note 4 Humboldt's estimate of the annual produce of the mines of Upper Peru at the beginning of the nineteenth century was $4,850,000. Essai politique, ii. 611–2, 633Google Scholar. J. B. Pentland estimated $2,619,918 silver and $800,000 gold in 1826. Pentland to Ricketts, 2 Dec. 1827, F.O. 61/12.

page 219 note 1 Cf. Sucre to Bolívar, 12 April 1826. Lecuna, , Documentos, ii. 88.Google Scholar

page 219 note 2 But see Pinilla, , op. cit., pp. 260–3Google Scholar; Lecuna, , Documentos, i. 457.Google Scholar

page 219 note 3 Decree of 2 Aug. 1825. Lecuna, , Documentos, i. 276.Google Scholar

page 220 note 1 Lecuna, , Documentos, i. 402Google Scholar. The commissioners got no further than Buenos Aires. For an entertaining description of the rush to secure the mines of Potosf see Miller, , Memoirs of General Miller, ii. 256–8, 272Google Scholar. Cf. also Andrews, J., Journey from Buenos Ayres, through the provinces of Cordova, Tucurnan, and Salta, to Potosí … (2 vols., London, 1827), ii. 104Google Scholar. Much information on the mines of Bolivia will be found in the report of Pentland cited supra, p. 176, n. 6. On the fabulous riches of Potosf see Humboldt, , Essai politique, ii. 612–25.Google Scholar

page 220 note 2 See the Presupuesto … de los Gastos, 1826, in Lecuna, , Documentos, ii. 91112Google Scholar. The total expenses are here put at $1,800,000.

page 221 note 1 Ricketts to Canning, 25 April 1826 (no. 2), F.O. 61/7.

page 222 note 1 Bolívar began his journey to Colombia on 3 Sept. 1826.

page 222 note 2 Ricketts to Canning, 18 Feb., 25 April 1826, F.O. 61/7. Webster, nos. 280, 281.

page 223 note 1 Bolívar's plans for the union of Peru and Bolivia and also of Colombia in the so-called Confederación Boliviana came to nothing. See the description of the plans in Bolivar to Sucre, 12 May 1826, in Lecuna, Vicente, Cartas del Libertador (10 vols., Caracas, 19291930), v. 289–95Google Scholar; and O'Leary, , Bolivar y la emancipación de Sur-América, ii. 582–8, 596–8.Google Scholar

page 224 note 1 Supra, p. 176, n. 6.

page 224 note 2 25 May 1826. Proyecto de constitución para la república de Bolivia y discurso del Libertador, Lima, 1826Google Scholar. B.F.S.P., xiii. 865.Google Scholar

page 226 note a The war in Peru was chiefly carried on by the forced loans and supplies from the southern provinces of Colombia.

page 226 note b Guayaquil remained under martial law until Sept. 1825.

page 226 note 1 There is a duplicate of this report in B.T. 6/39. Henry Wood was appointed consul at Guayaquil on 6 Jan. 1825 and died of dysentery on 9 Aug. 1826.

page 226 note 2 The presidency of Quito had been variously attached to the viceroyalty of Peru and the viceroyalty of New Granada. On 10 Aug. 1809 a junta was established at Quito in the name of Ferdinand VII, but did not long survive, and after further disorders in 1810–12, violently suppressed by the neighbouring authorities of Peru and New Granada, the presidency remained relatively quiet till 1820 when the invasion of Peru by San Martín from the south, and the victories of Bolivar in the north, precipitated the establishment of a revolutionary junta at Guayaquil on 9 Oct. Guayaquil now declared its independence and placed itself under the protection of Bolívar and San Martín. The fundamental law of Colombia, however, of 17 Dec. 1819 (B.F.S.P., ix. 407Google Scholar) had already declared that the old presidency of Quito was a part of the new state of Colombia, and in 1821 Bolívar sent Sucre to the aid of the Guayaquileños who were hard pressed by the royalist forces under General Aymerich. Bolívar's aim was twofold—to defeat the Spaniards and to annex the province. Sucre's victory at Pichincha (24 May 1822), with the aid of troops sent by San Martin, liberated the province of Quito. In June Bolívar himself arrived at Quito and in July occurred his famous interview with San Martín at Guayaquil. (Supra, p. 107, n. 2.) The results of that meeting were the retirement of San Martín, the abandonment of his hopes of uniting Guayaquil to Peru, and the triumph of the designs of Bolivar. Colombia had virtually annexed Quito in May; it now annexed Guayaquil in July. But the union so accomplished against the wishes of a large section of the population was destined to last only till 1830, when the modern state of Ecuador came into existence.

page 227 note 1 According to Restrepo the population of the presidency of Quito in 1810 was 600,000. By reports made in 1821 it was 550,000; and according to the census of Great Colombia in 1825 it was 491,996. That the population had declined seems certain, but none of these figures is more than a rough approximation. The population of the province of Guayaquil is generally given as 90,000. Restrepo, Historia de la revolución de la república de Colombia, i. 215Google Scholar; Humboldt, , Personal narrative, vi. 137–8Google Scholar; O'Leary, , Bolívar y la emancipación de Sur-América, ii. 556–7.Google Scholar

page 227 note 2 By law of 25 June 1824 (which reformed that of 8 Oct. 1821) Colombia was divided into twelve departments. Azuay and Ecuador adjoined Guayaquil. Codificación national de todas las leyes. de Colombia, i. 304.Google Scholar

page 228 note 1 Children of slaves born after the promulgation of the law were freed by the law of 21 July 1821. The same law provided for the establishment of a fund for the manumission of existing slaves. Codificación national, i. 14.Google Scholar

page 229 note 1 Cf. decrees of 25 June 1822 and 18 March 1826, Codificatión national, vii. 94Google Scholar; ii 225.

page 229 note 2 A description of the mines of Great Colombia, including the relatively unimportant equatorial provinces, will be found in Henderson to Canning, 12 April 1827 (no. 1), F.O. 18/43, Memoir on the Mines and Precious Metals of Colombia, a comprehensive work of some 365 pages. Humboldt gives the annual average produce of the mints of Bogotá and Popayán from 1789 to 1795 as $2,094,114, and estimates the total produce at the beginning of the nineteenth century as $2,990,000. Essai politique, ii. 625–33Google Scholar. Henderson gives the annual produce of the two mints from 1795 to 1810 as $2,141,637, and from 1810 to 1825 as $1,760,032. He was of opinion that the average quantity produced before 1810 was $4½ million, and after 1825 $5½–6 million.

page 230 note 1 Supra, p. 118, n. 1. The first Colombian loan for £2,000,000 was negotiated with Herring, Graham and Powles in 1822 at the price of 84; the second for £4,750,000, at 88½, with B. A. Goldschmidt and Co. in 1824. Goldschmidt and Co., as agents for Colombia, suspended payment of the interest on the loan in 1826, and Barclay, Herring, Richardson and Co., who succeeded Goldschmidts, failed in 1828.

page 230 note 2 For some of these speculations see infra, pp. 269–72.

page 236 note 1 There were two Philippine Companies. The first, established by Real Cédula of 29 March 1733, never went into operation. The second, created by Real Cédula of 10 March 1785, incorporated the old Caracas Company which had been founded in 1728 and was now dissolved. The company was given a twenty-five year monopoly of trade between Spain and the Philippines, either directly or by way of the ports of South America. European goods might be carried to South America on the outward passage, but trade in the opposite direction, between Asia and America, was forbidden. The company was also forbidden to interfere with the trade of the Manila galleon between Manila and Acapulco, but it was permitted to re-export to America Asiatic goods which had first been brought to Spain, and this, together with some direct trade to Mexico, seems to have injured the Acapulco trade. (See infra, p. 332, n. 1.) In 1793 and 1796 it was given the privilege of direct trade from the Philippines to South America in the event of war, (D.H.A., vii. 37, 117Google Scholar), and in 1803, when its privileges were renewed, it was permitted to send goods to the value of $500,000 annually from Manila to Lima and other South American ports in time of war. Ibid., vii. 244. It suffered a temporary loss of its monopoly by decree of the Cortes of Spain on 9 Nov. 1820 (Colección de los decretos y órdenes generales, vi. 378Google Scholar), and then dragged on a precarious existence till its dissolution in 1834. Azcarraga y Palmero, La libertad de comercio en las Islas Filipinas, pp. 114–47Google Scholar; Schurz, W. L., ‘The Royal Philippine Company’, H.A.H.R., iii (1920), 491508.Google Scholar

page 237 note 1 The Congress of Cúcuta, in Sept. 1821, established the first general customs law for the Republic of Colombia. Codificación national, i. 56.Google Scholar

page 240 note 1 A reference to the Spanish tariff in use at Cartagena and elsewhere, established on 22 April 1817 and supplemented on 14 Oct. 1817 and 3 Sept. 1818. Cf. Henderson, to Canning, , 8 01 1824Google Scholar (no. 2) F.O. 18/4;, Laws of 28 Sept. 1821; 5 Aug. 1823, Codificación national, i. 56, 262Google Scholar; and infra, p. 266, n. 2.

page 241 note 1 Infra, pp. 284, 337.

page 241 note 2 Supra, pp. 161–2; 185–6.

page 242 note 1 Not in Codificación national.

page 243 note 1 Law of 29 Sept. 1821. Codificación national, i. 66Google Scholar. Abrogated 4 April 1826, ibid., ii. 269.

page 246 note 1 Law of 29 Sept. 1821. Codificatión national, i. 62.Google Scholar

page 246 note 2 Ibid., vii. 143.

page 246 note 3 Laws of 7 July 1823, ibid., i. 208–9.

page 246 note 4 Law of 5 Aug. 1823, ibid., i. 260.

page 246 note 5 Law of 10 July 1823, ibid., i. 334.

page 246 note 6 Law of 29 Sept. 1821, ibid., i. 62.

page 246 note 7 B.F.S.P., xii. 782Google Scholar. The treaty of 6 July 1822, between Colombia and Peru, is in ibid., xi. 105.

page 247 note 1 Law of 5 Aug. 1823. Codificación national, i. 262Google Scholar. This law superseded that of 28 Sept. 1821 and was itself superseded by that of 13 March 1826. Ibid., i. 56; ii. 204.

page 249 note 1 Decree of 28 March 1825; Codificación national, ii. 51.Google Scholar

page 249 note 2 Law of 5 Aug. 1823; ibid., i. 260.

page 249 note 3 Law of 22 July 1824; ibid., i. 350. Abrogated 25 March 1826; ibid., ii. 247.

page 250 note 1 Law of 28 July 1824, ibid., i. 387.

page 250 note 2 Resolution of 13 Oct. 1821; ibid., i. 128. Cf. Law of 1 May 1826 ; ibid., ii 344.

page 250 note 3 The law of 29 Sept. 1821 permitted goods for re-exportation to remain in store for six months. Ibid., i. 66.

page 251 note 1 Decree of 25 June 1822; ibid., vii. 94.

page 252 note 1 F.O. 18/6. The government objected that in the commission of the consul-general Colombia was improperly designated a province, and that the commissions of the consuls referred to local authorities instead of to the Republic of Colombia. New commissions were issued on 7 Nov. 1825.

page 252 note 2 F.O. 18/1. Watts had previously been a partner in an agency house at Madras. He was expelled by the Government of New Granada in Jan. 1832 on charges which in Lord Palmerston's opinion amounted ‘to little or nothing’. F.O. 18/92.

page 253 note 1 There is a duplicate of this report in B.T. 6/37. The history of the revolution in the viceroyalty of New Granada is exceedingly complex. The fullest account in English is in Henao and Arrubla, History of Colombia. The news of events at Quito (supra, p. 226, n. 2) and at Caracas (infra, p. 273, n. 2) had precipitated the establishment of juntas at Cartagena and Santa Fé de Bogotá in June and July 1810, and these examples were imitated in other provinces of the viceroyalty. A congress of delegates from some of these proclaimed in Nov. 1811 the federation of the United Provinces of New Granada. In the same month Cartagena declared herself an independent state. Inter-provincial jealousies reduced this early independence movement to anarchy, and in May 1816, after Cartagena had endured a devastating siege, Bogotá was again occupied by a representative of the king of Spain, and the republic of the United Provinces of New Granada, never very united, had ceased to exist. In December of that year, however, Bolivar landed for the last time in Venezuela and began his final campaigns for the liberation of his country. In 1817 he formed his capital at Angostura and in 1819 crossed the Andes to liberate New Granada. On 7 Aug. he defeated the royalists at Boyacá and on the 10th entered Bogotá. On 17 Dec. a congress at Angostura decreed the union of Venezuela and New Granada in the Republic of Colombia and on 30 Aug. 1821 a constituent congress at Cucuta adopted the definitive constitution for the new republic. B.F.S.P., ix. 698Google Scholar. On 3 Oct. Bolívar was inaugurated as president.

page 254 note a The military defences of the coasts of Tierra Firme were, and still are, the castle of St. Antonio at Cumaná, the Moro de Nueva Barcelona, the fortifications of La Guayra, Puerto Cabello, the fort of San Carlos at the entrance of the Gulf of Maracaybo, and Carthagena. These coasts are divided into four maritime departments:—1st, The provinces of Guayana, Cumaná, Barcelona, and the island of Margarita. 2nd, The provinces of Caraccas, Coro, and Maracaybo. 3rd, The provinces of Rio de la Hacha, Santa Marta, Carthagena, as far as the gulph of Veragua. 4th, Panamá and Guayaquil in the Pacific.

page 254 note 1 See Humboldt, , Personal narrative, vii. 474–7.Google Scholar

page 254 note 2 F.O. 18/6, enclosing chart of the port of Cartagena.

page 255 note 1 Edward Vernon (1684–1757) captured Portobello in 1739, but failed in his attack on Cartagena in 1741. Smollett was present on the occasion.

page 255 note 2 Mariano Montilla (1782–1851), Venezuelan patriot and general; José Padilla, (1778–1828), Colombian general and admiral, implicated in a conspiracy against Bolívar in 1828 and executed.

page 255 note 3 1 Oct. 1821.

page 255 note 4 Cartagena was the first port of call of the galleons on their way to Porto Bello. At the fair here held a portion of their cargoes was disposed of, and news of their arrival was sent to Porto Bello and Lima. The Armada del Sur then sailed from Callao to Panama, and the treasures of Peru were transhipped across the isthmus to the great fair of Porto Bello. The fair held in that pestilential spot at one time lasted forty or fifty days. Supra, p. 111, n. 2.

page 256 note 1 By the Asiento of 26 March 1713 Great Britain obtained, amongst other privileges, the right of exporting 4,800 negroes annually to Spanish America, of sending an annual ship of 500 tons (later raised to 650) to the Spanish Main, and of stationing factors in American ports. The Asiento was assigned by Queen Anne to the South Sea Company which had been founded in 1711 with the intention of forcing a trade in the Indies. Davenport, F. G., European treaties bearing on the history of the United States and its dependencies (4 vols., Carnegie Institution of Washington, 19171937), iii. 171–85Google Scholar; iv (ed. C. O. Paullin), p. 9.

page 256 note 2 For the contraband activities of the South Sea Company see Aiton, A. S., ‘The Asiento Treaty as reflected in the Papers of Lord Shelburne’Google Scholar, and Brown, V. L., ‘Contraband trade: A factor in the decline of Spain's empire in America’, H.A.H.R., viii (1928), pp. 167–77Google Scholar a nd 178–89; together with Miss Brown's earlier article, ‘The South Sea Company and contraband trade’, A.H.R., xxxi (1926), pp. 662–78. The statistics of the tonnage of the galleons (supra, p. 111, ns. 2 and 3) are an interesting commentary on the extent of company and private trade.

page 256 note 3 Towards the middle of the eighteenth century the contraband had declined, partly because of Spain's more liberal commercial policy, partly because of the increased stringency with which Great Britain applied the navigation acts. See Edwards, Bryan, The history, civil and commercial, of the British colonies in the West Indies (3rd edn., 3 vols., London, 1801), i. 292300Google Scholar. For the British free port system, initiated in 1766, and extended by successive acts after 1787 so that at strategic points in the West Indies Great Britain tapped the trade and resources of the Spanish colonies and specifically protected a trade which in Spanish eyes remained contraband, see Goebel, D. B., ‘British trade to the Spanish Colonies, 1796–1823’, A.H.R., xliii (1938), pp. 289–94Google Scholar, and Manning, H. T., British colonial government after the American Revolution, 1782–1820 (New Haven, 1933), pp. 11, 274–86.Google Scholar

page 257 note 1 See the complaints of Viceroy Pedro Mendinueta of the wiles of the contrabandists, ‘siempre ingeniosos y atrevidos’, in his relatión of 1803. Posada y Ibáñez, Relaciones de Mando, p. 505Google Scholar. Viceroy Marquina of New Spain indignantly reported in this same year that he had seen with his own eyes the scandalous license with which ships bearing the Spanish flag entered Kingston, and the freedom with which English and Spanish merchants did business together. Instrucciones que los vireyes de Nueva España dejaron a sus sucesores (Mexico, 1867), p. 205Google Scholar. Cf. infra, p. 337.

page 257 note 2 No such freedom of trade was granted. Canning stated, in the Polignac Memorandum (Webster, ii. 117), that permission to trade had been granted to Great Britain in 1810 when British mediation was asked for by Spain and granted by Great Britain. Proposals for the opening of the Spanish American ports were indeed made at this time, but nothing came of them. And while one of the bases of the proposed mediation in 1811–12 was that Great Britain should have the right to trade while negotiations were in progress, mediation did not take place. From the Spanish point of view the Indies remained as rigidly closed as though no such discussions had taken place. See Goebel, D. B., ‘British trade to the Spanish Colonies, 1796–1823’, A.H.R., xliii (1938), pp. 288–9Google Scholar. Professors Temperley and Penson in their Foundations of British foreign policy from Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902) … (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 523–6Google Scholar, attempt to explain away Canning's words. The whole subject has been more fully discussed in an unpublished thesis by I. A. Langnas, ‘The relations between Great Britain and the Spanish colonies, 1802–12’, in the library of the Institute of Historical Research, London. For the suppressed decree of 17 May 1810 which would have opened the door to the Indies at least in part see Zamora y Coronado, Biblioteca de legislación ultramarina, ii. 264–5.Google Scholar

page 258 note 1 The treaty between Great Britain and Colombia was signed on 18 April 1825. B.F.S.P., xii. 661.Google Scholar

page 258 note 2 Law of 5 Aug. 1823. Codificación national, i. 262Google Scholar. Supra, pp. 247–9.

page 258 note 3 ‘The English of Jamaica’, wrote the French traveller, Mollien, ‘carry on almost the whole of the import trade …’ Travels in the republic of Colombia, in the years 1822 and 1823 (London, 1824), p. 388.Google Scholar

page 259 note 1 I know no map by anyone of this name. I suspect that the reference is to Antonio de Arébalo's Plano topográfico del Dique de Barranca, situado entre Cartagena de Indias y el Rio Grande de la Magdalena (c. 1797)Google Scholar. See Lanzas, P. Torres, Relación descriptiva de los mapos, pianos, etc. de las antiguas audiencias de Panamá, Santa Fe y Quito existentes en el Archivo General de Indias (Madrid, 1904).Google Scholar

page 259 note 2 Decree of 3 July 1823, conceding to Mr. J. B. Elbers the exclusive privilege for twenty years of navigating the Magdalena by steam boats. Codificación nacional, i. 194Google Scholar. Cf. Present state of Colombia, pp. 183–7.Google Scholar

page 260 note 1 Fredrik Tomas Adlercreutz (1793–1852), son of the Swedish Count Carl Johan Adlercreutz, served as chief of the engineer corps under Bolivar, was made governor of Mompox in 1828, and from 1840 to 1852 was Swedish consul-general at Caracas.

page 260 note 2 No doubt the Mr. Glenn whom Cochrane met in 1823 at Barranquilla ‘a merchant from Canada, who had been settled here eight years’. Cochrane, Journal of a residence and travels in Colombia, i. 76.Google Scholar

page 261 note 1 F.O. 18/6. The Colombian government laid claim to the territory occupied by the Indian tribes on the Goajira coast, on that of Darien, and on the Mosquito shore. Cf. Decree of 1 May 1826, Codification national, ii. 333Google Scholar. See also B.F.S.P., xi. 816Google Scholar. It insisted that foreigners trading with these Indians should obtain licences from the Colombian authorities. See Decree of 22 Sept. 1826, Codificación nacional, vii. 399Google Scholar, and the orders of J. M. Castillo to the intendant of Magdalena, 9 March 1822 and 29 April 1824, in Vice-Admiral Halsted to J. W. Croker, 3 May 1824, B.T. 6/38, and Watts to Planta, 11 Dec. 1824, F.O. 18/7. By the former of these orders all foreign vessels found trading off the coasts of Goajira and Darien were to be brought to Cartagena; the latter insisted that vessels trading with these Indians must obtain licences at Rio de la Hacha. These regulations were the subject of considerable dispute, since they hindered a trade long carried on from Jamaica. See Memorial of Merchants of Kingston to Vice-Admiral Halsted, 21 June 1824, F.O. 18/6. Repeated but ineffectual protests were made.

page 261 note 2 Infra, p. 269.

page 262 note 1 John M. Macpherson was appointed ‘consular commercial agent’ to Cartagena on 17 Aug. 1822, and his title was changed to consul on 19 April 1824. Robertson, W. S., ‘Documents concerning the consular service of the United States in Latin America’, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, ii (1916), p. 565.Google Scholar

page 262 note 2 A treaty between the United States and Colombia was signed on 3 Oct. 1824. B.F.S.P., xii. 782.Google Scholar

page 262 note 3 Cf. B.F.S.P., x. 747–8.Google Scholar

page 263 note 1 José Ignacio de Pombo (1761–1815), merchant and benefactor of Cartagena, and closely associated with the foundation of its consulado.

page 263 note 2 Not printed. Report of the minister of state for the interior, Don Jose Manuel Restrepo, to the congress of Colombia, dated Bogota, 22 April 1823; Report of the minister of state for the public revenue, Don José Maria del Castillo, to the congress of Colombia, dated Bogota, 5th May 1823. See State of Colombia or reports of the secretaries of state of the republic of Colombia, presented to the first constitutional congress in the year 1823 (London, 1824).Google Scholar

page 264 note 1 Supra, p. 253, n. 1. On 12 July 1821 the congress of Cúcuta ratified the Fundamental Law of the Union of the People of Colombia of 17 Dec. 1819. B.F.S.P., ix. 407, 696.Google Scholar

page 264 note 2 For the work of the constituent congress of Cúcuta and of the first and second congresses of Colombia, in 1823 and 1824, see Henao, and Arrubla, , op. cit., pp. 350–3, 368–73Google Scholar; and Fortoul, Gil, Historia constitucional de Venezuela, i. 428–42, 478–83Google Scholar. There were no sessions in 1822.

page 264 note 3 Not printed.

page 264 note 4 5 Aug. 1823. Codificación nacional, i. 262Google Scholar. Superseded 13 March 1826; ibid., ii. 204. Cf. supra, pp. 247–9.

page 264 note 5 29 Sept. 1821; ibid., i. 72.

page 264 note 6 5 Aug. 1823; ibid., i. 260. Superseded 13 March 1826; ibid. ii. 204.

page 264 note 7 Decree of 20 Jan. 1823; ibid., vii. 143.

page 265 note 1 29 Sept. 1821; ibid., i. 61.

page 265 note 2 29 Sept. 1821; ibid., i. 62.

page 265 note 3 29 Sept. 1821, ibid., i. 66. Repealed 4 April 1826; ibid., ii. 269.

page 265 note 4 29 Sept. 1821; ibid., i. 64. Repealed 10 July 1824; ibid., i. 329.

page 265 note 5 Decree of 27 Feb. 1822; ibid., vii. 73. Repealed 30 July 1824; ibid., i. 394.

page 265 note 6 17 Sept. 1821; ibid., i. 49. Reformed 4 July 1823, 3 Aug. 1824; ibid., i. 201, 404.

page 265 note 7 The alcabala was levied on the transport of goods to the interior. Law of 5 Oct. 1821. It was abolished on 22 July 1824. Codificación national, i. 89, 350Google Scholar. The extraccidn presunta was intended to guard against presumed clandestine export of specie equivalent to the amount of cargo imported. Law of 29 Sept. 1821. It was abolished on 10 July 1824; ibid., i. 65, 329.

page 265 note 8 For the rates in Colombia see supra, pp. 247–9. Cf. also p. 47, n. 2. Watts, in a note to enclosure no. 1 (supra, p. 264), gives the rates in Cuba as follows:—Class i, 20¾ p.c.; class ii, 27¼ p.c.; class iii, 28¾ p.c.; class iv, 30¼ p.c. The royal decree of 4 Feb. 1822, giving effect to the decree of the Cortes of 27 Jan. 1822, relative to foreign trade with the island of Cuba (B.F.S.P., x. 865Google Scholar), stated that dues should not be less than 20 p.c. nor more than 37½ p.c.

page 266 note 1 This decree, compelling foreigners to employ a Colombian consignee, was repealed on 30 July 1824. Codificación national, vii. 73Google Scholar; i. 394.

page 266 note 2 Not printed. R. McFarlane, J. A. Brush, G. Still, R. Cartmel to Watts, 16 Feb. 1824, complaining of the decree of 27 Feb. 1822, of the tariff, the alcabala, and other dues. The merchants admitted that the valuations in the tariff were not in general exorbitant, but they complained that its classifications were unsatisfactory, and that it was out of date. While the prices of British goods, particularly cottons, had been greatly reduced, the tariff had not been revised since 1817, and it should be fixed according to prices in the home market. Cf. supra, p. 240, n. 1; infra, p. 287.

page 267 note 1 The first census of Colombia, in 1825, with engaging precision, gives a total population of 2, 583, 799, but Henao and Arrubla, op. cit., p. 380, think it must have been at least 3,000,000. Restrepo gives New Granada 1,400,000, Venezuela 900,000 and Quito 600,000 in 1810. Historia de la revolución de la república de Colombia, i. 216Google Scholar. For further figures see Humboldt, , Personal narrative, vi. 131–8Google Scholar; O'Leary, , Bolivar y la emancipatión de Sur-América, ii. 556–7Google Scholar; Depons, Voyage a la partie orientale de la Terre-Ferme, i. 177–8Google Scholar. Colonel Patrick Campbell in his Report on the state of Colombia, Campbell to Planta, 6 Nov. 1824, F.O. 18/3, estimates 550,000 whites, of which only 200 were European Spaniards, 500,000 Indians (exclusive of wild Indians), 800,000 mestizos and 800,000 negroes and mulattoes.

page 267 note 2 Supra, p. 228, n. 1.

page 269 note 1 Decree of 5 Aug. 1823; amplified 2 July 1823. Codificacidn national, i. 266, 328Google Scholar. The privilege was ultimately invalidated. Present state of Colombia, p. 188.Google Scholar

page 269 note 2 Supra, pp. 259–60.

page 269 note 3 This privilege was granted on 29 March 1825, and was declared forfeited in 1827. Codificación national, ii. 53Google Scholar; vii. 498. See the account in Present state of Colombia, pp. 192–4.Google Scholar

page 270 note 1 Cf. supra, p. 159.

page 270 note 2 Cochrane, , Journal of a residence and travels in Colombia, ii. 140, 432.Google Scholar

page 270 note 3 One of the possible lines of communication discussed by Humboldt, , Essai politique, i. 1227.Google Scholar

page 270 note 4 See Robinson, , Memoirs of the Mexican revolution, ii. 274Google Scholar, who argues that the canal would have to be cut seven miles into the ocean.

page 270 note 5 Decree of 28 July 1823. Codificación nacional, i. 238Google Scholar. The project, however, seems to have been abandoned. Present state of Colombia, p. 319.Google Scholar

page 270 note 6 Decree of 11 Aug. 1823. Codificación nacional, i. 280Google Scholar. This grant was the original object of Cochrane's visit, and gave rise to the Colombian Pearl Fishery Association. Cochrane, op. cit., i. 2; ii. 140–3; Present state of Colombia, pp. 324–5.Google Scholar

page 271 note a It is not unlikely that the first discovery of Guatavita by the Spaniards may have given rise to the report of the country ‘del dorado’, which engaged so much the speculation of Sir Walter Raleigh and others.

page 271 note 1 See Hamilton, , Travels through the interior provinces of Colombia, i. 194Google Scholar; Cochrane, , op. cit., ii. 200–5Google Scholar; Humboldt, , Personal narrative, v. 813–15.Google Scholar

page 271 note 2 Leased by Cochrane, Rivero and Paris. Henderson, to Canning, , 12 04 1827Google Scholar, F.O. 18/43. Hamilton, , Travels, i. 198–9.Google Scholar

page 271 note 3 Cochrane, op. cit., ii. 186, 209–12. The contract, however, was ultimately declared void. Present state of Colombia, p. 314Google Scholar. In a note to the report of J. M. Castillo cited supra, p. 263, n. 2, Watts stated that the mines were rented at $50,000 a year, and that the lessees were to make an advance loan of $500,000 to the Government.

page 271 note 4 In a note to the report of J. M. Castillo cited supra, p. 263, n. 2. Macnamara had been commissary general of the Irish legion in Colombia. See Hamilton, , Travels, i. 100–1, 114.Google Scholar

page 271 note 5 In a note to the report of J. M. Castillo cited supra, p. 263, n. 2. See Decree of 29 Nov. 1823. Codificación nacional, vii. 178.Google Scholar

page 271 note 6 The legend does take its rise from this sacred lake. See Harlow, V. T., ed., The discoverie of the large and bewtiful empire of Guiana by Sir Walter Raleigh (London, 1928), pp. 1–li.Google Scholar

page 272 note 1 Codificación national, i. 265.Google Scholar

page 273 note 1 Appointed consul at La Guaira on 10 Oct. 1823. Ill health compelled him to return to England at the end of 1824.

page 273 note 2 A junta at Caracas had deposed the Spanish captain-general on 19 April 1810, and on 5 July 1811 Venezuela Was the first amongst Latin American republics to declare her independence. The life of the new state was short. In July 1812 Francisco de Miranda, dictator of the United Provinces of Venezuela, was forced to surrender to the Spanish general, Domingo de Monteverde. In the following year the Spaniards were again expelled, and Bolivar, who had marched from Cartagena to Caracas, was triumphantly proclaimed liberator, only to have to flee the country in 1814. Fortoul, Gil, Historia constitutional, i. 163330Google Scholar; Mancini, Jules, Bolivar et l'émancipation des colonies espagnoles des origines à 1815 (Paris, 1912)Google Scholar. For the later history of Venezuela see supra, p. 253, n. 1. The country again became an independent state on its separation from Colombia in 1830.

page 273 note 3 Not printed. They are as follows:—(2) Law of 5 Aug. 1823 on import duties. (Supra, pp. 247–9); (3) Export duties at La Guaira; (4) Port charges (amounting to $181.4 on a foreign vessel of 200 tons and $89 on a national vessel); (5) Prices current, 21 Feb. 1824; (6) Returns of Exports in 1823. See infra, p. 277.

page 273 note 4 Infra, p. 276, n. 1.

page 274 note 1 The fall of Puerto Cabello to General Paez in Nov. 1823 marked the end of the war in Venezuela.

page 274 note 2 Colonel J. P. Hamilton, sent by Canning to ascertain the actual state of affairs in Colombia. Webster, nos. 192, 195, 224.

page 274 note 3 Tupper's successor, the painter and traveller, Sir Robert Ker Porter (1777–1842), was appointed consul at Caracas on 15 Oct. 1825 and remained there till 1841.

page 275 note 1 There is a duplicate of this report in B.T. 6/37. There had long been an extensive contraband trade at La Guaira, and during the wars with England concessions had been made to neutral trade both by royal decree and local regulation. (D.H.A., vii. 134, 157Google Scholar; Relaciones de Mando, p. 506Google Scholar; Depons, , Voyage à lapartie orientate de la Terre-Ferme, ii. 394–5, 399Google Scholar; Lerdo de Tejada, Comercid esterior de Mexico, p. 20Google Scholar) One of the first acts of the junta of Caracas in 1810 had been to declare the ports of Venezuela open, and by an arrangement with the Governor of Curacao, duties on foreign imports were reduced by a quarter in favour of Great Britain. Mendez, L. L. to Castlereagh, , 12 10 1812Google Scholar, F.O. 72/157; Manning, ii. 1151. From this date the trade was subject to recurrent blockades and to the vicissitudes of the royalist and patriot causes. For British exports to Venezuela from 1812–16 see B.F.S.P., iv. 571Google Scholar, and infra, pp. 344 ff.

page 275 note 2 Decrees of 4 and 7 July 1823, Codificación national, i. 199Google Scholar; Blanco (y Azpurua), eds., Documentos para la historia de la vida pubtica del libertador de Colombia, Per– y Bolivia, ix. 155.Google Scholar

page 275 note 8 As an indication of the ruin wrought by the wars of independence cf. the exports as given by Humboldt for 1796. Personal narrative, vi. 222.Google Scholar

page 275 note 4 A fuller return, from the Customs House books, is given in Hall, Francis, Colombia; its present state… (London, 1824), p. 152.Google Scholar

page 276 note 1 See Decree of 23 June and law of 5 Aug. 1823. Codificación national, i. 191, 262Google Scholar. Supra, pp. 247–9. Tupper complained that the repeal of the regulation by which imports from the United States paid 5 p.c. more than those from Europe, (cf. Manning, ii. 1218), was highly prejudicial to British interests since it enabled the American to undersell the British merchant. British manufactures, he argued, were sold by auction in the United States considerably under the original cost; and the admission of these to Colombia greatly injured the direct importer. Tupper, to Hamilton, J. P., 16 01 1824Google Scholar. Supra, p. 273.

page 276 note 2 Supra, pp. 247–9; and p. 266, n. 2.

page 277 note 1 Not printed. The remainder of this short report adds nothing to the information already printed.

page 278 note 1 Consul at Maracaibo from 10 Oct. 1823 till the abolition of the consulate in Jan. 1832. Sutherland was a veteran of the Peninsular war.

page 278 note 2 Maracaibo capitulated on 3 Aug. 1823, and the royalist commander embarked with his troops for Cuba on the 15th.

page 278 note 3 The omitted paragraphs consist of character sketches and anecdotes of Colombian officers and leaders.

page 279 note 1 Webster, nos. 167, 274, 361.

page 280 note 1 Supra, p. 230, n. 1.

page 280 note 2 Francisco Tomás Morales (1781–1844), royalist commander, distinguished by his ferocity.

page 280 note 3 Infra, p. 282.

page 281 note 1 Return of British Trade at the Ports within the Consulate of Maracaibo.

page 281 note 2 Supra, p. 276, n. 1.

page 281 note 3 The remainder of this report contains no fresh information. The enclosures include the Exposición que el secretario de estado del despacho del interior de la república de Colombia hizo al congreso de 1824… (Bogotá, 1824)Google Scholar; a short ‘Account of the province of Zulia in Colombia’; Prices current of produce, with duties on exportation, 30 June 1824; and a number of laws, all of which have been previously referred to with the exception of the law on tonnage, duties, 29 Sept. 1821, which will be found in Codificatión nacional, i. 69.Google Scholar

page 283 note 1 Appointed consul at Panama on 10 Oct. 1823, and died on 22 Nov. 1832. There is a copy of this report in B.T. 6/39.

page 283 note 2 On 28 Nov. 1821 a cabildo abierto at Panama declared that the old comandancia general of Panama was independent of Spain and annexed to Colombia. It was erected into a department by a decree of the Colombian executive of 9 Feb. 1822 and subdivided into the two provinces of Panama and Veragua. Blanco (y Azpurúa), Documentos… viii. 221, 288Google Scholar. The population of the department, according to a return received from the intendant, was 101,555. MacGregor to Canning, 28 Aug. 1824, F.O. 18/9, enclosing a ‘Brief sketch of the department of the Isthmus of Panama …’ This contains a short description of the mines and products of Panama and some remarks on the practicability of an inter-oceanic canal.

page 283 note 3 Enclosures:—(i) Reglamento de comercio para el Isttno de Panama segun las leyes sancionadas por el Congreso General… (ii) An Account of the Prices of the several sorts of Corn and Grain, (iii) Return of British Trade … in the half year ending the 30th June 1824. (iv) Gross Return of British and Foreign Trade …

page 284 note 1 Cf. supra, pp. 186 and 241; infra, p. 337.

page 284 note 2 MacGregor to Canning, 28 April 1824 (no. 3), F.O. 18/9, enclosing a memorial from British and native merchants at Panama, 27 April 1824. In this the merchants solicit the presence of one or two British ships of war at Panama to protect trade and convey remittances, and argue that Panama is almost exclusively supplied with goods from Jamaica, a large part of which is re-exported.

page 285 note 1 Not printed.

page 285 note 2 According to the returns of British and foreign trade enclosed, 5 British vessels, total tonnage 587, invoice value of cargo $225,000, entered the ports of Panama in the half year ending 30 June 1824. 18 United States vessels entered, 57 Colombian, 6 Peruvian, 2 Mexican and 1 Danish.

page 286 note 1 The omitted portion of this document consists of references to the Reglamento de comercio (supra, p. 283, n. 3). This is a digest of shipping and trading regulations already cited in previous reports on Colombia. Goods might be warehoused at the three ports of Porto Bello, Chagres and Panama.

page 286 note 2 F.O. 18/9. The crew of the Colombian ship, Santander, mutinied and seized the ship while at anchor in the port of Panama. They then set sail on a piratical expedition.

page 287 note 1 Decree of 27 Feb. 1822. Supra, p. 266.

page 287 note 2 Supra, p. 240, n. 1; p. 266, n. 2.

page 288 note 1 James Henderson (1783[?]–1848), appointed consul-general at Bogotá on 10 Oct. 1823 and recalled in Jan. 1830 when the office was temporarily abolished. He left Colombia in July. F.R.S., 1831. Author, amongst other works of A History of the Brazil… (1821)Google Scholar and an address entitled Representación á los Americanos del Sud y Mexicanos; para disuadirles de que concedan. ventajas comerciales á otras naciones, en perjuicio de Inglaierra… (1822) I have been unable to discover any general commercial report made by Henderson in the early years of his tenure of the office of consul-general.

page 288 note 2 Henderson took this matter up energetically and the reforms in the Colombian tariff of 13 March 1826 (Codificación national, ii. 204Google Scholar) were in part due to his exertions. Cf. Henderson to Bidwell, 9 Feb. 1826, F.O. 18/29.

page 289 note 1 Appointed consul for Guatemala on 26 April 1825, O'Reilly was murdered by a servant early in Jan. 1828. There is a copy of his report in B.T. 6/47.

page 289 note 2 In Guatemala independence was the result of the liberal revolution of 1820 in Spain and the success of Iturbide and his Plan of Iguala in Mexico (infra, p. 300, n. 2). An assembly at Guatemala City declared the independence of the old captaincy-general on 15 Sept. 1821. (B.F.S.P., ix. 854Google Scholar). The province of Chiapas had already declared its adherence to Mexico, and in January 1822 the junta of Guatemala followed this example. For a brief period the authority of Iturbide extended to Panama, but he had to send troops to stifle disaffection, and on the news of his fall an assembly representing the five provinces of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Salvador declared that these were independent states confederated as the United Provinces of Central America (1 July 1823, ibid., xi. 874). A constitution on the model of that of the United States of America was promulgated on 22 Nov. 1824 (ibid., xiii. 725). Chiapas remained a part of Mexico. Severe factional quarrels and inter-state jealousies soon rent the new federation which only survived till 1838. Humboldt's estimate of its population in 1823 was 1,600,000, but this may be an under-estimate. Personal narrative, vi. 127, 131Google Scholar; [M. Montufar], Memorias para la historia de la revolución de Centra-America (Jalapa, 1832), pp. xvi–xvii.Google Scholar

page 290 note 1 Edward Wyndham Harrington Schenley, appointed vice-consul for Guatemala on 5 July 1825. Ill-health compelled his return to England. He was appointed consul at Puerto Cabello on 9 June 1828.

page 290 note 2 George Alexander Thompson had served as secretary to the Commission sent by Canning to Mexico. (Cf. Webster, no. 224). In Jan. 1825 he was instructed to proceed to Guatemala to report on the state of affairs there. His report, with a covering letter to Canning, dated 3 Dec. 1825, is in F.O. 15/1, and its 47 appendices fill F.O. 15/2 and 15/3. Almost the whole of this report (but not the appendices) is incorporated in his Narrative of an official visit to Guatemala from Mexico (London, 1829)Google Scholar. The omissions are not important and some few statistics have been corrected in the printed version. There is a Spanish translation of the Narrative in Anales de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, iii (1926), pp. 51, 191, 326, 429 ff. Thompson is best known for his translation and edition of Antonio de Alcedo's Diccionario geográfico-histórico de las Indias Occidentales ó América, published at London in 5 vols., 1812–14.

page 290 note 3 Arancel provisional para las aduanas de Guatemala, febrero 10 de 1822, B.T. 6/47.

page 290 note 4 ‘segun la clase respectiva de los frutos y generos.’

page 291 note 1 ‘cosechados.’

page 291 note 2 6 p.c.

page 291 note 3 Not printed. These dues amounted to 2 p.c. There was an additional one real p.c. for storage on goods imported via Omoa and the Gulf.

page 292 note 1 El Indicador, 18 07 1825.Google Scholar

page 292 note 2 Gazeta del Gobierno Supremo de Guatemala, no. 1, 1 03 1824.Google Scholar

page 292 note 3 Ibid. I have had access only to an incomplete file of this paper.

page 293 note 1 El Indicador, 18 07 1825.Google Scholar

page 293 note 2 Ibid., 5 Sept. 1825.

page 294 note 1 Not printed. No collection of the early laws of Central America has been available to me. It was proposed to increase the duties on shoes, clothes, plated ware, iron, cottons, woollens, white thread, and spirituous liquors.

page 294 note 2 O'Reilly to José Beteta, 16 Dec. 1825. Not printed.

page 294 note 3 Not printed.

page 294 note 4 Major-General Edward Codd, superintendent of Belize, Jan. 1823–May 1829.

page 295 note 1 Juan Francisco Sosa.

page 295 note 2 Not printed.

page 295 note 3 The annual trade of Guatemala City was estimated by Sosa at more than $4,000,000 annually. Cf. supra, pp. 186–8, and Thompson, , Narrative, pp. 480–96.Google Scholar

page 295 note 4 Mariano de Aycinena to O'Reilly, 10 Jan. 1826. Not printed.

page 296 note 1 B.T. 6/47. Not printed.

page 296 note 2 Not printed.

page 297 note 1 Thompson, however, met four Englishmen at Sonsonate ‘engaged both in the coasting trade of the country, and in shipping to England cochineal, hides, indigo and other articles peculiar to the place’. Narrative, pp. 82–3.Google Scholar

page 297 note 2 Possibly the Mariano de Aycinena who was Jefe de Estado de Guatemala from 1 March 1827 to 12 April 1829 and was exiled in September of that year.

page 298 note 1 Not printed. According to this list 11 English vessels entered these ports, 4 American, 2 national, 2 Colombian, and 5 unspecified.

page 298 note 2 The United States had appointed Charles Savage consul to Guatemala on 19 April 1824.

page 298 note 3 See Thompson, , Narrative, pp. 193201Google Scholar. Offers to build a canal were made, amongst others, by Barclay, Herring & Co., and by A. H. Palmer of New York, to whom the contract was given. But the enterprise was abandoned for lack of capital.

page 299 note 1 Manuel José Arce, first president of Central America, exiled in Sept. 1829, and died in 1847.

page 299 note 2 Thompson expressed the opinion that owing to the proximity of Belize, Guatemala was better supplied with British goods than Mexico. He estimated that the imports from Jamaica were nearly half a million sterling, and from Belize more than two million, of which one and a half represented British dry goods. One half of the merchandise imported into Guatemala, he thought, was British. Narrative, pp. 486–7, 490.Google Scholar

page 300 note 1 There is a duplicate of this report in B.T. 6/53. Mackenzie, Charles Kenneth (17881864)Google Scholar was appointed consul at Vera Cruz on 10 Oct. 1823 and returned to England in March 1825. He was consul-general at Haïti from 5 Jan. 1826 to Oct. 1828.

page 300 note 2 In Mexico the movement for independence followed a distinctive course. On the news of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain and of the rising of the Spanish people, Viceroy José de Iturrigaray summoned a general junta on 9 Aug. 1808, and even called a congress from the cities of New Spain. But before this could meet, a group of European Spaniards, with the connivance of the audiencia, deposed the viceroy and imprisoned Creole leaders. The movement in the capital was crushed, but in the difficult years from 1808 to 1810 four viceroys succeeded each other. Meanwhile, on 16 Sept. 1810, a priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, raised the standard of revolt at the village of Dolores and led a formidable Indian insurrection. Hidalgo was captured, and executed in July 1811, but his work was carried on by another priest, José María Morelos, also captured, and executed in Dec. 1815. The revolt, however, was still not finally crushed at the time of the Spanish liberal revolution of 1820. Highly alarmed by this last event, the conservative classes in Mexico determined to save New Spain from the dangerous innovations of Old Spain. They found an instrument in a young creole, Agustín de Iturbide. Iturbide, sent by the viceroy against the guerrilla leader known in Mexican history as Guadalupe Victoria, suddenly made terms with him, and on 24 Feb. 1821 published the Plan of Iguala (B.F.S.P., ix. 398Google Scholar). This plan proclaimed Roman Catholicism, equality, and independence, and pronounced in favour of a monarchy. A new viceroy, landing at Vera Cruz, was compelled to accept the plan by the treaty of Córdoba (24 Aug. 1821), and in September Iturbide and his army entered Mexico City. A congress met in February 1822 and proclaimed Iturbide emperor in May (ibid., ix. 799). But within ten months the emperor was compelled to abdicate and fly the country. He returned to his death in July 1824. Meanwhile a republic had been established. A triumvirate was set up in March 1823, a constitution on the model of that of the United States promulgated on 4 Oct. 1824 (ibid., xiii. 701), and the first constitutional president, Guadalupe Victoria, inaugurated on 10 Oct.

page 301 note 1 Tuxpán and Tampico were opened for the coasting trade in 1811. de Tejada, Lerdo, Comercio esterior de México, p. 21Google Scholar, and num. 24, note 10. It should, however, be noted that Yucatán and Campeche had received permission to trade directly with Spain by the royal order of 5 July 1770. D.H.A., v. 249.Google Scholar

page 302 note 1 An Act of Independence was issued by the Soberana Junta on 6 Oct. 1821 Colección de órdenes y decretos de la Soberana Junta Provisional Gubernativa, i. 8.Google Scholar

page 302 note 2 Alvarado superseded Vera Cruz as the principal port of entry during the occupation of the castle of San Juan de Ulúa by the Spaniards. Infra, p. 316, n. 1.

page 302 note 3 By decree of 9 Nov. 1820 the liberal Spanish Cortes (whose acts were subsequently disavowed by Ferdinand VII) ordered the opening of all the major and many of the minor ports of the Indies to foreign commerce. 44 ports in all were enumerated, and warehouses were to be established in the principal ones. Colección de los decretos y órdenes generates, vi. 383Google Scholar. On 15 Dec. 1821 the Junta Provisional Gubernativa of Mexico promulgated an Arancel provisional, which declared that commerce was free to all nations, that foreign ships would be admitted in all properly equipped ports, and that these ports were those which the Cortes had enumerated in its decree of 9 Nov. Colección de órdenes… i. 48Google Scholar. Cf. Macedo, , La evolución mercantil, p. 47.Google Scholar

page 303 note 1 H. G. Ward, the British charge d'affaires from 1825–7, was of opinion that had even 80 millions been withdrawn the country would have been left without any circulating medium whatever. His own estimate was $36½ millions. Mexico in 1827, ii. 36–7.Google Scholar

page 303 note 2 Cf. Ward, , op. cit., i. 429–31Google Scholar. By 1826 there were said to be 14 English commercial houses in Mexico City, of which two were partly German. Eight had permanent establishments at Vera Cruz. There were four North American houses at Mexico City and three German, and an ‘immense number’ of foreign shopkeepers, principally French. Dashwood, C. to Canning, , 20 08 1826Google Scholar, F.O. 50/28.

page 303 note 3 The consulado of Vera Cruz, established by real cédula of 17 01 1795.Google Scholar

page 303 note 4 These balance sheets from 1802 to 1812 and from 1816 to 1819, together with a general balance sheet covering the years 1796–1820, are printed in the invaluable work of de Tejada, Lerdo, Comercio esteriorGoogle Scholar, núms. 14–29. There are some slight discrepancies between these and Mackenzie's figures.

page 304 note 1 1805–8, in which years neutral ships were permitted to trade. de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit., p. 20Google Scholar and num. 14. Three separate orders in 1809 (10 Jan., 17 March, and 10 July) forbade foreign commerce in American ports. Coronado, Zamora y, Biblioteca de legislación ultramarina, ii. 264.Google Scholar

page 305 note 1 On 23 Dec. 1817 229 merchants of Vera Cruz subscribed to a pamphlet which advocated free trade; in Jan. 1819 the secretary of the consulado offended the viceroy by incorporating in his annual report an argument in favour of free trade; and on 12 Oct. the prior of the consulado himself addressed the viceroy on the necessity of opening the port to foreign commerce. A royal order of 27 Sept. 1819 forbade the entrance of foreign vessels under any pretext whatever, but the returns of the commerce of Vera Cruz show that foreign ships entered in 1817, 1818, and 1820. de Bustamente, C. M., Cuadro histórico de la revolución Mexicana (2nd ed., 5 vols., Mexico, 18431846), iv. 522–5Google Scholar; de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit.Google Scholar, nums. 14, 27, 28.

page 305 note 2 The above figures were borrowed from Mackenzie by Ward and printed in his Mexico in 1827, i. 415–18Google Scholar. Ward notes that to the exports must be added the value of the precious metals exported on the royal account (which do not figure in the consulado returns) and to the imports the value of the royal monopolies of quicksilver and tobacco. The former (taking the average value from 1779 to 1791) he computes after Humboldt, at $8,340,667 annually, the latter at $1,500,000. This brings the average value of the exports to $19,522,035, and of the imports top $11,864,237. de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit., pp. 25–7Google Scholar, deducts 25 p.c. from the value of the imports introduced through Vera Cruz on account of the monopoly prices imposed by the old Spanish houses that controlled the consulado. The value of the import trade would thus be well under 10 millions. These calculations ignore the trade of Acapulco (infra, no. XV) and the contraband trade, which Humboldt estimated at about $5,000,000 in time of peace. Essai politique, ii. 730Google Scholar. See the discussions in ibid., ii. 696–748; de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit., p. 27Google Scholar; Macedo, , op. cit., p. 34.Google Scholar

page 306 note 1 de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit.Google Scholar, núm. 14.

page 306 note 2 Infra, p. 332, n. 1.

page 311 note 1 de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit., num. 30, Bàlanza del comercio maritimo … 1823.Google Scholar

page 313 note 1 Cf. Staples, R. P. to Canning, , Mexico, 24 09 1823Google Scholar, F.O. 72/275. Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Monterrey, wrote Staples, formerly supplied from Mexico, were now supplied from Tampico. ‘At present the United States furnish the chief part of the British manufactures consumed in the above towns and provinces, which are brought in small vessels from New Orleans … and also from Baltimore and Philadelphia.’

page 313 note 2 Excluded by decree of 8 Oct. 1823. Printed in Poinsett, J. R., Notes on Mexico … (London, 1825), app. p. 70.Google Scholar

page 314 note 1 This is an apprehension frequently expressed. The returns of British and Foreign Trade in F.O. 50/7 show that 29 British vessels (3,853 tons) entered the ports of Alvarado and Vera Cruz in 1824 as against 101 American (8,933 tons). A Mexican estimate shows that the imports at Alvarado in American ships in this year were $4,360,568, of which $3,481,831 consisted of European produce. The direct imports from Europe were $6,413,636. O'Gorman, to Bidwell, , 20 12 1825Google Scholar, F.O. 50/17; de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit., núm. 31Google Scholar; Ward, , op. cit., i. 435Google Scholar. In 1825 it has been calculated that the domestic exports from the United States to Mexico amounted to $951,040, and the re-exports of European produce to $5,319,158. Robertson, , Hispanic-American relations with the United States, p. 197.Google Scholar

page 316 note 1 On 25 Sept. 1823 the royalists in possession of the castle of San Juan de Ulúa opened fire on the town of Vera Cruz. The castle held out till 18 Nov. 1825.

page 316 note 2 $3,900,000. See supra, p. 311.

page 318 note 1 The coinage of the mint of Mexico from 1690 to 1839 is given in Coronado, Zamora y, Biblioteca de legislatión ultramarina, i. 25–8, 30Google Scholar. See also Humboldt, , Essai politique, ii. 578Google Scholar. In 1809 $24,708,164 silver were coined and $1,464,818 gold. In both 1823 and 1824 the coinage had fallen to $3½ millions. From 1796 to 1810 the average coinage at the mint of Mexico was more than $22¾ millions. Adding in the coinage at the other mints of Mexico established after 1810, and making an allowance for unregistered silver, Ward estimated that the annual average produce of the mines of Mexico from 1810 to 1825 was about $11 millions. Mexico in 1827, ii. 1226, 41–6.Google Scholar

page 319 note 1 Humboldt's estimate of the population of Mexico in 1823 was 6,800,000, an increase of 960,000 over his estimate in 1804. Personal narrative, vi. 127–30Google Scholar. By another calculation he gives the following proportions:— Indians, 3,700,000; Whites, 1,230,000; Mixed, 1,860,000; ibid., pp. 835–6. Ward's figure for 1827 is 8,000,000. Mexico in 1827, i. 27–8.Google Scholar

page 320 note 1 233,705. Ward, , op. cit., ii. 695.Google Scholar

page 321 note 1 ‘I cannot conceal from you my opinion that there is no injustice, and no illiberality, of which these people are not capable’, wrote Ward in a private letter to Planta, 24 Aug. 1825, F.O. 50/14. ‘I have witnessed more petty intrigues, and a more decided want of principle here, during the last four months, than I did during the four years which I passed in Spain—and that is a bold assertion!’ But Ward was more friendly to the Creole character in his Mexico in 1827, ii. 709–10.Google Scholar

page 321 note 2 On the mines see Ward, , op. cit., ii. 4797Google Scholar. His statistical report on the state of Mexico, 5 Feb. 1827, is in F.O. 50/31a. By 1827 £3,000,000 of British capital was invested in Mexican mining enterprise. Ward, , op. cit., ii. 69Google Scholar. 7 British, 1 German and 2 American companies were operating.

page 322 note 1 The imports at Alvarado and Vera Cruz rose to $12,082,030 in 1824, and Ward estimated the total trade of Mexico at more than $21½ millions in this year. de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit., núm. 31Google Scholar; Ward, , op. cit., i. 435–6Google Scholar. The imports for the whole of Mexico were $19,093,716 in 1825, $15, 450, 508 in 1826, and $14,889,016 in 1827. In 1828 they fell to $9,947,827. de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit., núms. 32–5.Google Scholar

page 322 note 2 15 Dec. 1821. Colección de órdenes y decretos …, i. 48Google Scholar. This tariff remained in force, with some modifications, till Nov. 1827.

page 322 note 3 Decree of 14 Jan. 1822; ibid., i. 89.

page 322 note 4 Tariff of 15 Dec. 1821.

page 323 note 1 Decree of 9 Aug. 1822. Colección de órdenes y decretos …, ii. 72.Google Scholar

page 323 note 2 In 1810 the alcabala, originally a sales tax of 2 p.c, was levied at the rate of 6 p.c. on certain articles ad valorem (artículos de aforo) and on others (articulos del viento) according to an old tariff. The tax on the former was raised in 1811 to 8 p.c. and by order of 24 Dec. 1816 to 16 p.c, while that on the latter was increased to 12 p.c., by the addition to each of an alcabala eventual in place of the convoy, war and squadron duties which had been created in 1811, 1812 and 1813 respectively. By decree of Iturbide of 30 June 1821 and by order of the Junta Suprema of 7 Oct. 1821, the alcabala was reduced to its former rate of 6 p.c., plus an additional 2 p.c. on artículos de aforo, and a further 4 p.c. was imposed on these articles, except on raw cotton and cotton fabrics, by decree of 9 Aug. 1822. Finally on 23 Dec. 1822 it was decided that the alcabala permanente or común should be fixed at 6 p.c. on artículos de aforo, and the name eventual applied to charges in excess of this amount (also 6 p.c). The name alcabala eventual was also applied to the 6 p.c. tax on artículos del viento. See Exposición al Soberano Congreso Mexicano sobre el Estado de la Hacienda Publica … [29 de Sepriembre de 1823], (Mexico, 1823)Google Scholar; Colección de órdenes y decretos, i. 12Google Scholar; ii. 72; Alamán, , Historia de Méjico, v. 234, 415Google Scholar. By law of 4 Aug. 1824 the alcabalas on foreign goods were abolished in favour of an internación duty of 15 p.c. on all goods forwarded from the ports into the interior. Colección de órdenes, iii. 60.Google Scholar

page 324 note 1 Supra, p. 323, n. 1.

page 325 note 1 de Arrillaga, Francisco, Memoria sobre reformas del arancel mercantil que presenta el Secretario de Hacienda al Soberano Congreso Constituyente … 13 de enero de 1824 (Mexico, 1824).Google Scholar

page 325 note 2 The first Mexican loan for £3,200,000 was negotiated with B. A. Goldschmidt and Co. in 1824 at 58; the second, for the same amount at 89¾, with Barclay, Herring and Co. in 1825. Mexico got less than half these sums, and was not encouraged when Goldschmidts failed in 1826 and Barclay Herring and Co. in 1828. For the Spanish American loans see Journal of the Statistical Society, xli (London, 1878), p. 313.Google Scholar

page 326 note 1 de Iturbide, Agustín, 17831824Google Scholar. See supra, p. 300, n. 2.

page 328 note 1 Supra, p. 313, n. 2.

page 328 note 2 The list of prohibited articles in the tariff of 15 Dec. 1821 was short; but this tariff was soon considered excessively liberal. On 14 Jan. 1822 the import of foreign flour was prohibited, and on 20 May 1824 the list of prohibited articles was greatly extended. Colección de ordenes y decretos … i. 89Google Scholar; iii. 47. The tariff of 16 Nov. 1827 reformed this list, but also added to it, and the height of absurdity was reached by the law of 22 May 1829 when it would have been simpler to have made a list of what might be imported rather than of what might not. Ibid., iv. 97; v. 23; Macedo, , La evolución mercantil, pp. 4752.Google Scholar

page 331 note 1 After an adventurous mercantile career, Charles Thaddeus O'Gorman was appointed consul-general for Mexico on 10 Oct. 1823 and exercised the duties of that office till 23 March 1837. In the consular archives for Mexico (F.O. 203/4) there is a draft of a commercial report by O'Gorman (O'Gorman, to Planta, , 1 03 1825Google Scholar, No. 19). This consists of 20 folio pages with a list of 36 enclosures, some of which are in the same volume, and a supplement dated 30 March. There is no evidence that the report itself was ever received. No copy of it exists in either the Foreign Office or in the Board of Trade archives. A number of O'Gorman's despatches between Jan. and March 1825 went astray (O'Gorman, to Bidwell, , 28 09 1825Google Scholar, F.O. 50/17) and the missing report was probably amongst these. The report itself is of less interest than its enclosures, and since it exists only in draft and was not received, I omit it. Duplicates of the letter here printed are in B.T. 6/52 and F.O. 203/4.

page 331 note 2 Robert Ponsonby Staples had been appointed consul ‘on the banks of the River Plate’ on 16 March 1811. The Spanish government, however, declined to grant him an exequatur, and the authorities at Buenos Aires refused to recognise him on the ground that his commission was not in proper form. (Memo, respecting Mr. Staples and the consulship of Buenos Aires, F.O. 6/1; Rivadavia to Staples, 1 April 1812, F.O. 72/157). He returned to Buenos Aires in 1813, this time to procure bullion for the treasury and to prosecute certain mercantile adventures of his own. Though forbidden to assume any diplomatic or consular character, he assented to the request of the British merchants at Buenos Aires in 1816 to represent them in an official manner, and even assumed the title of consul, which he seems to have employed till an official rebuke reached him in 1819 (Staples, to Hamilton, , 7 09 1816Google Scholar, F.O. 72/189; Hamilton, to Staples, , 5 01 1819Google Scholar, F.O. 72/227). He returned to England in 1820 and then proceeded to the East Indies, to Peru and to Mexico. On 10 Oct. 1823 he was appointed consul at Acapulco, but failed to go to his place of residence. Instead he negotiated a small loan for the Mexican government (he advanced the government $1,263,701 in money, credit and tobacco), and induced the British commissioner, Lionel Hervey, to guarantee it on behalf of the British government. For this Hervey was recalled and Staples dismissed. Webster, Nos. 229, 236; Memoria sobre el estado de la Hacienda Pública, 4 de Enero de 1825 (Mexico, 1825)Google Scholar. [The reference in Webster, i. 445, n. 3, is not to this, but to another loan unratified by the Mexican government.]

page 332 note 1 In the interests of Spanish monopolists the trade of the Philippines with America was restricted in 1593 to two ships a year (later there was only one, of greater size). The exports from Manila were limited to $250,000 and the returns from New Spain to $500,000. After considerable controversy, by Real Cedula of 8 April 1734 the value of the goods permitted to be introduced was raised to $500,000 and the returns correspondingly increased. These amounts, however, were commonly exceeded by two or three times. Humboldt says that the tonnage of the galleon was around 1,500 tons and the value of the goods introduced amounted to $1,500,000 or $2,000,000. Palmero, Azcarraga y, La libertad de comercio en las Islas Filipinas, pp. 4865Google Scholar; y Coronado, Zamora, Biblioteca de legislación ultramarina, ii. 296306Google Scholar; Humboldt, , Essai politique, ii. 718–19Google Scholar; Priestley, H. I., José de Galvez, visitorgeneral of New Spain (17651771) (Berkeley, 1916), p. 307Google Scholar. The trade of the galleons seems to have been interfered with by the activities of the Philippine Company (supra, p. 236, n. 1), and as well from this as from other causes in the late eighteenth century the trade of Acapulco greatly declined. Viceroy Revillagigedo reported that no ship came in 1793 and that no fairs had been held in the two previous years. Instrucción reservada que el conde de Revilla Gigedo, dió a su sucesor en el mando, marqués de Branciforte [30 June 1794] (Mexico, 1831), pp. 104–5Google Scholar. Martinez de Zúñiga, whose work was written between 1803 and 1805, describes the commerce of Acapulco as being then in an expiring state (Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, i. 275Google Scholar), and I am inclined to think that the glowing account of Humboldt, , op. cit., ii. 718–19Google Scholar, refers to an earlier period. By decree of the Cortes of Spain on 14 Sept. 1813 the nao de Acapulco was ordered to be suppressed, and the merchants of the Philippines were to be allowed to trade with Acapulco and San Bias as they wished, under the restriction that the total imports into New Spain should not exceed $500,000. Colección de los decretos y órdenes generales, iv. 274Google Scholar. The decrees of this Cortes were declared null and void, but according to E. G. Bourne the last Manila galleon actually left the Philippines in 1811 and returned in 1815. Blair, and Robertson, , The Philippine Islands, i. 66Google Scholar. It was not, however, till 1820 that by Real Cedula of 7 March Philippine merchants were legally permitted to trade with Callao, Guayaquil and California as well as with Acapulco and San Blas. Coronado, Zamora y, op. cit., i. 329–30Google Scholar. See also the decree of the Spanish Cortes of 9 Nov. 1820 in Colección de los decretos, vi. 378.Google Scholar

page 333 note 1 The town was besieged by insurgents three times between 1811 and 1813, in which year it was captured by Morelos (supra, p. 300, n. 2). It was recaptured in 1814 by the royalists who found it in flames and abandoned. Bancroft, , History of Mexico, iv. 578Google Scholar. Captain Basil Hall, who visited it soon after the earthquake, reported that it consisted of ‘not more than thirty houses, with a large suburb of huts, built of reeds’. Extracts from a journal written on the coasts of Chili, Peru and Mexico, ii. 178Google Scholar. Humboldt gives its population in 1803 as 4,000. Essai politique, i. 236.Google Scholar

page 333 note 2 Infra, p. 337, n. 2.

page 334 note 1 Sihuatanejo.

page 335 note 1 Appointed vice-consul for San Bias by R. P. Staples (supra, p. 331, n. 2) on 2 June 1824. It had already been decided to transfer the consulate of Acapulco to San Blas in view of the declining importance of the one and the rising trade of the other. But Barron remained a vice-consul till 30 Jan. 1849 when he became consul for San Bias and Tepic. He returned to England on leave of absence in May 1857 a nd resigned his post in May 1861. There is a duplicate of this report in B.T. 6/40, and another, addressed to Consul-General O'Gorman, in F.O. 203/4.

page 335 note 2 Supra, p. 236, n. 1; p. 332, n. 1.

page 335 note 3 Supra, pp. in, 186, 241, 256, 284; infra, p. 337, n. 2. The ports of Panama had been opened to trade with neutral powers in 1808. Chapman, C. E., Catalogue of materials in the Archivo General de Indias for the history of the Pacific Coast and the American Southwest (Berkeley, 1919), p. 699Google Scholar. On the trade between Panama, Portobello, and the British West Indies from 1813 to 1815 see ibid., pp. 703, 705, 708.

page 336 note 1 ‘La regla general para hacer una feria regular’, wrote Martínez de Zúñiga of the prices at the fair of Acapulco, ‘es vender un 300 por 100 mas caro que lo que se compró pero esto acaso no sucederá jamás.’ Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, i. 269.Google Scholar

page 336 note 2 Supra, p. 332. The ship belonged to the crown. Its capacity was measured according to the number of bales of a certain size that it could hold. Tickets were then issued giving the right to ship. Speculators were in the habit of buying up these tickets, borrowing money to do so from the religious confraternities who thus utilised the ‘obras pías’ committed to their charge, and levied 25 or 30 p.c. interest. de Zúñiga, Martinez, op. cit., i. 254–5, 267–9Google Scholar; Le Gentil, G. H. J., Voyage dans les Mers de l'Inde (2 vols., Paris, 17791781), ii. 203–8Google Scholar; Humboldt, , Essai politique, ii. 719Google Scholar; Blair, and Robertson, , The Philippine Islands, i. 63–5.Google Scholar

page 337 note 1 Supra, pp. 256–7.

page 337 note 2 San Blas was permitted to share in inter-colonial trade by the royal order of 2 May 1796. D.H.A., vii, 113Google Scholar. de Tejada, Lerdo, Comercio esterior, p. 21Google Scholar, cites orders of 1793, 1794, 1795 and 1818 permitting a direct trade between San Bias and Spain. The commandant of Nueva Galicia in 1813 opened the port to ships from Panama, and fostered trade with the West Indies via Panama and with China. Alamán, , Historia de Méjico, iii, 500Google Scholar; iv, 472–4; Bancroft, , History of Mexico, iv, 537Google Scholar. For the opening of the port by the Mexican authorities see supra, p. 302, n. 3.

page 337 note 3 In the late eighteenth century goods introduced into New Spain paid 36½ p.c. in duties, and further consumption duties raised the rate to 75 p.c. de Tejada, Lerdo, op. cit., p. 23.Google Scholar

page 338 note 1 Cf. supra. pp. 322–5. The chief duties were importation 25 p.c.; internación 15 p.c.; consumo 3 p.c.; together with consulado and other smaller items. Ward, , Mexico in 1827, i. 462Google Scholar; Macedo, , La evolución mercantil, pp. 64–5.Google Scholar

page 338 note 2 For British imports into Mexico see infra, pp. 344ff.

page 338 note 8 By 1826 it was reported that British goods were being sold at an average loss of 30 p.c. on their invoice prices. C. Dashwood to Canning, 20 Aug. 1826, F.O. 50/28. Cf. Ward, , op. cit., i. 463.Google Scholar

page 340 note 1 The New Carmo was on a voyage from Calcutta to Mazatlán and put in at San Bias to repair damages. The Commandant's excuse for his action was suspicion of contraband. See the papers enclosed in O'Gorman to Planta, 21 Jan. 1825 (Draft), F.O. 203/4.

page 340 note 2 The value of East India and English cotton goods imported at San Blas during 1823 and 1824 is given by Barron as $1,000,000. Barron to Foreign Office, 1 Jan. 1825, F.O. 50/17.

page 341 note 1 Cited supra, p. 340, n. 2. By returns in B.T. 6/40, 10 British vessels cleared from the port in 1824 and 4 American, with specie to the value of $1,637,000. In the half year ending 30 June 1825, 5 British vessels entered with cargoes to the value of $361,000 and 4 American with cargoes valued at $100,000.

page 342 note 1 Cf. Ward, , op. cit., i. 464.Google Scholar

page 342 note 2 Supra, p. 53.