¹ Most of these questions have been treated only very briefly by Peruvian historians, and discussion of them in English has been either partial or cursory. Watt Stewart in Chinese Bondage in Peru (Durham N.C., 1951)Google Scholar provides a mass of information on labour recruicment and passage from China, and on the life of the Chinese in Peru, but has very little to say about guano work specifically. Levin, J. V. in The Export Economies (Cambridge, Mass., 1960) presents a fair body of facts and statistics and some useful comment on the very limited direct impact of Chincha enterprise on the Peruvian economy, but his observations scarcely represent a comprehensive evaluation of the loading system.Google Scholar

² See, for example, Levin, Export Economics, p. 113,Google Scholar and graph and figures in Mathew, W. M., ‘Peru and the British Guano Market, 1840–1870’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 23, No. 1 (1970), pp. 120, 127.Google Scholar

³ ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands ’, Southern Planter, xv, No. 1 (01 1855), p. 20.Google Scholar

⁴ For general details on the early export contracts, see Mathew, W. M., ‘Foreign Contractors and the Peruvian Government at the Outset of the Guano Trade,’ Hispanic American Historical Review, 52, No. 4 (11 1972), passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Dancuart, P. Emilio, Anales de la Hacienda Pública del Perú, tomo III (Lima, 1903), p. 156.Google Scholar

⁶ Suggested by the ‘Cuenta de los Señores Dutey (sic) y Barroilet (sic)’ in Exposicion que Don Francisco Quiros y Don Aquiles Allier Elevan al Soberano Congreso (Lima, 1845), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid., p. 19; de Piérola, Nicolás, Informe sobre el estado del carguío de huano en las Islas de Chincha, y sobre el cumplimiento del contrato celebrado con D. Domingo Elías (Lima, 1853), pp. 9, 29–30. Piérola was father and namesake of the future Peruvian president (1879–81, 1895–9).Google Scholar

⁸ See Cristóval, Evaristo San, Apendicc al Diccionario Histórico-Biográfico del Perú (Lima, 1931), 11, 83–5;Google ScholarBasadre, Jorge, Historia de la República del Perú (Lima, 1946 ed.), tomo I, p. 249;Google ScholarLevin, Export Economics, p. 87, n. 182.Google Scholar

⁹ Contract reproduced in Piérola, Informe, pp. 20–3; see also p. 28.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Román's success was against some competition, it appears. A North American journal observed in 1857 that a certain Mr Lloyd had offered to do the loading at the much lower rate of around four reales per ton. Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXVII, No. 5 (1857), p. 574.Google Scholar

¹¹ For many years in the management of the Gibbs house in Lima; later a guano contractor in his own right.Google Scholar

¹² Diaries of Witt, Henry (hereinafter Witt Diaries), vol. IV, 19 to 27 Oct. 1849. (Manuscript in possession of Sra. Eloyda Garland Melián de Montero, Lima.)Google Scholar

¹³ Piérola, Informe, pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid, pp. 12–3, 22–3.

¹⁵ Ibid, pp. 15, 22.

¹⁶ Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office Archives, Peru (hereinafter F.O. 61), 65/548, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

¹⁷ F.O. 61/148, Sulivan to Clarendon, 25 June 1854.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Lima branch of the London house of Antony Gibbs & Sons.Google Scholar

¹⁹ de Hacienda, Ministerio, Lima. Archivo Historico (hereinafter Arch. Hist.), Año de 1853. Correspond.a con los Consignat.s del Huano y Gobor. de las lslas de Chincha.Google ScholarMendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 14 Jan. 1854.Google Scholar See also F.O. 61/247, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Sep. 1854 and F.O. 61/148,Google ScholarWent to Sulivan, 21 Sep. 1854.Google Scholar

²⁰ F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

²¹ Guildhall Library, London, Antony Gibbs & Sons, Ltd., Business Archives. Copy-book of in-letters addressed to William Gibbs, 1854–5 (hereinafter William Gibbs Corr.), Henry Hucks Gibbs to William Gibbs, 31 Aug. 1854.Google Scholar See also Ibid, 5 Feb. 1855 and Arch. Hist., Correspond a con los Consignant.s…, Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 15 July 1854.Google Scholar

²² Cristóval, San, Apendice, II, 85.Google Scholar

²³ Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha. Libro copiador de la correspondencia del Gobernador de las islas con los ministerios. Galvez to Vargas, 27 Mar. 1855.Google Scholar

²⁴ Cristóval, San, Apendice, 11, 85.Google Scholar

²⁵ Levin gives the later date of 1862 for the transfer, but omits to cite a substantiating source. Export Economics, p. 89.Google Scholar

²⁶ Diaries, Witt, vol. IV, 19 to 27 Oct. 1849.Google Scholar

²⁷ Correspondencia de los Signatorios del Contrato de Consignacion para la Venta del Guano en la Gran Bretaña y sus Colonias, Dirigida á los SS. J. Thomson, T. Bonar y Compañia [no date or place of publication given], (hereinafter Thomson Bonar Corr.), Canevaro to Thomson Bonar & Co., 73 Feb. 1869.Google Scholar

²⁸ F.O. 61/249, Jerningham to Stanley, 24 Dec. 1868.Google Scholar

²⁹ ‘The Guano Diggings’, Household Words, VI, No. 131 (Sept. 1852), p. 44.Google Scholar

³⁰ ‘Chincha Islands’, Littell's Living Age, 2nd ser., IV, No. 506 (28 01 1854), p. 216.Google Scholar

³¹ Larousse, Pierre, Dictionaire Universel du XIXe Siécle (Paris, 1866), p. 1574.Google Scholar

³² Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha…, Paz Soldan to Lagomacino, 23 Dec. 1853.Google Scholar

³³ See, inter alia, Mcqueen, C. A., Peruvian Public Finance (Washington, 1926), pp. 5–32, 37.Google Scholar

³⁴ ‘Chincha Islands’, pp. 213, 216.Google Scholar

³⁵ Levin, Export Economies, p. 86;Google ScholarMemorial [from James Turnbull and eight other British shipmasters] to the Lords of the Privy Council of Trade, 27 June 1854, British Parliamentary Papers, 1854–55, XXXIX (hereinafter Shipmasters' Memorial), p. 587.Google Scholar

³⁶ 1849, it might be noted, also saw the ending of the slave trade in Peru (which had become by mid-century largely inter-regional rather than international). More serious, however, as a cause of labour-supply difficulties along the coast was the abolition of the whole institution of slavery in 1855.Google Scholar

³⁷ Levin, Export Economies, p. 87;Google ScholarStewart, Chinese Bondage, pp. 11–13.Google Scholar

³⁸ Levin, Export Economies, p. 87;Google ScholarBasadre, Historia, 1, 236.Google Scholar

³⁹ Piérola, Informe, pp. 4, 11;Google ScholarLevin, Export Economies, p. 88;Google Scholar F.O. 61/148, Lagomacino to Gomez Sanchez, 22 June 1854;Google ScholarWent to Sulivan, 21 Sept; 1854;Google ScholarIbid, Peruvian government decree of 15 Sept. 1854.

⁴⁰ Piérola, Informe, p. 11.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid, p. 11; Levin, Export Economies, p. 88;Google ScholarShipmasters' Memorial, p. 188.Google Scholar

⁴² Arch. Hist., islas Chincha…, Zevallos to Governor of Chincha, 13 June 1857.Google Scholar

⁴³ Ibid, list of names and occupations at the end of correspondence for 1857. See also ‘An Interesting Visit to a Guano Island’, Farmer's Magazine, 3rd ser., VI, No. 5 (Nov. 1854), p. 399.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Calculated from figures in Shane Hunt, J., ‘Price and Quantum Estimates of Peruvian Exports, 1830–1962’ (unpublished discussion paper, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Jan. 1973), pp. 57–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ ‘The Guano Diggings’, p. 5.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Piérola, Informe, pp. 11, 19.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ William Gibbs Corr., Henry Hucks Gibbs to William Gibbs, 31 Aug. 1854.Google Scholar See also Arch. Hist., Correspond a Con los Consignat.s del Huano…, Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 1 Aug. 1854.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ William Gibbs Corr., Henry Hucks Gibbs to William Gibbs, 5 Apr. 1855. Some Chinese also left of their own accord. In 1854 more than 40 escaped to Lima. Arch. Hist.,Google ScholarCorrespond a…, Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 1 Aug. 1854.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ The Times, 12 Jan 1855, p. 8; ‘The Conduct of the Guano Trade’Google Scholar, Farmer's Magazine, 3rd ser., VII, No. 3 (Mar. 1855), p. 209.Google Scholar

⁵¹ ‘The Origin of Guano’, Farmer's Magazine, 3rd ser., XIV, No. 1 (July 1858), 38.Google Scholar

⁵² F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857.Google Scholar

⁵³ Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 84.Google Scholar See also Levin, Export Economies, p. 90.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Report of Lionel Bonar, in F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ This certainly was the view of the nine British captains who memorialized the Privy Council of Trade in 1854. See Memorial, Shipmasters', p. 187.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 24.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid, p.17.

⁵⁸ Ibid, pp. 14–32.

⁵⁹ Ibid, pp. 39, 71; F.O. 61/198, Russell to Barton, 3 Mar. 1862;Google ScholarMemorial, Shipmasters', pp. 187–8.Google ScholarDuffield, A. J., The Prospects of Peru (London, 1881), p. 46;Google ScholarLevin, Export Economies, p. 88.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ ‘The Chincha Islands’, Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle (Apr. 1856), p. 182.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See, for example, Tennent to Wodehouse, 4 Aug. 1854,Google Scholar in British Parliamentary Papers, 1854–1855, XXXIX, 191 ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214.Google Scholar

⁶² In F.O. 61/148, dated 11 Feb. 1854. Conditions on the passage to Peru may also have had a deterrent effect. Overcrowding was acute, nourishment poor, diseases rife, discipline harsh, mutinies common, and the mortality rate high. See Stewart, Chinese Bondage, pp. 18, 62;Google ScholarMorse, H. B., The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (London, 1918), 11, 172;Google ScholarDiaries, Witt, iv, 27 June 1850 and 1 to 3 Feb. 1851;Google Scholar F.O. 61/197, Barton to Russell, 14 Nov. 1861;Google Scholar F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866; P.O. 61/255,Google ScholarJerningham to Clarendon, 13 Aug. 1869.Google Scholar

⁶³ ‘The Chincha Islands’, p. 82, ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214; Levin, Export Economies, p. 88;Google ScholarStewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 24;Google ScholarHutchinson, Thomas J., Two Years in Peru (London, 1873), p. 248;Google Scholar Arch.Hist., Correspond.^a con los Consignat.⁸ del Huano…, Mendiburu to William Gibb & Co., 1 July. 1854;Google Scholar F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Guards were stationed on the islands to prevent escape from foreign vessels. ‘The Guano Islands’, Chambers' Journal, xv, No. 367 (12 Jan. 1861), 17.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Stewart, Chinese Bondage, pp. 24, 43.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 82.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ The same figure was cited in an American journal in 1855 as the amount of the original ‘loan’ for passage. ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands’, p. 20.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Memorial, Shipmasters', p. 188.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ ‘The Chincha Islands’, p. 181.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Reproduced in ‘The Conduct of the Guano Trade’, pp. 208–9.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Ibid.

⁷² The Times, 7 Dec. 1853, p. 12; ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214.Google Scholar

⁷³ The Times, 22 Jan. 1855, p. 8;Google ScholarDe Bow's Commercial Review, XIX (1855), 220;Google Scholar‘Chincha Islands’, p. 224; ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands’, p. 20.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Piérola, Informe, p. 4.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ F.O. 61/148, Overseer of Works to Lagomacino, 21 June 1854.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Quoted in Murphy, Robert Cushman, Bird Islands of Peru (New York and London, 1925), P. 115.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Piérola, Informe, p. 18.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ The Times, 12 Jan. 1855, P. 8.Google Scholar According to Peck, flogging of workers took place ‘almost constantly’. Murphy, op. cit., p. 112. See also ‘The Guano Islands ’, p. 18; ‘The Conduct of the Guano Trade’, pp. 208–9.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ De Bow's Commercial Review, XIX (1855), 220.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Quoted in ‘The Chincha Islands’, p. 182. See also comments of ‘A New Zealand Settler’ in Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle (Apr. 1856), pp. 183–4.Google Scholar

⁸² Memorial, Shipmasters', pp. 187–9.Google Scholar

⁸³ F.O. 61/144, Clarendon to Sulivan, 15 July 1854.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ F.O. 61/147, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ A Hungarian who apparently had borrowed the surname of his celebrated compatriot Fercncz Kossuth, and claimed, indeed, to be his brother. See Piérola, op. cit., p. 18, and ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 213.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha…, Paz Soldan to Governor of Chincha, 9 Feb. 1854.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ F.O. 61/147, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept 1854.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ F.O. 65/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854;Google Scholar see also William Gibbs Corr., Henry Hucks Gibbs to William Gibbs, 5 Feb. 1855.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Arch. Hist., Correspond.a con los Consignat.s …, Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 54 04 1854;Google ScholarIbid., Islas Chincha…, Mendiburu to Governor of Chincha, 22 Apr. 1854. There does, however, seem to have been an establishment of this sort prior to 1854. George Washington Peck writes of a ‘so-called’ hospital in 1853 (‘Chincha Islands’, p. 213) and the seamen who wrote to the Board of Trade in June 1854 mentioned ‘miserable… hospital comforts’, observing that ‘Kossuth declared who was sick and who was not, in opposition to the medical inspector, whose opinions were not listened to…’ (Memorial, Shipmasters', pp. 188–9).Google Scholar

⁹² F.O. 61/155, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 July 1855.Google Scholar

⁹³ F.O. 61/148, Sulivan to Clarendon, 22 Dec. 1854.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Deriving in some measure, one presumes, from embarrassment over the occurrence of cruel practices in such a public place as the Chinchas, before an audience of thousands of foreign seamen.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ F.O. 61/148, Overseer of Works to Lagomacino, 21 June 1854.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands’, pp. 20–1.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Piérola, Infome, p. 5.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Information is available on loading routines in the early 18405. A random sample of 15 vessels taking on guano suggests that no work was done on Sundays (Arch. Hist., Año 1842. Guano). George Washington Peck stated in his account that labourers did not get Sundays off on the middle island, but that they were granted this privilege on the northern island (see Murphy, Bird Islands, p. 115). Given that the latter island was the more heavily populated and that the former was under the unusually harsh (and short-lived) rule of Carlos Kossuth at the time of Peck's visit, we may assume that the six-day week was the norm over the period as a whole.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Bonuses were also paid for guano deliveries in excess of the standard quota. Piérola, Informe, p. 5.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214; ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands’, p. 20.Google Scholar

¹⁰² Memorial, Shipmasters', p. 188;Google Scholar F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ F.O. 61/148, enclosed directive from Mendiburu, 15 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857;Google Scholar F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Piérola, Informe, pp. 4–32. Again, bonuses were paid for additional amounts.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Ibid., pp. 5–32.

¹⁰⁷ F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Piérola, Informe, p. 12.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ De Bow's Commercial Review, XVI (1854), 100 and XIX (1855), 220; ‘An Interesting Visit to a Guano Island’, p. 398; ‘The Guano Diggings’, pp. 45–6;Google ScholarThe Times, 7 Dec 1853, p. 12;Google ScholarPiérola, Informe, p. 45;Google ScholarThomson, E. P. and Yeo, Eileen, The Unknown Mayhew, Selections from the Morning Chronicle 1849–1850 (London, 1971), pp. 305–6.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ ‘The Guano Diggings’, p. 45; Piérola, Informe, p. 6.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ ‘The Guano Diggings’, pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

¹¹² ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, American Agriculturist, XI, No. 7 (26 Oct. 1853), 99;Google ScholarPiérola, Informe, p. 7.Google Scholar

¹¹³ ‘Chincha Islands’, pp. 213–14.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Piérola, Informe, p. 6. (Piérola in fact only mentions one being in operation.)Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 213; Piérola, Informe, p. 15.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Ibid., p. 9.

¹¹⁷ ‘The Guano Islands’, p. 17.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ See, for example, Piérola, Informe, pp. 11, 18–32;Google Scholar Arch. Hist., Correspond.a con Consignats …, Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 10 July 1854.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854;Google ScholarMemorial, Shipmasters', p. 189.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ F.O. 61/144, Clarendon to Sulivan, 13 Apr. 1854;Google ScholarThe Times, 7 Dec. 1853, p. 12;Google ScholarPiérola, Informe, p. 9.Google Scholar

¹²¹ ‘The Guano Islands’, p. 19.Google Scholar

¹²² ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 213.Google Scholar

¹²³ Ibid., pp. 213, 216.

¹²⁴ ‘The Guano Islands’, p. 17.Google Scholar

¹²⁵ F.O. 61/255, Memorial from 69 British shipmasters to Dartnell, John, May. 1869. See also Thomson Bonar Corr., De Villate to Thomson Bonar & Co., 27 Jan. 1869.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ Depending on the register tonnage of the vessel: ‘about ten days for every one hundred tuns’, according to an American master. ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, p. 55.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships, British Parliamentary Papers, 1873, XXXVI, 51.Google Scholar

¹²⁸ ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 223.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ L.E.S., Estudios Sabre El Huano (Lima, 1851), p. 33.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ Piérola, Informe, p. 8.Google Scholar

¹³¹ ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, p. 100.Google Scholar

¹³² Piérola, Informe, p. 8.Google Scholar

¹³³ Quoted in Murphy, Bird Islands, p. 100.Google Scholar

¹³⁴ Piérola, Informe, pp. 8, 10–11.Google Scholar

¹³⁵ The Times, 7 12 1853, p. 12.Google Scholar

¹³⁶ Cited in de Rivero, Francisco, Ojeada Sobre El Huano (Paris, 1860), p. 216.Google Scholar

¹³⁷ Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha…, Elias to Governor of Chincha, 13 June 1855;Google Scholar ‘The Trade in Guano’, Fanner's Magazine, 3rd ser., xv, No. 4 (Apr. 1859), 313;Google ScholarRivero, Ojeada, p. 217.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ Informe Circunstanciado que la Comision de Delegados Fiscales cleva al Con greso, en cumplimienro dcl ArtIculo 8 de Ia Ley de 28 de encro de 1869 (London, 1872 [?]), p. xxxii.Google Scholar

¹³⁹ ‘Of course the expenditure for these new schemes’, wrote Piérola of the wharves he considered urgently required, ‘will appear excessive, but this will be more than offset by the savings’. If 500,000 tons were removed each year, by his calculation 25,000 tons or so would be lost, worth around 500,000 pesos to the government. ‘With this amount of money 10 wharves could be constructed…’ Informe, p. 11.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁰ Slavery was abolished in Peru in 1855.Google Scholar

¹⁴¹ It is, however, worth asking, despite Levin's contention that Peru had little choice in the matter. Given the small numbers and minimal skills involved, and the quantity of unemployed and underemployed labour that must have been present in the coastal towns and cities, it is difficult to agree with his view that no areas of Peruvian society could, either individually or in aggregate, provide an adequate supply of workers. It is misleading to suggest, as he does, that most urban labour ‘was rigidly organised into guilds’ and, therefore, unable to move. Export Economies, pp. 40–41, 85–86.Google Scholar

¹⁴² I have excluded export merchants from the list since there is no very clear or substantial relationship between labour costs and efficiency and their commission-earning capacity.Google Scholar

¹⁴³ In particular, from Bagley, William Chandler, Soil Exhaustion and the Civil War (Washington, 1942);Google ScholarStampp, Kenneth M., The Peculiar Institution (New York, 1956);Google ScholarGenovese, Eugene D., The Political Economy of Slavery (London, 1966);Google ScholarFogel, Robert William and Engerman, Stanley L., Time on the Cross (London, 1974).Google Scholar

¹⁴⁴ See Levin, Export Economics, pp. 112–114;Google ScholarHunt, Shane J., ‘Growth and Guano in Nineteenth Century Peru’ (unpublished discussion paper, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, 02 1973), pp. 62, 70.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ See Mcqueen, Peruvian Public Finance, pp. 38, 85–6;Google ScholarMathew, W. M., ‘Antony Gibbs & Sons, The Guano Trade, and the Peruvian Government, 1842–61,’ s. 4, in Platt, D. C. M. (ed.), Business Imperialism, 1840–1930: an inquiry based on British experience in Latin America (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ 'The Guano Islands’, p. 18.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 08 1857.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 19.

¹⁴⁹ ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, p. 100. See also Levin, Export Economics, p. 120.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁰ Calculated from data for vessels sailing from the Chinchas to Britain in Bills A. Customs, London. Ships' Reports and Lloyd's Register of Shipping.Google Scholar

¹⁵¹ ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, p. 100.Google Scholar

¹⁵² The loans had nothing to do with the financial requirements of Chincha production. See Mathew, ‘Antony Gibbs’, ss. 3 and 4.Google Scholar

¹⁵³ Ibid., s. 3. A recent estimate suggests that over the period 1849–61, the government took 65 per cent of gross sales proceeds from the very large portion of the trade contracted to the English house of Gibbs, most of the remainder going on freights. Hunt, ‘Growth and Guano’, p. 62.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁴ The guano incomes of the principal mid-nineteenth-century contractors, Antony Gibbs & Sons, cannot be calculated with any precision, but it is notable that the London house's net earnings from all commission and brokerage work stood at an average of only £6,296 per annum in the 1830s, before they entered the trade, compared with £16,980 in the 1840s and £73,671 in the 1850s. Antony Gibbs & Sons Ltd., Business Archives. London head office general ledgers, first series, vols. for 1830 to 1859.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁵ A proper evaluation of the economic activities of Peruvian governments in the guano period is not something that can be attempted in this paper. The negative assessment implied here is in accord with the works of Hunt, Levin, Mcqueen and Mathew cited above.Google Scholar See also Bonilla, Heraclio, ‘Aspects de l'histoire économique et sociale du Pérou au xixe siécle’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Paris, 1970). For a more favourable judgment,Google Scholar see Maiguashca, Juan, ‘A Reinterpretation of the Guano Age, 1840–1880’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar

¹⁵⁶ Diaries, Witt, VI, 1 Jan. 1862.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁷ Quoted in Pike, Fredrick B., The Modern History of Peru (London, 1967), p. 114.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁸ This argument is a central feature of Hunt's paper, ‘Growth and Guano’, cited above.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁹ Bills A. Customs, London. Ships' Reports examined for 1842, 1847, 1852, 1857 and 1862 reveal only three Peruvian registered ships carrying guano into Britain.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁰ Diaries, Witt, IV, 11 Mar. 1849;Google Scholar F.O. 61/148, Gomez Sanchez to Sulivan, 10 Oct. 1848;Google ScholarMathew, W. M., ‘The First Anglo-Peruvian Debt and its Settlement, 1822–49,’ Journal of Latin American Studies, 11, pt. 1 (1970), passion.Google Scholar

¹⁶¹ The converse, however, that a more sophisticated Sector would have yielded substantial benefits, does not necessarily apply. Peru's experience with silver, nitrates and sugar, for example, shows this only too well. What we have been concerned with here are the manner and the scale of guano's inadequacy, and these, as has been demonstrated, were very closely related to the way in which it was produced.Google Scholar