of being well attended to. The consequence is, frequent instances of suffering and death, under the most melancholy circumstances, but for which neither the owners nor the captains are responsible. The mild and healthy climate of Payta would be in its favour; and the expense would be very small, as could easily be shown. We could say much more on this subject, but think it high time to return to La Floriana.

The arrival of the Potomac brought the first intelligence to Governor Vilamil, that he had been appointed United States consul for the port of Guayaquil. He remarked, that under any other circumstances, he would have received with pride this mark of confidence on the part of his native country; but having engaged in his present enterprise, nothing could induce him to abandon it; and seated, as it were, upon a rock, separated from all the world, he hoped he should be able to render more important services, at least to one branch of our commerce, than he could in the consulate of Guayaquil.

As governor of the island his power is absolute, and his right in the soil is without limit of time. Crimes are punished severely, and minor offences by sending the delinquent six, eight, or ten months on board any whaler in need of men, to be returned to the island previously to the departure of the ship for the United States. By this policy the whaler is benefited, the offender punished, and also improved by a knowledge of a new business, and by earning something for himself.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Sail from the Galapagos-Visit Guayaquil-Touch at the ports of Payta and Lambayeque-Arrival at Callao-Meet the Fairfield-Return to Valparaiso-Depart for the United States-Falkland Islands.

WE left Charles's Island on Tuesday, the tenth of September, and after a passage of seven days made the Main, and came to anchor at Puna Island, Bay of Guayaquil, about forty miles below the town. Guayaquil has been a flourishing commercial city, and the principal port of entry in that portion of the republic of Colombia which, since its dismemberment, forms the republic of the Equador. It is situated about seventy-five miles from the sea, on the north bank of the river whose name it bears, in latitude 2° 12′ south, and about one hundred and forty miles north of Payta. It is built partly on the side and partly at the foot of a hill, which gently descends towards the river. Quito is the capital, once a place of great wealth and splendour, and acknowledged to be the first-born of the independence.

The commodore, with a party of officers, spent a week in Guayaquil, and very agreeably too; for on no part of the coast is there more improved and refined society, or a people who better know how to practise the rites of hospitality. Besides, Guayaquil has long been celebrated for its female beauty. The country, however, is growing poor, from the effects of almost constant revolution with which it has been afflicted.

We sailed from Puna on Sunday, the twenty-ninth of September, and touching at the ports of Payta and Lambayeque, arrived at Callao on Sunday, the twenty-seventh of October. The Falmouth had departed long since for the United States, and in her place was found one of our squadron, the sloop-of-war Fairfield, Master-commandant Vallette. In her first lieutenant, James P. Wilson, we were happy to meet an old acquaintance, a longtried friend, an able officer, and a worthy man. During all the month of January, Commodore Wadsworth was expected to arrive at Valparaiso, when the Potomac, in course, would depart for the

United States, and every requisite arrangement was made at Callao for our departure. Peru was unsettled, and the afflicted Equador was convulsed with revolution. The Fairfield was despatched to Guayaquil to protect our trade, and the Dolphin, now commanded by Lieutenant-commandant Vorheese, was stationed at Callao for the protection of American interests in that quarter, while we took our final leave of Peru, and arrived at Valparaiso on Monday, the sixteenth of December.

The Potomac had now been fourteen months on the coast, actively employed wherever our commercial interests seemed to require her presence. She had boarded, on the station, seventy-one American vessels, amounting to nearly twenty thousand tons of shipping, and manned by eleven hundred men. In all the ports, the commodore had held official intercourse with the authorities; preserving throughout a strict national character, impressing on the minds of all, that the United States wished for peace and reciprocal commerce with her sister republics of the south.

A word on the political condition and prospects of these countries, and a word only can be given at a moment like the present, when home is on every tongue, until the very Potomac herself almost indicates her impatience of delay. The true condition of these countries, it appears to us, has of late been but too generally misunderstood, and, by superficial observers, but too frequently misrepresented. We allude to the opinion becoming prevalent, that these people are unfit for free institutions and selfgovernment; and their frequent disturbances are referred to as conclusive evidence in support of this opinion.

Now we not only maintain that this opinion is unjust, and unfounded in truth; impolitic, so far as it shall mislead the people of the United States, and render our government less watchful of what is going on in these countries; where, by-the-by, every thing is not always turned to the best account;-but, that the very reverse of the proposition is true-viz., that these people, notwithstanding all their internal convulsions, are nevertheless working out their political salvation, and that they will ultimately succeed in the consolidation of their liberty.

Did not the people of these countries, immediately on achieving their independence, establish governments the most free ?-adopting, almost without an exception, the very spirit, and often the

forms of our own hallowed institutions? From that moment to the present, who can point out a single instance in which they have wavered from their' determination to establish and maintain their independence, notwithstanding all their sacrifices, civil commotions, and abuses of men trusted too implicitly with power?

If they had not resolved on the establishment of free institutions, why did they not adopt a despotism, or some government more analogous than a republic to the one they had lived under? The answer is easy, and at hand. A despotism can only exist, where the people are ignorant and superstitious; but these people, in bursting their political bonds, in a good measure got rid of many deceptions, and greatly weakened the force of numerous superstitions. The elements for the establishment of a permanent despotic government, therefore, do not exist in these states.

If the numerous instances in which men intrusted with the administration of affairs in these countries, through misguided views or bad motives, have tyrannised over the people for a time, be brought against this assertion, then we refer to the discontent of the people which followed, revolts in the districts, and the final overthrow of their oppressors, as a triumphant reply!

We have travelled some in these countries, from the ocean to the Cordilleras-in their capitals, principal towns, and remote districts; have witnessed the celebration of their national jubilees, and days rendered memorable, on which signal victories have been won by an armed peasantry against superior numbers and discipline; have seen the multitude rejoice, and the serious appear full of hope in the prospect of better times; and following and mingling in the train the youth of the country, chanting their patriotic songs; and we could not doubt that these people would ultimately succeed in the establishment of their liberty. The soil that has drunk so much blood, shed in the cause of freedom, cannot for ever maintain a race of slaves! Indeed, the love of liberty was scarcely more deeply rooted in the sequestered dells of Switzerland, than it is in these countries. Of this liberty, their ideas, we confess, are often rude and ill-defined; but still the germe is here.

Of the bold assertors of the ignorance and incapacity of these people, who see so much cause of alarm, and are for ever drawing sinister conclusions from their frequent internal convulsions,

we would ask, if any philosopher or statesman has ever been able to reduce to system the process by which a people advance to freedom; or to graduate the precise degree of information necessary, before they commence the work of reform?

Will those persons who maintain that the South Americans are as yet too ignorant or unfit for self-government, have the goodness to state the period when it would have been more wise in them to have made the effort? Ought they to have waited until their country abounded with statesmen and experienced legislators; but which, in truth, never could have been found, except in the very struggles through which they are now passing? Or when should a people resist oppression? There can be but one answer to this question; and that is the very day when they know their rights!

Now we believe that no one who is acquainted with the history of South America will venture the assertion, that its inhabitants are ignorant of their rights; and if not, we appeal to the records of history, if any people ever retrograded after having made such progress, unless overwhelmed and crushed by a superior power, interested in the suppression of liberal principles?

Their frequent commotions make nothing against this proposition; for these commotions are not carried on between the friends of monarchies and republics; nor of a privileged few against the many. But these commotions occur between an enthusiastic love of liberty on the one hand, and political inexperience on the other; between the ambition of men too confidently trusted by a confiding people, whom experience has not even yet taught to be sufficiently wary and distrustful. But mark!-whatever these abuses may have been, no one has ever yet been able to perpetuate them, nor ever can!

In shaking off the yoke of Spain, these people achieved, and nobly achieved, their independence. But did that achievement give them the requisite knowledge for managing their civil institutions? Certainly not;-for this experience is only to be acquired by repeated struggles;-and hence their internal commotions have been, and for a time may continue to be, absolutely unavoidable. It is the price, the passage-money, which they are doomed from the very nature of things to pay, in their progress towards the consolidation of their liberty, and has grown out of