Page images
PDF
EPUB

a paper issue of $4,000,000, guaranteed, nevertheless, by more than twenty millions of coin and other securities.We have been obliged, at the same time, to raise in England a loan of six millions of dollars for war purposes, and an equal amount of money was to be collected in the country.

Such, ladies and gentlemen, were the conditions and prospects of Chili when a man, whose name the world had never heard before, came one morning, surprising our good faith, and taking cowardly and villainous advantage of the defenceless condition of our shores, to stop that marvelous march of progress, and overthrow in a minute the work of so many years of patient industry and honesty.

THE WAR WITH SPAIN.

One word more upon the question of this war, and I have done.

Who understands the causes of this war between Chili and Spain? I think nobody, not even myself, as there never was in the history of nations a war so groundless and ridiculous as this is on the part of Spain.

But as the causes of this difficulty have never been properly understood, and as the day before yesterday one of the leading and most influential papers of this city expressed a wish that no sympathy should be bestowed upon us, on the ground that the facts were not yet fully known, I will endeavor to put them before you in their full light, begging of you one moment more of patience.

On the 24th of April, 1863, a day of sad record for America, both North and South, Admiral Pinzon, on the part of Spain, seized the Chincha Islands, belonging to Perú, and declared in a public manifesto that in doing so he revindicated the property of Spain, as there was only a state of truce with Perú since the truce of Ayacucho in 1824.

At such an extraordinary avowal, the whole of South America rose in alarm, and stood like a single man by the side of their attacked brother. They acted, it is true, in their own behalf at the same time, as they might also be "revindicated at any moment, especially Chili, the nearest neighbor of the invaded country, and the people who had twice stood by Perú in her fight for liberty, the cause of the two countries being one.

A warm feeling of sympathy was consequently awakened in Chili in favor of Perú. The press violently attacked Spain; volunteers went over to Perú; and coal was declared contraband of war for both parties, as it was impossible to provide with means of attack the very enemy that was preying like a highway robber on our coast. And I ask you, gentlemen, what country on the surface of the earth would have acted otherwise? Would you? Would you restrain your press on the affairs of Mexico, and deny your sympathies for the institutions and the men of a country which in some respects forms a part of your own? Besides, as I had occasion to develop fully, at an address I delivered a few days ago at Panamá, and which many of you probably read in the New York Herald of last week, there was no ground whatever, in the presence of the most stringent principles of international law, not only for a war, but even for a diplomatic rupture.

PERÚ TO STAND BY CHILI IN WAR ALLIANCE.

But as only a pretext was needed, as soon as the difficulty between Spain and Perú was settled in such a disgraceful manner, that the whole country rose against the traitors with the blush in their face, Pareja undertook to ask explanations of our Government for the legitimate acts and for the innocent sympathies shown to our suffering brothers. And let me pause a moment in my narrative, to inform you, in the joy of my heart, that the noble revolution of Perú triumphed by its national force with little bloodshed, at the gates of Lima, on the 5th of November last, as we have just heard by the steamer arrived this evening from Aspinwall.

Thanks to God, there are no more traitors in America; and I take upon myself to declare, as a friend of Generals Canseco and Prado, the President and the leader of that glorious protest against Spain, that Perú will now stretch out to Chili the hand of a brother, and repay the sacrifices to her cause. Yes, gentlemen, I feel authorized to declare in this responsible place, that the new Government of Perú is bound by the most solemn pledges of nations to declare war, immediate and active war, against Spain.

Such is the fact at this very hour, and you may rely upon it, as I come to this country from the head-quarters

of the Peruvian army and revolutionary fleet. I beg to add that the Express of to-day makes a very singular mistake in declaring that the new Government of Perú comes back on a Spanish platform, when the very reverse is the fact, as the revolution sprang out of the infamous conduct of the last government of Ex-Gen. Pezet, a traitor, like Santana and Almonte, to the noble cause of America.

The asking of explanations from our government by Pareja, was in itself an act of insult on the part of the agent of Spain, as we were the party offended. But the Chilian Government, giving a proof of its prudence and forbearance, gave the explanations required, to such an extent that the claimant declared himself in a public dispatch, and in benalf of his government, entirely satisfied.

That event took place in May last, and both the country and the government had entirely forgotten the past question, when suddenly, on the morning of the 12th of September, a small steamer chartered by our Minister in Lima, cast her anchor in Valparaiso, bearing extraordinary news. The Government of Spain had declared insufficient the satisfaction accepted as fully satisfactory by her public representative had recalled him in disgrace, and ordered Pareja (the secret abettor of the plot,) to go with the whole of his fleet to impose upon us the shame of humiliating our honor and our flag to the guns of his ships. This course was made yet more insolent, as we know that Pareja and half a dozen intriguing and lawless men surrounding him, had been the active agents for obtaining from the Spanish Government the authorization of their villainous attack upon Chili. Pareja was so proud with his old frigates, and particularly as we had none at that time, that he wrote to his beloved Queen that in less than a quarter of an hour he would settle the difficulty with little Chili.

But the poor old Admiral was miserably mistaken. At the very moment of his appearance in the bay of Valparaiso, the country-as a single thought, as a single soul, as a single arm-roused itself to the support of the government, and offered life and property to maintain its honor, so infamously and cowardly assailed. Consequently, the very day that Pareja declared the blockade, and took violent possession of a few of our merchant ships, who had not yet changed their flags, both Houses

[ocr errors]

of Congress met spontaneously on the 24th of September. War was declared immediately against Spain by the unanimous vote of all present; the government was authorized to raise a loan of $20,000,000; to call to arms whatever troops deemed necessary; to increase, or, more properly speaking, create a navy by all means available, and carry immediate and active hostilities against the insolent invaders.

And now, gentlemen, I ask you candidly and honestly, would you, could you, as members of an independent and free country, have done otherwise? [Cries of no, no.]

CHILI NOTHING TO LOOSE BY A WAR WITH SPAIN.

So the war with Spain is one of honor for us, as it is a ridiculous and purposeless ostentation of power and pride on the part of Spain. The English people, excited undoubtedly by their great interest in the Pacific, have understood nevertheless the real position, the origin, and the consequences of this singular and almost enigmatical case, and have severely condemned Spain. It is for you now to give utterance to your opinion, and support it in the interest of your ideas and of the old principles of your glorious republic.

But allow me to say, before I close these last observations, that although we regret, as a civilized country, this war having originated in such extravagant pretexts, we are not in the least afraid of it. Far from that. We have a history and glorious forefathers who taught us how to fight and how to conquer. [Applause.] We have a respectable and respected position among the nations of the world, and that respect is not commanded by armies or fleets, but by our institutions, our credit as a commercial country, and our wealth, superior to many of the old monarchies of Europe, and certainly to that of marauding and bankrupt Spain. And then, gentlemen, war with all its horrors and its calamities, possesses great advantages for new countries. We have nothing to loose by the hate of Spain, and something to gain by it. are not indebted to Spain in Chili for a single man of enterprise, for a single cent of capital, for any importation of industry. England appears in our commercial section, as I have already stated, as importer in the proportion of 43 per cent. France 20 per cent., Germany 9 per cent.,

We

the United States 5 per cent., Peru and Brazil 3 per cent.; but Spain for nothing at all! (Laughter.) There are, too, in Chili, at present, seven hundred Spaniards in all, but all belonging to the classes of little traders ; none to the liberal or even most humble professions.

And I may be allowed to repeat, without paying attention to local considerations, new-born countries require to be at once known in the great fair of the world. You were once only a small nation, and had not a defender among the great peoples of the globe, until you, young and inexperienced, but full of daring with the righteousness of your cause, went to war with England in 1812. You came great and powerful out of that struggle, and so we expect to come out of ours, against our fastdecaying mother country. And mind it, gentlemen, we are ready to go to that war at our own risk, with our own blood, with our own money, without asking any other nation's material help or entangling alliances. What we want is merely justice, the full appreciation of our dignity and of our rights, so that it may not be said that we entered into this war through contemptible notions of pride and vanity, but for the sake of our present existence, our future destinies as a nation, commanding the respect and the sympathies of the civilized world.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, there remains for me only the pleasant duty of offering you my most sincere and earnest thanks for the kindness shown to me on this occasion, and I do so with a grateful heart. (Long applause.)

After the lecture, Mr. E. George Squier moved a vote of thanks to the lecturer, in a few complimentary remarks, which motion was seconded by Mr. James S. Mackie in a brief but happy speech, and carried with signal enthusiasm.

Among several judgments registered by the daily papers of New York upon the present lecture, we consider it becoming to our purpose to reprint the following leading article of the Evening Post of December the 12th, and which relates to the commerce between Chili and the United States:

« PreviousContinue »