final advantages they proposed to derive from their great, and, so far, successful revolutionary struggle, is plainly discovered in times of public disturbance, when all classes suffer more or less severely from grinding contributions and wanton exactions. The wealth of the “hacendado,” or landed proprietor, is dissipated in every turmoil; and the less affluent farmer, or “chacarero,” is arrested in his labour, and has his arm paralysed by indigence and violence. Predatory troops, as well as government hirelings, seize and drive off his cattle, lead astray his slaves, press or frighten away his free labourers, destroy his crops, and pillage his granaries; and should the spoliated countryman, or country gentleman, be able to rally his spirits and renew his exertions so as to recover the shock of one year’s depredation, the repetition of the like violence, or an aggression yet more destructive, on the following year, consigns him to hopeless beggary. The miners likewise, though a greatly privileged corporation, are for the most part destitute of real capital; yet, in these times, misnamed patriotic, they are a prey to unjust collectors of tribute, who, on fixing any particular miner’s contribution at a certain sum in current money, which he is unable to pay, take care to recover the amount in piña. Now, the extortioner asserts that the miner’s piña, though truly excellent, is very badly purified,—that it is of “mucha merma,” or sustains great loss of weight in fusion; and, under this false pretence, again comes upon the miner, and obliges him to make up the alleged deficiency: this, in fact, is a surplus, over and above the demands of the government, which swaggering colonels, or other such commissioned pilferers, appropriate without scruple to their own unworthy purposes. Such acts of violence and villany in times of petty revolutions lead to the worst consequences; for they not only occasion great private distress, but create such a general distrust in the government and its rapacious agents, as frequently prevents the miners from remitting silver bars to Lima, when otherwise it might be their interest to do so; and this oppression causes a contraband trade, for which, indeed, the open coasts of the country afford all imaginable facility. Nor should it be here overlooked that, as a common consequence of the frequent public broils in this republic, the small merchant or retail dealer often feigns, on the convenient plea of bad times, an utter incapacity to pay the wholesale foreigner in Lima who credits him with goods. Should a person of this character once get into the interior with a respectable stock on hand, he is sure to play the part of a gentleman in feasting and dancing, &c.; and it may take some trouble not only to get him to render fair accounts, but to hunt him out of the town or village where, under the pretext of transacting business, he is pleased to locate himself. In