For six years in the first decade of the nineteenth century Pérez García was engaged in writing his _Historia general, natural y militar, civil y sagrada del reino de Chile_, completed, as he announced on the last sheet of his manuscript, March 19, 1808. The first part of this book is taken up with references to the Virgin as the “discoverer, conqueror, and colonizer of the kingdom of Chile”; with a discussion of the origin of the Americans, with an inquiry as to the probable population of this continent before the Noachian flood, and with the question as to the presence of the Apostle Thomas on this continent. This part has neither interest nor historical value. And, considering the author’s lack of literary training, one ought not to be disappointed in finding the writing crude and the language in many instances incorrect. “But the real merit of Pérez García’s manuscript,” according to Barros Arana’s judgment, “resides in the historical narrative which constitutes about three-quarters of the whole work. This writer has prepared himself with a profound study of the chronicles, those in manuscript as well as those in print, and of the documents that came to his hands, and although with complete neglect of literary forms, he was able to make a book which has a true value and which may be consulted with profit now, after many documents have been discovered, and after the history of the conquest and colonization have begun to be rewritten with the new light which they furnish. The reason of the superiority of the history of Pérez García over those that preceded it is found in the fact that the author has not always accepted as unquestionable truth what he found written by other authors; that he has attempted to verify the statements for himself and by means of comparing those narratives with the documents; and that finally he has corrected in many points numerous errors, and has set down facts from his own investigations that are not found in the other chronicles.”[205] [Sidenote: Carvallo’s work] [Sidenote: Carvallo and O’Higgins]