could induce a British Minister to satisfy himself of the rectitude of
my conduct--the soundness of my claims--or the dishonesty of those who,
believing me to be powerless, laughed at reiterated demands for my
stipulated rights. Yet more I have never sought from those to whom I
gave liberty and dominion.

There is, however, a reason for the present publication, of which I have
never lost sight. Amidst all the injustice which it has been my lot to
sustain, I have ever determined--for the sake of my family--to whom my
character is an heir-loom--that no obloquy shall follow me to the grave,
for none have I merited. On the day these volumes see the light, this
resolution will be partially fulfilled. On that day I shall have
completed the eighty-third year of a career strangely chequered, yet not
undistinguished; and, therefore, the opinions of either Chilians or
Brazilians are now of small moment to me in comparison with a reputation
which has been demmed worthy of belonging to history. None of the
present ruling powers in either Chili or Brazil can possibly be offended
with me for giving a guardedly temperate documentary narrative of what
must hereafter form the basis of their national annals. I do not for a
moment contemplate that men of enlightened views such as now direct the
affairs of both countries have either part or sympathy with
self-interested adventurers who in popular revolutions too often rise to
the surface, and for a time make confusion worse confounded; till
replaced--as a matter of course, no less than by necessity--by men of
greater grasp of mind and more exalted aspirations.

But this is as it maybe--my reputation as a British seaman is to me of
the highest moment, and it shall not be sullied after my death by the
aspersions of those who wilfully revenged the thwarting of their
anti-Imperial designs, by imputations which can alone enter into the