from a terrible catastrophe, being visited by an earthquake
which shattered the senior city of the Continent, while at the same time
a great tidal wave swept away the port of the capital, Callao.

Beyond this one Viceroy succeeded another; the mines continued to be
worked, and, in response to the incessant clamourings of Spain, the
miners were flogged and driven willy-nilly to their unwelcome task. As
time went on the relative importance of Peru compared to the
neighbouring States tended to diminish rather than to increase. The most
profitable and most easily worked of the then known gold and silver
mines had been practically denuded of their treasure. There were others
in plenty, but these were more remote, and the difficulty of
communication which then prevailed was sufficiently great to render
impossible any attempt at a remunerative working of these. With the
decrease in the working of minerals greater attention was now paid to
the pastoral and agricultural industries, and with the growth of these
the value and importance of the neighbouring countries increased vastly.
This state of affairs was at length acknowledged by the Court of Spain,
and was emphasized in 1776 when Buenos Aires was made the seat of a
Viceroyalty, and was thus released from the last shred of supervision on
the part of the Peruvian officials.

We are now approaching the stage of the War of Independence. This, in
Peru, as elsewhere, was heralded by the newly-acquired liberal spirit of
the colonials, which, in spite of repressions and precautions on the
part of Spain, could no longer be kept in check. It is true that in
Peru, the chief centre of Spanish officialdom in the Continent, these
manifestations were rather slower in asserting themselves than in the
neighbouring countries, but this was inevitable when the extent of the
moral influence employed by the numerous officials, and the active
discouragement exerted by the important garrison of the Spanish
headquarters of the Continent, are taken into consideration.

Curiously enough, the history of one of Peru's last Viceroys is
permeated with an atmosphere of romance in which the careers of his
predecessors were almost entirely lacking. Ambrose O'Higgins, the most
striking figure of all the lengthy line of Viceroys, had started life as
a bare-footed Irish boy. He is said to have been employed by Lady
Bective to run errands at Dangan Castle, Co. Meath. Through the
influence of an uncle in Spain,