to express doubts
whether he would ever go to Melipilla. When the Commission had become
inevitable, the Claimant had written a letter to his "esteemed friend,
Don Tomas Castro," reminding him of past acquaintance in 1853, sending
kind remembrances to a number of friends, and altogether mentioning at
least sixteen persons with Spanish names whom he had known there. The
purpose of the letter was to inform Don Tomas that he had returned to
England, was claiming "magnificent lands," and in brief to prepare his
old acquaintances to befriend him there. This letter was answered by
Castro through his son Pedro, with numerous good wishes and much
gossip about Melipilla, and what had become of the old circle. But to
the astonishment and dismay of the Claimant's attorney, Mr. Holmes,
Pedro Castro reminded his old correspondent, that when among them he
had gone by the name of Arthur Orton. A Melipilla lady named Ahumada
then sent a portion of a lock of hair which the Claimant acknowledged
as his own hair, and thanked her for. But this lady declared that she
had cut the lock from the head of an English lad named Arthur Orton;
and the Claimant thereupon said that he must have been mistaken in
thanking her, and acknowledging it as his. In the town of
Melipilla--sixty or seventy miles inland from Valparaiso--everyone of
the sixteen or seventeen persons mentioned by the Claimant as old
acquaintances--except those who were dead or gone away--came before
the Commission, and were examined. They proved to have substantially
but one tale to tell. They said they never knew any one of the name of
Tichborne. Melipilla is a remote little towns far off the great high
road, and the only English person, except an English doctor there
established, who had ever sojourned there, was a sailor lad who, not
in 1853, but in 1849, came to them destitute; was kindly treated;
picked up Spanish enough to converse in an illiterate way; said his
name was Arthur, and was always called Arthur by them; declared his
father was "a butcher named Orton, who served the queen;" and said he
had been sent to sea to cure St. Vitus's Dance, but had been ill-used
by the captain, and ran away from his ship at Valparaiso. This lad,
they stated, sojourned in Melipilla eighteen months, and finally went
back to Valparaiso and re-embarked for England. Don Tomas Castro, the
doctor's wife, and others, declared they recognised the features of
this lad in the portrait of the Claimant;