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money; and, in a country in which contracts are not understood, and time is of no value, there would be the most serious delays and disappointments.

7. In Cornwall the expenses of the mine are known. The customary wages of the captains of the mines, the pay of the miners, who all work by tribute,* or by tut-work, are accurately calculated; the price of tools, iron, wood, rope, and all materials is known, and the sale of the ores by public auction gives an immediate and certain return.-In South America the expenses of each mine can never be anticipated. The wages of the English captains and miners are very high; every article, if purchased a thousand times, would be the subject of a new bargain, and materials would be perhaps of double or treble cost, according to the people and the spots from which they were to be obtained. After the extraction and reduction of the ores, the processes of smelting and amalgamation, which in Cornwall are unknown (the Cornish ores being always smelted in Wales), would be required.

8. In Cornwall, in case it should be deemed necessary to abandon the mine, the men can be discharged; the engines can be removed; the materials can be sold by auction, and the loss is only what has actually been spent on the mine. In South America, in case the mine should be deserted, to the sum sunk in the mine is to be added the expense of the men getting to the spot and returning, which in many cases would be very great; the construction of houses for officers and men, as also the establishments for smelting and amalgamation; the cost of engines and stores, which it would often be cheaper to abandon than to

remove.

9. In Cornwall the resources of a great mercantile country

* Excepting the levels, which are always driven by tut-work (task-work), the mines in Cornwall are all worked by Tributers. These Tributers are the common miners, who take their pitches by public auction, at which they agree to deliver the ore fit for market for different prices, from 6d. to 138. 4d. in the pound, according to the nature of the ground, the ores, &c. &c. The adventurers of the mine, therefore, are tolerably sure of their profit before the work is begun, for the Tributers pay the smith-cost, candles, powder, breaking, wheeling, and drawing. They pay men for spalling and cobbing the large rocks, for separating the prill from the dradge, and they also pay girls for bucking the ores, and boys for jigging them.

are so extensive, that public competition suppresses every sort of unjust combination, but among small communities of men this would be impossible; and without the slightest intention to blame any individual, I must declare that, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, I found that Englishmen and foreigners were preparing to monopolise every article that could be required for mining purposes; and that a large English capital, belonging sometimes to A. and sometimes to B., was considered by a pack of people as a heedless, unprotected carcass, which was a fair subject for universal " worry."

MEMORANDUM (B).

Comparing the past and the present Value of the Mines in South America.

On the discovery of the different countries of South America, the attention of the Spaniards was immediately directed towards the acquisition of those metals which all men are so desirous to obtain. Careless of the beauty of these interesting countries, their sole object was to reach the mines; and hence it is that the history of the American mines has always been considered the best history of the country. As soon as information was obtained from the Indians of the situation of the mines, however remote, small settlements were formed there; and with no other resources or supplies than those which nature had bestowed upon the country, they commenced their labours: they obtained their reward, and the arrival of the precious metals in Europe was hailed as the produce of intrepidity, industry, and science.

The mode, however, in which these riches were first obtained forms one of the most guilty pages in the moral history of man; and the cruelties which were exercised in the American mines are a blot on the escutcheon of human nature which can never be effaced or concealed, and which is now only to be confessed with humility and contrition. Besides the mita, or forced labour of the Indians (the particular cruelty of which is not the present object to describe), the whole system was one of extortion and oppression.* The miners were barely sheltered from the weather;

*Those who formerly worked the South American mines have been accused of ignorance, in having brought ore and water from the mine on the backs of men. If the Indians employed had received English wages and English comforts, and had carried the small quantity which in England would be called a load, the ignorance of their masters would have been great indeed. But the case was very different. The Indian Apires were beasts of burden, who carried very nearly the load of a mule; and their food cost but

the use of all spirits was forbidden; their food was coarse, and the weighty tools which were placed in their hands were emblems of the ignorance, cruelty, and avarice of their masters.

However, there is no situation of misery or suffering to which the mind and body of man cannot be enured. The miner by degrees became accustomed to his labour and his tools; the slave, toiling under his load, ceased to complain; the cry of the sufferers became gradually silent, and in a short time no sound issued from the gloomy chamber of the mine but the occasional explosion of powder, the ringing blow of the hammer, and the faint whistle of the slaves, who thus informed the overseer that they had reached those points of the shafts at which, by law, they were allowed to rest.

The mine was said to have assumed a prosperous appearance, and men were talking aloud of the flourishing state of the South American colonies, and of the inexhaustible riches of the mines, when the spell was gradually broken. The Revolution at last broke out, and, as if by magic, the miner found himself in the plain surrounded by his countrymen, marching forward in support of liberty, and lending his arm to exterminate from la Patria the oppressors who were now trembling before them.

All the poor mines in South America from this moment were deserted, and the country was for many years in a state of warfare which it is not necessary to describe; but as soon as the victory was gained, and independence gradually established, one of the first acts to which many people had recourse was the working of the deserted mines, from which they naturally expected again to obtain wealth. Several of the miners had been killed in the wars, while others, wearing the spurs and poncho of the Gaucho, enjoyed a life of wild and unrestrained liberty. There were some, however, who voluntarily returned to the profession in which they had been trained, and were willing again to embrace a life whose hardships had become habitual; but the forced labour of the Indian was now wanting; and although this system of cruelty had been long abolished in many

little. Their unrecorded sufferings were beyond description; and I have been assured from unquestionable authority, that, with the loads on their backs, many of them threw themselves down the mine, to end a life of misery and anguish.

parts of South America, yet its existence in some places, and the unjust and impolitic encouragement which the Spaniards had given to mining, in exclusion of every other branch of industry, had, up to the period of the Revolution, greatly assisted the working of the mines.

Operations were, however, recommenced at almost all the old mines. They were all tried; but, generally speaking, they were all abandoned, because they did not pay, and with little inquiry into the cause, the reason assigned was, the want of intelligence and capital; and people, frustrated in this object, and incapable of contending with the difficulties which impeded any step to wards civilization in the insulated, remote, and almost impracticable situations in which they found themselves, yielded to the habits of indolence in which they still exist.

If the above rough and imperfect history of the mines of South America is deemed correct in its general features, it will account for a phenomenon which, in visiting several deserted mines, I was for a long time totally unable to comprehend.

In many places we found lodes worked to considerable depths, but the lode so small, and the assay so poor, that the constant remark of the Cornish captains who accompanied me was, "that there must have been something got out of the mine which they could not see, or else it could never have paid." Besides this, the country was barren, and there were often many other local disadvantages: still, however, it was evident to me that these mines, somehow or other, MUST have paid, or else they would not have been worked; and in spite of the disadvantages which were before my eyes, the natural conclusion was, that if they had once paid, they might surely pay again.

However, as soon as I afterwards saw a few of the miners at work, the problem was solved.

The miners who are now in Chili, though toiling in the path of their early days, have probably relaxed a little from the discipline of the Spaniards; yet the extraordinary manner in which they still work, or rather slave, is almost incredible. The contrast between their lives and the ease and independence of the rest of the inhabitants of the country, naturally leads the mind to reflect on the sad history of the South American mines; and this history, in my humble opinion, sufficiently accounts for, first,

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