iplomatic missions abroad, he became successively minister of foreign
affairs and of the interior under the presidency of Senor Santa Maria, and
in the latter capacity carried compulsory civil marriage and several other
laws highly obnoxious to the clergy. In 1886 he was elected president; but,
in spite of his great capacity, his imperious temper little fitted him for
the post. He was soon irreconcilably at variance with the majority of the
national representatives, and on the 1st of January 1891 he sought to
terminate an intolerable situation by refusing to convoke the assembly and
ordering the continued collection of the taxes on his own authority. This
led to the Chilean Civil War of 1891, which ended in the overthrow of
Balmaceda, who committed suicide on the 18th of September, the anniversary
of his elevation to the presidency.

BALMAIN, a town of Cumberland county, N.S.W., Australia, on the western
shore of Darling Harbour, Port Jackson, 2 m. by water from Sydney and
suburban to it. Pop. (1901) 30,881. It is the home of great numbers of the
working classes of Sydney and some of the largest factories and most
important docks are situated here. Saw-mills, iron foundries, chemicals,
glass and soap works, shipbuilding yards and a cocoanut-oil factory in
connexion with the soap-manufacture at Port Sunlight, England, are among
the chief industrial establishments. Balmain became a municipality in 1860.

BALMERINO, JAMES ELPHINSTONE, 1st BARON (_c._ 1553-1612), Scottish
politician, was the third son of Robert, 3rd Lord Elphinstone (d. 1602).
Rising to power under James VI. he became a judge and a royal secretary; he
accompanied the king to London in 1603 and was made Lord Balmerino, or
Balmerinoch, in 1604. In 1605 he became president of the court of session,
but his ardour for the Roman Catholic religion brought about his overthrow.
In 1599 on the king's behalf, but without the king's knowledge, he had sent
a letter to Clement VIII. in which he addressed the pope in very cordial
terms. A copy of this letter having been seen by Elizabeth, the English
queen asked James for an explanation, whereupon both the king and the
secretary declared it was a forgery. There the matter rested until 1608,
when the existence of the letter was again referred to during some
controversy between James and Cardinal Bellarmine. Interrogated afresh
Balmerino admitted that he had written the compromising letter, that he had
surreptitiously obtain