vices so
honourably recognised, the grant would have dated from that period,
in the same manner that has recently been accorded to me by the
Government of Brazil, which has decreed the restitution of arrears
of pay from the period that my actual command ceased, and also its
continuance during my life.

If my services to Chili be acknowledged to have been great, might
I not expect an equal boon from a country which owes the blessings
of peace and subsequent tranquillity, and consequent prosperity, to
the speedy termination of war? I plead not for myself, most
Excellent Sir, for at my advanced age, I have few wants, but for the
sake of my children and for the honour of my family. I need only
point to the additional examples of Spain and Portugal, where all
general officers and admirals of first rank, employed in the struggle
for the emancipation and independence of those countries, were
rewarded by the subsequent continuance of their pay during their
lives; an engagement ever punctually discharged.

I have no doubt that had the recollection of my advanced age been
present to the mind of your Excellency when you proposed the project
of law in my behalf, and had you remembered that a merely
prospective grant would be of little personal benefit to me or to my
numerous family, your Excellency would have been happy to have
recommended, and the Congress to have conceded, that it should
likewise be retrospective, especially as Chili had not (as is the case
in my native country) to rear and maintain numerous officers for
one found suited to command.

In order to convince your Excellency that I do not desire _full_ pay
to be granted to me during the long period elapsed since my services
were rendered (though from the privations I have suffered and the
losses I have sustained, such delay in truth might be deemed an
additional title), I therefore beg most respectfully to suggest to the
consideration of your Excellency, to that of the Council and National
Congress, as well as to the just feeling of the honourable people of
Chili, that _one half_ of the pay which I received in actual service, be
accorded to me retrospectively, in the same manner that a similar
boon was granted by the Brazilian nation. This I should accept
with deep gratitude, in compensation for the wounds I received this
day thirty-six years, in the captu