send a supply to all the
countries where it can be sold, and in as great quantities as they will
buy at fixed prices. This is the monopoly. A parallel case can be found
nearer home. The government of the United States, also incurred a
revolutionary war debt, and also came in possession of an article which
the people of all other countries want, and unlike that possessed by
Peru, an article which they must have. Upon this necessity of life, our
government has fixed a price, which any one may pay or let it alone--buy
or not, just as he pleases. The government will neither sell to citizens
or strangers at half price, nor let them have the use of it without pay;
in fact, will not let us carry away anything of value from this
property, although it might not materially injure the sale of the
principal and most valuable portion, which is immovable. Such is the
"guano monopoly" of one government, and such is the "land monopoly" of
the other. Which is most wicked?

Of the right of each government, no honest man will dispute. That Peru
has as much right to the guano upon her desert islands, as the United
States has to the live oak timber in the deserts of Florida; or as
England has to the codfish in the waters of Newfoundland, seems to be as
clear as any right ever exercised by any power on earth. Each protect
their own by hired agents, so far as they are able, to prevent dishonest
men from carrying away that which each considers valuable.

If English and United States citizens have a right to go and seize upon
the guano and bring it off in defiance of Peru, because the guano
islands are not inhabited, then have we a right to seize all the codfish
in the waters of the sea, because nobody lives there--they cannot live
there--they only live on the lands adjacent, and therefore have no
right to anything except what they stand upon. Then by the same rule
may the lands of the United States be seized upon, because they are
unoccupied.

By virtue of decrees now in force, no vessel, either under the national
or any foreign flag, has a right to go to the Peruvian guano deposits,
without first obtaining permission from the Peruvian Government under
penalty of confiscation.

Foreign vessels, furnished with government licences, are allowed to load
at the Chinche Islands only.

Finally, any attempt to load vessels without the proper licences, would
subject them to be seized by the Government vessels appointed to cruise
off, and visit th