GENERAL MILLER, AND THE FOREIGN OFFICERS WHO SERVED IN THE PATRIOT ARMIES OF CHILE AND PERU, BETWEEN 1817 AND 1830.

When the war of independence broke out in South America, many gallant spirits were attracted from different countries of Europe to fight for liberty and justice against Spanish oppression. Fired with enthusiasm for the cause of liberty, these knights errant, many of whom had been distinguished in the wars of Napoleon and Wellington, went forth to risk their lives for an idea. That they were in earnest is proved by the fact that, out of the whole number of sixty-seven, as many as twenty-five were killed or drowned, and eighteen were wounded.

In this band of brave adventurers, next perhaps to Lord Dundonald, the late General Miller takes the most prominent place, as one of the ablest, the truest, and the best. There is a halo of romance round all who joined in this crusade for liberty; all passed through many strange adventures, and did honour to the land from which they hailed; but the lamented old warrior who went to his rest last year was pre-eminent amongst his gallant companions, for his many acts of chivalrous daring and bravery.

William Miller, a native of Kent, served in the British Field Train Department of the Royal Artillery, during the Peninsular war, under Lord Wellington. He was present at the sieges and storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and San Sebastian, at the battle of Vittoria, and investment of Bayonne. He had charge of a company of Sappers and Miners in the American war, was within a few yards of General Ross when he received his death-wound near Baltimore, and was also present at the attack upon New Orleans in 1814.

In 1817, having been placed on half-pay, and tired of an inactive life, he proceeded to South America, and offered his services in the war against the Spaniards. He was appointed Captain of artillery by the Government of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata, crossed the Andes into Chile, and saved two pieces of artillery, under a heavy fire, at the battle of Talca, in March 1818. In April he became a Major, and assisted with his regiment at the declaration of Chilian independence on September 18th, 1818. In 1819 he commanded the Marines in Lord Cochrane's squadron, and in March an explosion of gunpowder, on the island of San Lorenzo, in Callao Bay, shattered one of his hands to pieces, injured his face, and caused blindness for many days. In October he was again at the head of his men, leading them to victory at Pisco, when he was pierced by two balls, one passing through his liver, and another through his breast. In February 1820, though still weak and suffering from his former desperate wounds, he headed the storming party in the boats, in the gallant attack and capture of the forts of Valdivia in Chile, where he was again wounded in the head; and in the subsequent attempt on Chiloe he received a ball through his left groin, and a cannon-shot broke one of his feet. In May 1821 he landed in Peru, and defeated the Spaniards in the hard-fought battle of Mirabe; in 1823 he conducted a most adventurous and romantic campaign through the whole range of the deserts of Peru, from Arequipa to Pisco, defeating the Spaniards, with greatly inferior numbers, on several occasions; and in the same year he became General of Brigade.

In May 1824 General Miller received the command of the Peruvian cavalry of Bolivar's liberating army, and took a principal part in the victory of Junin in the following August. Soon afterwards he assumed the command of the whole of the cavalry of the liberating army, at the head of which he charged, and routed the division of General Valdez in the glorious battle of Ayacucho, at a most critical moment. This brilliant action was fought on the 9th of December 1824, and decided the fate of the war, the entire Spanish army of 10,000 men under General La Serna, Viceroy of Peru, being utterly routed. In February 1825 he was Prefect of Puno, and in April of Potosi; but in 1826 he returned to England on leave of absence, to cure himself of his wounds, which still caused him great suffering.

After a stay of some years in England he returned to Peru in June 1830 but, owing to the factious outbreaks in which he did not choose to take part, he again obtained leave of absence in 1831, and visited many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, especially the Sandwich and Society groups, of which he wrote a most interesting account; and only returned to Peru after the constitutional election of General Orbegoso as President of the Republic. In the early part of 1834 he served in a campaign against the revolutionary chief Gamarra; and, though defeated at Huaylacucho, his operations were on the whole successful, and he was promoted to the rank of Grand Marshal of Peru on June 11th, 1834.

In October 1834 he was appointed Military Governor of Arequipa, Puno, and Cuzco; and it was at this time that he conceived the idea of forming a military colony in the valleys to the eastward of Cuzco, on the banks of some of the tributaries of the great river Purus. In March 1835, while on the point of setting out on an exploring expedition, a revolution broke out in Cuzco, and he was arrested by Colonel Lopera. He was, however, allowed to set out on his expedition, with two companions and seven Indians. He penetrated on foot to a greater distance to the eastward of Cuzco, on this occasion, than has ever been done before or since.

In September 1835 he again placed himself under the orders of the Constitutional President Orbegoso, and in February 1836 he captured Salaverry and eighty officers of his revolutionary army by a very clever stratagem, near Islay. Shortly afterwards Santa Cruz established the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, and General Miller was sent as Minister Plenipotentiary to Ecuador, where he signed a treaty of peace and amity between that Republic and the Confederation. In August 1837 he became Governor of Callao, when all customs duties were reduced one half, smuggling ceased, and the receipts were soon quadrupled. He organized an efficient police; made a subterraneous aqueduct 3 feet wide, 3½ deep, and 280 yards long, for supplying Callao with water; commenced the erection of a college; and formed a tramway for the conveyance of goods from the mole to the custom-house. The people of Callao still look back with satisfaction and gratitude to the period when General Miller was their Governor.

In February 1839, on the overthrow of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, General Miller was banished with many other able and distinguished men, whose names were taken off the army list by a decree dated in the following March. This unjust and illegal act was cancelled by a law of Congress dated October 1847.

After leaving Peru in 1839, General Miller was appointed in 1843 H. M. Commissioner and Consul-General for the Islands in the Pacific. In 1859 he revisited Chile and Peru, partly for his health, and partly to obtain the payment of his large arrears from the Government. When he arrived in Peru the Vice-President Mar, while the President, General Castilla, was absent at Guayaquil in 1859, reinstated him on the army list of Peru, by a decree dated December 9th, the anniversary of the battle of Ayacucho, and granted him his current pay as a Grand Marshal of Peru, and he continued to reside at Lima until his death on the 31st of October 1861. It is satisfactory to be able to record, for the honour of the Peruvian nation, that the whole of his claims were acknowledged in Congress in a most handsome way, and without a dissentient voice. But unfortunately the executive in Peru is still able to set the laws passed by the representatives of the people at defiance; delays and evasions were resorted to by Castilla, and the last days of one from whom Peru had perhaps received as valuable services as from any of her own sons, were embittered by the treatment which he experienced from the President of the Republic.

General Miller was a man of whom England may well be proud. He was one of those characters who combine great ability and extraordinary daring, almost amounting to rashness, with modesty and diffidence. If there was any fault to be found in any part of General Miller's former career, in the camp or in the cabinet, it would be from himself that it would first be heard. To his bravery and prowess, his body riddled with bullets, and the history of South American independence, bear testimony; to his administrative ability the gratitude of the people of Callao and Cuzco is the witness; his pure standard of honour, his scrupulous integrity, his warmth of heart, and single-mindedness are known to a wide circle of sorrowing friends; but of his numerous acts of self-denial and charity few can tell, for he was one who let not his left hand know what his right hand did.

In person he was more than six feet high, and when young he was remarkably handsome; his features and shape of the head being of a thoroughly English type. In society he was exceedingly agreeable to the last; his conversation was always interesting, and often very instructive; and there was a peculiarly gentle and winning expression in his eyes. He took a deep interest in the attempt to introduce chinchona cultivation into India, and I was indebted to him for much valuable advice, and for many letters of introduction which were of great service to me. He also supplied me with most of the material which has enabled me to write the narrative of the insurrection of Tupac Amaru, the last of the Incas, forming the ninth chapter of the present work.

His memoirs, published by his brother many years ago, give by far the fullest and most interesting account of the war of independence in Chile and Peru, though the work of Garcia Camba, a Spanish general, is the best military history.

General Miller breathed his last on board H.M.S. 'Naiad' in Callao Bay, on the 31st of October 1861; and the remains of the gallant old warrior were interred in the cemetery at Bella Vista, with all the honours which the Peruvian Government could bestow. While the body was being embalmed, two bullets were found in it, and twenty-two wounds were counted on different parts of his frame. The most gratifying incident on the occasion was that the people of Callao, who had never forgotten the good he had done them as their Governor, insisted on carrying the coffin.

One of the last things on which General Miller was employed was the compilation of the list of his brave companions in arms. Such a list, I believe, has never appeared before; and as the employment interested and amused him during a time of much harassing annoyance, it gives me great pleasure to be able to insert it here, in order that his labour may not have been entirely in vain.