[Communicated by the Chilian legation.—Translation.]
Valparaiso became the victim of the saddest and most shameful outrage, yesterday, which will ever have to be recorded in the history of civilized nations. That great commercial and maritime city was bombarded for the space of three hours by the Spanish squadron, which is commanded by Brigadier Don Casto Mendez Nunez. Her immense warehouses, her rich mercantile stores, her peaceful homes, her public monuments, her churches and her charitable institutions, all were savagely assailed by the artillery of an enemy whose cowardly rage seemed to be stimulated by the impunity with which it gloated over its defenceless prey.
I propose to present to your excellency the chief points in the history of this unprecedented international crime. For the details I must refer your excellency to the numerous documents to be found in our newspapers, and in the “Boletin de Noticias.”
On Friday, the 23d of March, it commenced to be rumored in Valparaiso that the Spanish squadron was preparing to bombard that port, This rumor arose from a conversation had by the minister plenipotentiary of the United States, General Kilpatrick, with the Brigadier Mendez Nunez, in which the latter announced to the former his determination regarding the bombardment. Such announcement, although informal and confidential was, as General Kilpatrick himself soon informed me, authentic; notwithstanding which we were loth to believe that the enemy’s commander would carry into execution a design as infamous to his own country as it would be ineffectual for the attainment of those ends which, provided he were governed by the laws of Christian and civilized nations, he might lawfully strive for during the existing war. The result has just proved how correct was this obvious consideration. By the bombardment of Valparaiso, the emporium of the national and foreign commerce, an exclusively mercantile city, open and defenceless, Spain has obtained the most deplorable of results—opprobrium for herself, while causing enormous and unnecessary damages to the neutral interests located in Valparaiso, and adding incalculable recrudescency to the character of the present war.
[Page 422]Foreseeing this fatal result, we were inclined to believe that the bombardment announced would not take place, although the past conduct of our enemy was far from offering any guarantee that he would respect the most inviolable rules of international law.
There were, moreover, additional reasons which confirmed us in our suppositions. Two powerful maritime nations, the United States and Great Britain, had in Valparaiso very considerable naval forces, sent to our waters, according to all appearances, on account of the existing war, and for the protection of the interests of their respective citizens. It was natural to believe that, although the Spanish squadron might attempt the bombardment, the naval forces of the United States and Great Britain would prevent the consummation of an act of such useless barbarity, which would involve the ruin of many British subjects and North American citizens. It was also natural to suppose that France, whose subjects in Valparaiso were equally in danger, would, through the organ of diplomacy, morally aid so legitimate a resistance.
We could scarcely entertain a doubt on this point, when we remembered the unequivocal and reiterated insinuations previously made to us by Mr. Taylour Thomson, her Britannic Majesty’s chargé d’affaires. Some time previously it had been publicly stated that we were preparing to use torpedoes for the destruction of the Spanish squadron, and this rumor had scarcely reached the ears of Mr. Thomson when he addressed himself to us, urging us to desist from said means of attack. In support of his earnest request, he argued that the use of torpedoes might furnish a pretext for bombarding, leaving it to be understood that, without their use, such bombardment would in no event take place, whatever might be the intentions of the blockading squadron. Mr. Taylour Thomson’s persistence in this pretension was seconded by Mr. Denman, chief of her Britannic Majesty’s naval station.
So soon as the bombardment was announced, the diplomatic agents of France and Great Britain, together with General Kilpatrick, the minister of the United States, proceeded to Valparaiso; and when we were expecting that the conclusions they might arrive at, and the representations they might make to the blockading commander, would accomplish the looked-for result, we learned that they had abandoned all idea of preventing the bombardment by force of arms. From a note to the United States Commodore Rodgers, it is discovered that the want of acquiescence on the part of the official agents of the other nations rendered the contemplated resistance impossible, and frustrated the hopes and prayers of the very numerous foreign population of Valparaiso.
Meanwhile the Brigadier Mendez Nunez had, on the 27th of March, notified the military authorities of Valparaiso that on the 31st of the same month he should open fire upon the city, adding that he gave said notification in order that the aged, the women, children, and other non-combatants, might be placed out of danger. At the same time he asked that flags should be displayed upon the hospitals and other charitable institutions, by which they might be distinguished and preserved from the fires of his artillery.
The appearance of Valparaiso, soon after the receipt of this notice, was woful indeed. The inhabitants were making haste to save their movable property, and many of them to abandon their homes, and that general emigration had to take place within the peremptory term of a little over three days. The population of Valparaiso exceeds eighty thousand inhabitants, and this alone is enough to prove the insufficiency of the time given. Therefore it is that, notwithstanding the uninterrupted running of the railroad trains, in which free passage was given to all indigent persons, the greater part of the inhabitants had to remain in the city, from which but an insignificant amount, relatively speaking, of furniture and merchandise could be removed.
While he addressed the aforesaid notification to the military authorities of Valparaiso, the Brigadier Mendez Nunez attempted to palliate to the neutral [Page 423] powers the enormity of the outrage he was about to perpetrate. For this purpose, on the same 27th day, he addressed to the diplomatic and consular corps a manifesto giving the reasons which led him to the bombardment. According to that document, which defies qualification, the Spanish squadron had been bold even to temerity in going to attack the small naval forces of Chili and Peru, in the archipelago of Chiloe. The continuous fogs and tortuous channels of that archipelago had prevented their finding their adversaries, and in this impossibility no other method of aggressive attack was left to the enemy than the bombardment of Valparaiso.
Had that imagined impossibility been real and positive, even then the bombardment of an open and defenceless commercial city would in no way have been justifiable, more especially as Chili has two fortified points, Corral and Ancud, which Brigadier Mendez Nunez might have bombarded, without cowardly violating, as he has done, the law of nations and the noblest sentiments of humanity.
But the alleged impossibility did not exist. It is not long since two Spanish frigates penetrated without difficulty into the station at Abtao, whence they were beaten and forced to retire by the very inferior naval forces of Chili and Peru. Still later the iron clad frigate Numancia and the frigate Blanca again entered into the archipelago, and being in the vicinity of the new station of the small Chili-Peruvian fleet, dared not approach it, lest they should draw upon themselves the fire of the improvised batteries, and not because of any natural obstacles, which really do not exist.
The Spanish commander himself destroyed all the force of his arguments by declining the invitation to a battle between equal naval forces, at ten miles distance from Valparaiso, in a spot free from fogs and channels, which challenge was offered in our name by the appropriate military authority on the eve of the bombardment.
We never would have made such a proposal had it not been rendered necessary by the deliberate misrepresentations contained in the manifesto of the Brigadier Mendez Nunez. There remains to us the satisfaction that the worthy commander of the United States squadron would have served as judge in case the international duel proposed by us had taken place. This obliging readiness on his part shows very clearly how opportune and well founded was the proposition.
But the enemy’s commander preferred the miserable impunity of bombarding a city unable to return his fire, to a fair battle in accordance with the rules of civilized warfare.
In spite of the energetic and just remonstrances of the diplomatic representative of the United States, and notwithstanding the no less energetic and just protests of all the foreign consuls, Brigadier Mendez Nunez remained inexorable.
At eight o’clock yesterday morning the vessels of the British and North American squadrons withdrew from the bay of Valparaiso, to become distant and passive spectators of the murder en masse of a peaceful people, and of the demolition and burning of an unprotected city, in which were thousands of honorable and industrious foreigners. At the same time, the iron-clad frigate Numancia, with the chief of the enemy’s squadron on board, advanced towards the interior of the bay, followed by the rest of the Spanish vessels, and discharged two guns as a signal that the bombardment would commence an hour later.
At the sound of this signal the people of Valparaiso, from which place not even all the women and children had yet disappeared, burst out in an unanimous shout of indignation and contempt for their cowardly assassins, and awaited with calm and manly resignation the hour of the cruel immolation.
At nine o’clock in the morning the Spanish vessels stationed at a short distance from and opposite all the extent of the semicircular shore upon which Valparaiso is built, opened fire upon all the city, which fire was, until the close of [Page 424] the bombardment, furiously sustained against the customs warehouses, the populous barrio of La Planchada, the Commercial Exchange, the palace of the Intendencia, and the central railroad depot.
Contrary to the voluntary promise of the enemy’s commander, the hospitals and other charitable institutions, which were distinguished by their white flags, were fired upon with manifest intention. At the very commencement of the bombardment the principal church, in which a hospital had been established, received within its naves three bombs, which did considerable damage within the church.
At the second hour of the bombardment fire was discovered in the barrio of La Planchada, which in a few moments acquired gigantic proportions. Soon the customs warehouses, in which were stored immense quantities of merchandise, also became a prey to the flames
The cannonading continued nevertheless, mixed at times with the discharge of small fire-arms, aimed at such persons as might be near the sea shore.
Not until after three hours of incessant firing, during which the enemy discharged nearly two thousand five hundred balls and bombs against the city, did the Numancia display a flag which announced the suspension of the bombardment.
During those three hours the garrison of Valparaiso distributed throughout the city to repress any disorder, and the majority of the inhabitants, on the hills, miradors, and roofs of their houses, had borne that wicked and abominable outrage with passive heroism and in silence, interrupted only, ever and anon, by shouts in honor of our country and in opprobrium of their base enemy.
Scarcely had the firing ceased when the gallant corps of firemen of Santiago and Valparaiso rushed upon the burning buildings, and used superhuman efforts to stay the indescribable voracity of the flames. After many hours of incessant and toilsome labor, in which they were efficaciously aided by the public force, the progress of the fire was arrested before it had totally destroyed the customs warehouses or the barrio of the La Planchada.
The part of the city consumed by the flames has nevertheless been large enough to bury beneath its ruins many millions of private wealth, the fortunes of numerous families, and the merchandise of powerful foreign firms, principally French and English.
Such has been the most serious material result of the Spanish bombardment, in comparison with the magnitude of which the damages sustained by some of our public buildings seem but insignificant. And with regard to this it is proper to note that, although the fire of the Spaniards was directed against all the government buildings and public monuments, it was aimed with particular fury against the customs warehouses, by which the nation has only lost a valuable edifice, while neutral merchants have had to bear the loss of many millions worth of property.
As to the more painful and irreparable evils, the loss of human lives, up to this time we have only heard, as having perished by the enemy’s balls or bombs, of a few persons of humble condition, who were on the hills in the vicinity of Valparaiso.
But the moral effect of the bombardment of that peaceful city is much more worthy of attention than any material results.
In the first place, it has again proved the unconquerable earnestness of this country in the defence of this just cause which she sustains, and has cast a black and everlasting stigma upon the odious aggessor of Chili and Peru, that old and constant enemy of America, who has given up the difficult task of avenging her multiplied reverses in fair and open fight. The fires of the cannon of her powerful squadron, quenched at Papudo and Abtao, have been relighted, not to repair those humiliating defeats, but to scatter ruin and trouble over our beautiful seaport, the opulent and elegant metropolis of the commerce and shipping of the Pacific. To the glorious chances of a noble strife she has preferred a war of [Page 425] barbarous and unprofitable destruction. After shamefully retiring from before forces inferior to their own, she has now sacrificed with cowardly impunity a people who could offer no other resistance than the noble and calm impassive-ness of a martyr. In achieving this ignoble feat she has not hesitated to lose forever her military honor, and to draw upon herself the just execration of all civilized and Christian nations, from whose association she has banished herself by shamefully violating the most sacred of international law and the truest sentiments of humanity.
The whole civilized world, and more than all, Europe, of which Spain forms a part, should make haste to punish with emphatic and terrible reprobation the atrocious crime which was perpetrated yesterday in Valparaiso by the naval forces of a nation which styles herself civilized and Christian.
Should this not be so, should this cowardly abuse of strength meet with indulgence from the great nations of Europe and America, then would the weaker states have completely to alter their attitude and purposes in their international relations.
Feeling confident that that enlightened government will agree with our opinion, and in order to assist it in its decision and resolutions, your excellency is hereby instructed to read this despatch to the minister of foreign affairs of that country, leaving with him a copy of the same should his excellency so desire.
God preserve your excellency.
F. S. Asta Buruaga, Esq., &c., &c., &c.