Your Excellency magnanimously presented to Congress a brief but lucid enumeration of my services to the State, which being taken into consideration by the enlightened representatives of a judicious and gallant people, “full pay during my life,” and an honorary medal, were voted to me, accompanied by the truly gratifying announcement that such estimable gifts were “en testimonio de gratitud nacional por grandes servicios que presto a la Republica durante la guerra de Independencia.”

These honours I most thankfully accept, as highly gratifying proofs that, after the lapse of more than thirty years, my zealous, official, extra-official, and successful exertions, to ensure to Chili complete independence, internal peace, and the dominion of the Pacific, are held in grateful remembrance by the Government and People of that highly respected nation.  Nevertheless I must be permitted to observe that the grant of full pay, only prospectively, to one who is upwards of eighty years of age, is little more than nominal, as my life, in all human probability, is approaching its close.  I had hoped that, as vast benefits have uninterruptedly accrued to the State, ever since the completion of the services 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