reduced to obedience, by the prudent management of Don Pedro Molina, the quarter-master-general of Chili, who was sent against them with a considerable body of troops, but who succeeded in restoring them to good order more by mild and conciliatory measures than by useless victories.  In consequence of the succession war, by which a prince of the house of Bourbon was placed on the throne of Spain, the French acquired for a time the whole external commerce of Chili.  From 1707 to 1717, the ports of that kingdom were filled with French ships, which carried from thence incredible sums in gold and silver; and many Frenchmen settled at this time in the country, who have left numerous descendants.  During this period the learned Feuille resided three years in Chili, and made his well known botanical researches and many profound metereological observations.

For some time the Araucanians had been much dissatisfied with several articles in the peace, under colour of which the Spaniards availed themselves of forming establishments in their country.  They also were exceedingly impatient of the insolent behaviour of certain persons, called captains of the friends, who had been introduced under the pretence of protecting the missionaries, and now arrogated a considerable degree of authority over the natives which they submitted to with extreme reluctance.  Stimulated by resentment for these grievances, the Araucanians resolved in 1722 to have recourse to arms, and in this view they proceeded to the election of a toqui or military dictator.  On this occasion they chose a person named Vilumilla, a man of low rank, but who had acquired a high character with his countrymen for judgment, courage, and extensive views, entertaining no less an object than the entire expulsion of the Spaniards from Chili.  To succeed in this arduous undertaking, he deemed it necessary to obtain the support and assistance of all the native Chilese, from the confines of Peru to the Biobio, and vast as was the extent of his plan, he conceived it might be easily executed.  Having slain three or four Spaniards in a skirmish, among whom was one of the captains of friends, as they were called, he dispatched messengers with the symbolical arrows, each of whom carried a finger of the slain Spaniards, to the various Chilese tribes in the Spanish provinces, inviting them to take up arms on the exhibition of a signal, to be given by kindling fires on the tops of the highest mountains all over the country.  Accordingly, on the 9th of March 1723, the day previously fixed upon for the commencement of hostilities, fires were lighted up on the mountains of Copaipo, Coquimbo, Quillota, Rancagua, Maule, and Itata.  But either owing to the smallness of their number, their apprehension of the issue of the war, or their long habitude of submission, the native Chilese in the Spanish provinces remained quiet, and this vast project of the toqui was entirely disconcerted.