It is a record of misfortune, but of misfortune which did no dishonour to him who sunk under it; and there is a melancholy dignity in the style in which Hawkins tells his story, which seems to say, that though he had been defeated, and had never again an opportunity of winning back his lost laurels, he respects himself still for the heart with which he endured a shame which would have broken a smaller man.  It would have required no large exertion of editorial self-denial to have abstained from marring the pages with puns of which Punch would be ashamed, and with the vulgar affectation of patronage with which the sea captain of the nineteenth century condescends to criticize and approve of his half-barbarous precursor; but it must have been a defect in his heart, rather than in his understanding, which betrayed him into such an offence as this which follows.  The war of freedom of the Araucan Indians is the most gallant episode in the history of the New World.  The Spaniards themselves were not behindhand in acknowledging the chivalry before which they quailed, and, after many years of ineffectual attempts to crush them, they gave up a conflict which they never afterwards resumed; leaving the Araucans alone, of all the American races with which they came in contact, a liberty which they were unable to tear from them.  It is a subject for an epic poem, and whatever admiration is due to the heroism of a brave people whom no inequality of strength could appal and no defeats could crush, these poor Indians have a right to demand of us.  The story of the war was well known in Europe:  and Hawkins, in coasting the western shores of South America, fell in with them, and the finest passage in his book is the relation of one of the incidents of the war.

“An Indian captain was taken prisoner by the Spaniards, and for that he was of name, and known to have done his devoir against them, they cut off his hands, thereby intending to disenable him to fight any more against them.  But he, returning home, desirous to revenge this injury, to maintain his liberty, with the reputation of his nation, and to help to banish the Spaniard, with his tongue intreated and incited them to persevere in their accustomed valour and reputation, abasing the enemy and advancing his nation; condemning their contraries of cowardliness. and confirming it by the cruelty used with him and other his companions in their mishaps; showing them his arms without hands, and naming his brethren whose half feet they had cut off, because they might be unable to sit on horseback:  with force arguing that if they feared them not. they would not have used so great inhumanity—­for fear produceth cruelty, the companion of cowardice.  Thus encouraged he them to fight for their lives, limbs, and liberty, choosing rather to die an honourable death fighting, than to live in servitude as fruitless members of the commonwealth.  Thus using the office of a sergeant-major, and having loaden his two stumps with bundles of arrows, he succoured them who, in the succeeding battle, had their store wasted; and changing himself from place to place, animated and encouraged his countrymen with such comfortable persuasions, as it is reported and credibly believed, that he did more good with his words and presence, without striking a stroke, than a great part of the army did with fighting to the utmost.”