Page:A history of Chile.djvu/133

Rh justice rationally, encouraged agriculture, built cities, opened mines, promoted commerce and the fisheries, ameliorated the condition of the laboring classes, suppressed the Spanish fiefs, or encomiendas, in 1791 projected the Tajamar, or dike, at Santiago, which protects the city from the inundations of the Mapocho, and made an excellent road from Valparaiso to Santiago, carrying it over the tops of the high mountains. He was made a baron, a marquis, and finally, in 1796, was appointed viceroy of Peru. His natural son, Bernardo, was a leading character in the Chilean revolution a few years subsequent to this time.

Following the O'Higgins administration, the rejente of the Royal Audience was acting governor of Chile for a period of four months. This person was Don José de Rezabal, and he employed the time during his short lease of power in the general improvement of the capital, and in constructing a beautiful boulevard, or paseo.

Rezabal was succeeded by General Gabriel de Aviles, who, as inspector-general of the troops of Peru passed to the office of captain-general of Chile, September 18th, 1796. During this year, 1796, news was received in Chile of the treaty of peace between Spain and France, which treaty gave rise to much dissatisfaction in the Spanish colonies. By the terms of the treaty Spain gave the most fertile portions of the island of Santo Domingo in exchange for certain plazas of the peninsula, San Sebastian in Guipuzcoa, and Figueras in Catalonia, which places had been occupied by the French troops in the war of the republic and were still held by them. This act on the part of the mother country opened the eyes of the colonies to the fact that her interest in them was of the most sordid and mercenary kind. The treaty led to a war with England, October 8th, 1796, and this war on the part of the mother