ABSTRACT
First published in The Examiner, X, 1 June 1817, pp. 337–8. Hunt, discouraged about events in Europe, takes heart here from signs of revolution in South America. Brazil had been the seat of the Portuguese Court ever since the regent, Prince John, had fled from Napoleon in 1807; while John was made King of Portugal in 1816, he did not return to Europe until 1821, leaving his son Pedro as regent in Brazil. As Hunt notes, John had at this point encroached upon Spanish held territory; concerned about the impact on Brazil of various declarations of independence in South America, he intervened, occupying Banda Oriental (Uruguay), then under the control of Spanish-American revolutionaries. He then faced a revolt within his own country. While Hunt clearly had hopes that this revolution would succeed and spread even to Europe, The Examiner of 3 August 1817, pp. 483–4, contains news of the defeat of the ‘Insurgent Army’. In 1822, when John would seek to return Brazil to colony status, the country declared its independence with his son, now Pedro I, as emperor. Things would turn out differently in Chile, which had declared independence from Spain in 1810 only to be again made into a colony in 1814. Hunt reports on the revolt led by the Argentine general José de San Martin and Bernardo O’Higgins, son of an Irish immigrant who had served as viceroy of Peru. Hunt recounts their important early victory; on 5 April 1818 at the Maipo River they would win a final victory over the Spanish. O’Higgins became the first leader of the new nation.
