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248 A HISTORY OF CHILE tifications constructed in Valparaiso had largely in- creased the war debt, which amounted to over $20,000,- 000. These were the arguments, and they Were vigor- ously combated by the coalition of conservatives and moderate liberals which supported the government, and with so much effect that the candidate of the na- tionals, the old hero Bulnes, was easily defeated. In January, the United States minister, General Kil- patrick, sought to bring about peace by prevailing upon Chile to submit her controversy with Spain to the me- diation of the United States. Chile would consent only under certain conditions and the matter was soon abandoned. Spain, she maintained, had acted in a manner wholly imjustifiable in occupying the Chin- cha islands on the 14th of April, 1864, and in blockad- ing the ports of Chile on the 25th of September, 1865; Chile would not, therefore, renounce the reparation which she claimed Spain should make her. Hostilities were not resumed, and so far as Chile was concerned, the war only existed on paper from that time. Urged at last in i86g, by Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, Chile consented to submit the whole matter according to a plan previously suggested by the United States, namel}', that plenipotentiaries from all the belligerent nations should meet in Washington U. S. A. and compromise their differences, the president of the United States acting as mediator. So the war, which was begun with- out reason, ended with no satisfactory results to any of the nations engaged in it. A treaty of armistice and of indefinite truce was signed in Washington on April nth, 1871, that being as near as they could come to an agreement. The final treaty of peace between Spain and Peru was not signed until 1879. On the 14th of August of that year an agreement was reached at Paris. In the thirteen years in which the matter