William Miller was born in 1795. He served in the field train of the Royal Artillery during the Iberian campaigns
of 1811–14 and participated in the expedition to New Orleans.1 Fluency in Spanish allowed him to join the revolutionary forces in South America
where he took a prominent role in several battles to liberate Chile and Peru.2 Simon Bolivar promoted him for these exploits, and he eventually held the rank of
Grand Marshal of Peru.3
However, disagreements with the new government led to his banishment in
1839.
4 Four years later he was appointed British Consul General of the Pacific Islands,
primarily
Hawaii.
5 He negotiated commercial treaties with the Hawaiian government and corresponded with
James Douglas concerning British military deployments in the Pacific.
6For his heavy-handed attempts to secure a favourable lease of property in Honolulu,
he was rebuked by
Lord Palmerston for the
offensive character, irritating tone, and disputatious style
of his communications with the local government.
7 In
1859 he returned to Peru and died two years later under a British flag on a warship in
Callao harbour.
8
- 1. H. M. Chichester, Miller, William (1795-1861), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- 2. Ibid.
- 3. Ibid.
- 4. Ibid.
- 5. Ibid.
- 6. R. S. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian kingdom, vol. 1, 1778-1854, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1938), 234-5, 370-3.
- 7. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian kingdom, vol. 1, 1778-1854, 392.
- 8. Chichester, Miller, William (1795-1861).