William Walton was a British journalist specialising on Spanish and Portuguese affairs. This is his 1810 survey of the Spanish Empire. Walton opposed British government policy in Latin America and wrote open letters to government officials. He also advocated for increased British investment in the importation of guano, the dung of seabirds used as a powerful fertiliser due to its high nitrogen, phosphate and potassium content.
While his advocacy of guano was initially met with a lukewarm reaction from merchants, the commodity became an important part of Britain’s trading relationship with South American countries, particularly Peru, as the nineteenth century progressed. The need for guano also fuelled British and American expansion in the Pacific Ocean but the mining of it destroyed fragile ecosystems across the region.