Author: Pando, Jose Maria de
Biography:
PANDO, José Maria (1787-1840: Wikipedia)
As a foreign-language author, Pando needs only a brief headnote. He was born on 27 Mar. 1787 in Lima, Peru, to wealthy aristocratic parents. Educated in Spain with a view to a career in the service of the crown, he entered the diplomatic corps in 1802 and was first sent to Italy. In 1808 after a brief imprisonment by the Napoleonic forces, he returned to Lima, but was able to take up his diplomatic work in Spain again in 1815. From 1818 to 1823 he was First Secretary of State. In 1821 he married Rufina Alvarez de Acevedo y Salazar. After the French invaded in 1823 he went back to Lima, where he served for over a decade as Minister of Foreign Affairs—and briefly, under Bolivar in 1826, as Finance Minister. In 1835 he was able to return to Spain; he died in Madrid after years of poor health on 23 Nov. 1840. Pando participated in literary circles in Lima and contributed topical political articles to various periodicals there. His Epístola a Próspero celebrates Bolivar. The contemporary translation by Hugh Salvin was the first in English. Salvin at the time was a naval chaplain on duty in South America 1824-27: he arranged for the publication of the poem in 1828 and then reprinted it as an appendix to his interesting Journal written on Board of His Majesty’s Ship “Cambridge” (1829). An accomplished linguist who had previously published a translation of Schiller’s Mary Stuart (also in this bibliography), Salvin was born in Sunderland Bridge, Durham, to Anne (Smith) and Anthony Salvin, and was baptised with his twin brother Jeffery at Croxdale on 6 June 1773. He was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge (matric 1792, MB 1795) but instead of becoming a doctor as intended, he became a clergyman (deacon 1803, priest 1804) with curacies at Tickhill, Yorkshire, and Gateshead, Durham, before his naval service. On 2 Apr. 1840 he married Alice Julia Surtees in Durham; from 1841 to 1852 he was vicar of Alston, Cumberland (at the time part of the diocese of Durham). There do not appear to have been children. He died at the vicarage on 28 Sept. 1852. (“José María Pando,” Wikipedia [Spanish] 13 Aug. 2023; ACAD; OUCH 9 Oct. 1852; findmypast.com 13 Aug. 2023; GM Nov. 1852, 532-3) HJ