TORRES CAICED0, Jose Maria, South American publicist, born in Bogota, , New Granada, 30 March, 1830. He began, when seventeen years old, to compose verses and to write for newspapers, and was afterward managing editor of "El Progreso" and "El Dia" in opposition to the government, which retaliated by inciting a riot, in the course of which his printing-office was broken open and the type destroyed. Later he was elected to the Colombian congress, was afterward secretary of legation at London and Paris, intendant for the states of Bolivar and Magdalena, secretary of an embassy to Washington, and Venezuelan consul-general and charge d'affaires in France and the Netherlands, but he retired in 1864 to devote himself exclusively to literature, and has since lived in Paris. In January, 1872, he became charge d'affaires of the republic of San Salvador in France and Belgium. Torres Caicedo was elected on 4 May, 1872, a corresponding member of the Paris academy of moral and political sciences. He has been for years a contributor to European journals, and has published "Religion, Patria y Amor," a collection of poems (Paris, 1862); "Ensayos Biograficos y de Critica Literaria" (2 vols., 1863); " Union Latino-Americana" (1864) ; " Mis Ideas y mis Principios" (3 vols., 1865); and " Les principes de 1789 en Amerique" (1869).