CHAPTER XXI.

THE REPASSAGE OF THE ANDES.

1818—1819.

In December Freyre crossed the Nuble with the vanguard and occupied Chillán, which was evacuated on his approach. In January Balcarce arrived with the bulk of the army, but Sanchez had already retreated from Concepcion and Talcahuano, and in spite of an active pursuit by Escalada and Alvarado crossed the Bio-Bio with small loss, and shut himself up in the fortress of Valdivia. This is spoken of as the last campaign in Chile, but bands of Indians and banditti still for three years infested the southern provinces.

José Miguel Carrera, still in Monte Video, fulminating vows of vengeance against Pueyrredon, San Martin, and O’Higgins, there met some French adventurers whom he succeeded in interesting in his cause. They went on to Buenos Ayres, and, after many secret consultations at the house of Doña Javiera, three of them left for Chile in November with a troop of bullock carts. Pueyrredon received secret information that another conspiracy was on foot, and sent a party after them to arrest them. One of them, named Young, attempting to resist, was shot. The other two, with some of their accomplices who had remained in Buenos Ayres, were tried by court-martial on a charge of conspiracy to assassinate. Three were acquitted, the other two, Robert and Lagresse, were shot on the Plaza del Retiro on the 3rd April, 1819, protesting their innocence to the last.

San Martin, on his return to Chile, found that the successes of the Chilian fleet had greatly relaxed the eagerness of the Government for the projected expedition. Now that they had command of the sea they were safe from invasion, and the treasury was so exhausted that the pay of his soldiers was very irregular. The people also murmured against a Government which relied for support upon Argentine bayonets. Nevertheless, he and O’Higgins both issued proclamations to the Peruvian people, announcing an expedition for the purpose of giving liberty to Peru: “So that they would become a nation with a Government established by themselves, in accordance with their own customs, with their situation, and with their inclinations.”

Further, the Chilian envoy Irizarri, passing through Buenos Ayres on his way to England, there signed a treaty of alliance with the Argentine Government:—“To put an end to Spanish domination in Peru by means of a combined expedition.”

In June, 1818, Bolívar stretched out the right hand of fellowship to the Argentine people by an official letter to the Government, and by a proclamation to “the inhabitants of the River Plate,” in which he sets forth his favourite policy of a union of all the peoples of South America. Some months later on O’Higgins wrote to Bolívar, proposing to him an alliance based upon the continental ideas of San Martin.

San Martin had written from Mendoza to the Government of Chile and to Balcarce, informing them of his plans for the expedition to Peru, giving three months for collecting the necessary supplies. When he reached Santiago nothing had been done, and the revenues were mortgaged for months to come. He then wrote to the Argentine Government, giving a most miserable account of the financial state of Chile, and the consequent inefficiency of the Army of the Andes, which he suggested should be withdrawn from Chile as the projected expedition was for the time impossible. He also wrote to the Government of Chile, expressing his fears of the speedy dissolution of the united army, and proposed that a part of it should be employed in desultory attacks on the coasts of Peru, while he himself resigned the command.

On receiving no satisfactory reply, he concentrated the Army of the Andes at the upper part of the valley of Aconcagua, crossed over himself with a small detachment to Mendoza, and was soon after followed by a division of 1,200 men, by which operation he brought pressure to bear on the Chilian Government by leaving them to their own resources, while he recruited his cavalry in their own country, and preserved Cuyo from being drawn into the vortex of anarchy which at that time desolated the United Provinces. In this internecine strife he took no part whatever, but the presence of a portion of his army in Mendoza strengthened the hands of Government and aided greatly in bringing about a truce.

The first news which San Martin heard on his arrival in Mendoza was an account of a terrible tragedy which had just occurred in San Luis. This city was the prison of the principal captives of Maipó and Chacabuco. They were well treated by Dupuy, the Deputy-Governor, who had only a picket of militia under his orders, and who trusted more to the wide Pampa which surrounded them than to prison walls for their security. The officers were not confined in the public prison, but lived in houses and mixed freely with the people. They were so many that they thought they would have no difficulty in overpowering the small garrison. A plan of escape had been for months discussed among them, when, on the 1st February, 1819, Dupuy, on account of the disturbed state of the country round, issued an order that they were not to leave their houses after sundown. Captain Carretero of the Burgos regiment was the head of the conspirators. On the evening of the 7th he invited a number of his comrades to breakfast with him the next morning, proposing to spend the day killing vermin in his orchard. At six o’clock next morning twenty officers met at his house; he led them into the orchard and gave them a light breakfast of bread and cheese washed down with brandy; then, drawing a poniard, he told them that in an hour they would all be free or dead, and distributed ten knives among them, telling the rest to arm themselves with sticks. Captain La Madrid was sent with ten men to seize the barracks, Captain Salvador, with six, to capture the prison and set the prisoners at liberty; while he went off to join Ordoñez, Primo de Rivera, and Morla, who, with their orderlies, would make sure of the Deputy-Governor.

The first party reached the barracks, disarmed the sentry, and overpowered the guard. In an inner yard were a number of Gaucho rebels under arrest, among them being one who afterwards acquired terrible notoriety as a Gaucho chieftain—Juan Facundo Quiroga. Quiroga led his fellow-prisoners to the assistance of the soldiers, and, armed only with the broken shaft of a lance, fought so fiercely that all the assailants except one were killed, and he was badly wounded.

The party sent against the prison on crossing the great square were met by the officer in command of the militia, who was galloping about with his sabre drawn, calling the people to arms. Armed men poured out of the houses upon them; only one escaped, the rest being killed.

Meantime Carretero, Morgado, and Morla had gone to Dupuy’s house and asked to see him. Being admitted, they set upon him, and after a short struggle threw him down, when Ordoñez and Primo de Rivera entered with their orderlies, bringing the sentry with them, after shutting the outer door. But a militia captain and a doctor who were with Dupuy, had escaped and gave the alarm. A number of the townspeople, headed by a young officer named Pringles, surrounded the house with shouts of “Death to the Goths.” Dupuy rushed to the door and opened it, the crowd poured in. Ordoñez, Morla, Carretero, and Morgado were killed. Primo de Rivera, finding a loaded carbine in an ante-room, shot himself through the head.

Of forty conspirators twenty-four were killed, the rest were tried by a court-martial, of which Dr. Monteagudo was President. Eight were acquitted, seven were shot, but young Ordoñez, a nephew of the General, was spared, partly on account of his youth, and partly because he was engaged to a young lady of the city, whose relatives interfered on his behalf. He was afterwards set at liberty by San Martin, who also gave Quiroga his freedom as a reward for his bravery, a favour which Quiroga never forgot.

Marcó del Pont, ex-Governor of Chile, was also at that time a prisoner in San Luis, but took no part in the conspiracy and was not molested.

The repassage of the Andes by a portion of the army had the effect San Martin expected upon the Government of Chile. On his return from San Luis to Mendoza he found despatches awaiting him from Guido, from O’Higgins, and from the Lautaro Lodge, informing him that all were convinced that the safety of the country depended upon the despatch of the expedition to Peru. At the end of March Major Borgoño arrived as the representative of the Lodge, fully authorised to arrange all the details with him.

San Martin required an army of from 4,000 to 6,000 men, and a supply of 500,000 dols., of which he would provide 200,000 dols., furnished by the Argentine Government. He also accepted the rank of Brigadier-General in the Chilian army, which was again offered to him.

By return of post he received the ratification by the Lodge of the arrangement made with Borgoño, and an order to proceed at once to Chile to superintend the preparations.

It was in these circumstances, when he gave himself up entirely to the great work of his life, that he separated from his wife for the last time. She returned to Buenos Ayres never to see him again in this world. When he again saw his native land she was dead, leaving him one only daughter, who went with him into exile.

On the 19th June, 1819, Pueyrredon retired from public life into that obscurity which is the fate of great men when their appointed task is accomplished.

CHAPTER XXII.

COCHRANE—CALLAO—VALDIVIA.

1819—1820.

The bay of Callao is one of the largest on the South Pacific. Near its centre stands the city of Callao, on the shore at the foot of the coast range of the Cordillera, three miles from the pass through it, which gives access to the beautiful valley of Rimac, in which stands the city of Lima. The port of Callao is a roadstead shut in by two islands. One of them, named San Lorenzo, is seven miles in length, and shelters the roadstead from all winds except those which blow from the west. Off its southern point lies a smaller island called the Fronton. The open water between the two islands is the main entrance to the inner bay, but between the Fronton and the land there is a much narrower passage, called the Boqueron, in which there are only five fathoms of water and many rocks. To the north of the island of San Lorenzo lies a sandbank, off the mouth of the river Rimac, which is called the Bocanegra.

The old walls of the city of Callao were destroyed by an earthquake in 1746. In their place three great circular castles were erected, crowned with lofty towers. Between them stretched the batteries of the arsenal and of San Joaquin, mounted with 165 heavy guns, which swept the whole of the roadstead. Under their fire the Spanish squadron lay at anchor, consisting of the Esmeralda and Venganza, 44 gun frigates; the corvette Sebastiana, of 36 guns; the brigs Pezuela, Maipo, and Potrillo, each of 18 guns; the schooner Montezuma, of 7 guns; the Aranzazu of 5 guns; and twenty-six gunboats, besides six armed merchant vessels.

The 28th February was the day fixed upon by Cochrane for the attack; the same Day Pezuela had arranged for a review of the squadron and a sham fight. At daybreak a thick fog covered the bay, and the Viceroy embarked on the brig Maipo, the better to watch the manœuvres. At eleven o’clock, as the fog commenced to lift, the sailors of the Maipo, then near to the island of San Lorenzo, saw a fine ship flying the Spanish flag skirting the sandbank of the Bocanegra. The Viceroy wished to speak her, but the commander of the brig refused to go nearer as he would lose the wind. Pezuela was thus saved from falling a prisoner to Cochrane. The strange ship was the O’Higgins, which sailed on into the bay and captured a gunboat, followed only by the Lautaro, the other two ships being unable to enter the harbour for want of wind.

Favoured by the fog the two ships anchored within range of the batteries, hoisted the Chilian flag, and opened fire, but at nightfall slowly retired, with a few killed and wounded, and some damage to spars and rigging.

The next day the two ships again approached and drove the gunboats under shelter of the batteries, the Spaniards not daring to do more than remain on the defensive when they heard who was in command.

Cochrane had hoped to take the enemy by surprise, but having failed to do so he now tried to repeat his exploit of the Basque Roads, for which purpose he took possession of the island of San Lorenzo, and set to work to make two fire-ships. On the night of the 22nd March he engaged the attention of the batteries with his four ships while one of his fire-ships drifted down on to the Spanish squadron. But the fire-ship ran aground and was struck by a shot from the batteries, when the wind dying away he was forced to leave her to sink.

On the 24th he again attacked, and succeeded in capturing the schooner Montezuma and some merchant vessels and gunboats. The O’Higgins, at some distance from her consorts, was becalmed in a fog, and the Spaniards put off from shore in boats with the intention of boarding her. Fortunately a light wind sprang up before they reached her, and they were seen in time and beaten off.

Cochrane then retired to the neighbouring port of Huacho in search of fresh water, and was there joined by Blanco Encalada with the Galvarino and the Pueyrredon. Leaving the Rear-Admiral with four ships to blockade Callao, Cochrane sailed northwards, distributing proclamations from O’Higgins and San Martin, and also one from himself, among the people along the coast. At one place he landed and captured some brass cannon; then returning to Callao he found that Blanco Encalada had gone south in search of provisions, and seeing nothing more was to be done at present, he followed him.

Cochrane had brought with him from England a mechanic who had worked with Congreve at the Arsenal at Woolwich. He now set him at work to make rockets, and made trial of them in the bay of Valparaiso, expressing himself as perfectly satisfied with them. Government also furnished him with a nine inch mortar which had been sent from Buenos Ayres, and a 28-gun frigate, purchased in the United States and named the Independencia, was added to the squadron. A brigade of 400 marines was also organized under the command of an English officer of experience named Charles, with Major Miller as his second.

The Pueyrredon the Intrepido, and the Montezuma, were sent southward on a cruise in search of some Spanish ships which were reported to be on the way from Europe, and, on the 12th September, Cochrane and Blanco Encalada again sailed from Valparaiso with six ships of war, and two of the transports which had been captured by Blanco Encalada on his first cruise, and which were intended for fire-ships.

Cochrane had such faith in the terrible power of his new rockets that he was confident of success, and wrote to O’Higgins that at eight o’clock on the night of the 24th, the Spanish squadron at Callao would be in flames.

On the 28th September he anchored off the island of San Lorenzo, and on the 30th sent a challenge on shore to the enemy to come out and fight ship to ship. The Spaniards, who had in the meantime greatly strengthened their defences, by surrounding their ships with a boom, and had prepared furnaces to heat shot, returned a laconic refusal.

This time the attack was to be made by four pontoon batteries, one carrying the mortar, two carrying rocket-tubes, and the other the ammunition. On the night of the 2nd October, Miller led the van in the Galvarino, with the mortar in tow, the Pueyrredon followed, towing the ammunition. Then came the other two pontoons towed by the Araucano, Captain Hind, and the Independencia, Captain Charles. All the crews of the pontoons wore life belts.

The action was commenced by the mortar, which opened fire at less than eight hundred yards distance from the boom, and sunk a gunboat. But after throwing several shells into the batteries, the mortar bed broke away from its bearings, and no more could be done. The distance was too great for the rockets which fell harmlessly into the water, and under the heavy fire from the batteries it was impossible to run closer in. A red-hot shot struck the pontoon commanded by Hind, and caused an explosion by which twelve men were badly burned. The Galvarino was struck several times, and Lieutenant Bayley was cut in two by a shot. At dawn the pontoons were recalled. In a subsequent attack an attempt was made to destroy the boom by a fire-ship, but the wind dying away, she became a target for the enemy’s guns; she was already sinking when the match was lighted by Lieutenant Morgall, and she blew up before reaching the boom.

The rockets were found to be so inefficient, that Cochrane desisted for the time from any further attempt.[14]

The day after the last attack, a large ship was seen making for the port, which on sighting the Chilian squadron sheered off again. Cochrane followed, but taking her for a whaler, he returned to his anchorage and afterwards sailed to Arica. On his return he again saw the same ship, which sent a boat on shore. This ship was the 50-gun frigate Prueba, one of the vessels which had been reported to be on the way from Europe. Three had left Spain in company bound for Callao, but one being found to be unseaworthy, had put back on reaching the line, and the other had foundered off Cape Horn.

Cochrane decided upon pursuing the Prueba, but as he had many sick he first sent Blanco Encalada with them to Valparaiso in the San Martin and Independencia, and despatched Captain Guise with the Lautaro, the Galvarino, and a transport with 350 marines on board, to Pisco, with orders to land there and procure a supply of fresh provisions. He then with the other three ships sailed for Guayaquil, where he captured two transports, each of which mounted twenty guns. From his prisoners he learned that the Prueba had been there, but after sending her guns on shore to lighten her, had gone up the river, and was now at anchor in shallow water under the protection of some shore batteries.

Soon after this he was rejoined by Guise, who had successfully accomplished the task allotted to him, but with some loss. He had found Pisco garrisoned by a force of 800 men, who were driven out by the marines at the point of the bayonet after some hard fighting, in which Colonel Charles was killed and Miller received three wounds. After holding the town for four days, he re-embarked the marines and sailed for Guayaquil.

Cochrane then sent the Lautaro to Valparaiso in charge of the prizes, and leaving the Pueyrredon and the Galvarino at the island of Puna, which commands the Gulf of Guayaquil, to keep watch over the Prueba, he sailed for the port of Santa, which lies to the north of Callao. Here he was soon joined by other ships of the squadron, which he sent back to Valparaiso, and sailed away south by himself in the O’Higgins. He was sorely disappointed with the ill-success of his attempts on Callao, and would not return to Valparaiso till he could return in triumph. He was turning over in his mind a daring scheme, equal to any that he had so far accomplished.

Pacing to and fro one day on his quarter-deck, as the good ship sailed steadily on towards the colder regions of the South, he met Miller, who, in spite of his wounds, had taken command of the marines on the O’Higgins, and asked him—

“What would they say if with this one ship I took Valdivia?”

As Miller made no answer, he added—

“They would call me a lunatic.”

Lunatic or not, this was the exploit he had determined on attempting, and he further explained himself.

“Operations which the enemy does not expect are almost certain to succeed if well carried out. Victory is always an answer to a charge of rashness.”

Valdivia from its fortifications and from its natural strength, was looked upon as the Gibraltar of America. The bay of Valdivia is an estuary into which the river Valdivia falls by two channels, forming an island known as the Isla del Rey. This estuary, which runs nearly due east and west, is about seven miles long, and its width at the mouth is about three miles, gradually diminishing until the width is little more than one mile, when the bay itself opens out in a magnificent sheet of water. In the centre of this bay and in front of the western point of the Isla del Rey stands a small island called the Mancera. On this bay there are several landing-places, but only one port, the Corral, and the coasts on both sides are fringed with steep or perpendicular rocks, and covered with dense brushwood. The bay has thus two coasts, one to the south the other to the north, which are separated by a wide space of open water, by the river Valdivia, and by the Isla del Rey. The northern part is inaccessible from the ocean, but at the western extremity of the southern part there is a landing-place where ships were accustomed to take in water.

At this time Valdivia was defended by nine forts and batteries, distributed on both sides of the bay, and armed with 128 guns. Two of these forts stood on the islands, and commanded both mouths of the river. On the north the entrance to the bay was guarded by an impregnable castle, called the Niebla, cut out of the solid rock, and by a battery, called Fort Piojo. On the south were the English fort, which commanded the watering-place, the fort of San Carlos, on a small peninsula, and Fort Amargos, whose fire crossed that of the Niebla. The entrance was further defended by the Chorocomayo redoubt and by the Castle of the Corral. Both these forts were masked by a dense forest, and the ground about them is so broken that their only communication by land was by a narrow path winding among the rocks and through the forest, and crossing a gulley which was commanded by the guns of both forts. Valdivia was ordinarily garrisoned by 800 troops and by as many militia, but at this time the militia were absent.

On the 18th January, 1820, the O’Higgins sailed into the bay, flying the Spanish flag. The Spaniards believed her to be the Prueba. Cochrane signalled for a pilot, who was sent off to him with a guard of honour, whom he made prisoners, and learned from them that the Potrillo was expected with money to pay the troops. He then proceeded in his gig to inspect the entrance to the river, under fire of the forts, for by this time his true character was discovered. Two days afterwards he captured the Potrillo, which had 20,000 dollars on board, but seeing that he had not men enough for an attack upon the place, he then went off for Talcahuano in search of more.

On the 22nd the O’Higgins reached Talcahuano, and was fortunate enough to find there the Intrepido and the Montezuma. Colonel Freyre, who was then in command of the fortress, eagerly entered into Cochrane’s plans, and gave him 250 men under command of Major Beauchef. With this reinforcement he sailed again for Valdivia. On leaving the harbour the O’Higgins struck on a rock and commenced to make water rapidly, but the leak was patched up, Cochrane infusing his own spirit into his men, and declaring that she would float as far as Valdivia.

When out of sight of land he transhipped the marines from his flag-ship to the other two vessels, and went on with them, flying the Spanish flag till he arrived off the bay of Valdivia on the 3rd February, and signalled to the English fort for a pilot. But his ruse was discovered and the fort opened fire on him. Then, in spite of a heavy sea running, he determined to effect a landing in two long boats and a gig in which he went himself.

At the sound of the cannonade reinforcements had come up from the other forts, so that the garrison now numbered 360 men, of whom a detachment of 65 was thrown forward to protect the landing-place. At sundown Miller landed with 75 marines and drove in this detachment. He was followed by Beauchef with his 250 infantry, who pushed on up a narrow path and drew on himself the fire of the garrison, while Sub-Lieutenant Vidal skirted the wall of the fort, and finding a side entrance fired a volley in their rear, which so alarmed the defenders that they fled in panic, carrying with them the reserve who were drawn up on an open space behind.

Beauchef vigorously pursued the fugitives from fort to fort along the narrow path, till at daybreak the English fort, San Carlos, Amargos, Chorocomayo, and Corral were all in the hands of the Patriots, who had only nine men killed and 34 wounded. One hundred of the enemy escaped in boats, as many more were killed, the rest were either prisoners or dispersed.

At daybreak on the 4th the Montezuma and Intrepido sailed into the bay under the fire of the northern forts. To dislodge the enemy from these positions, 200 men were re-embarked, but the Intrepido ran on a sandbank off the Island of Mancera and sank; thus ended the career of the only Argentine ship which figured in the celebrated Chilian squadron of the Pacific.

Soon afterwards the O’Higgins appeared, and the Spaniards, abandoning the northern forts and the islands, fled to the city. The O’Higgins was leaking so badly that she was run aground in the mud to keep her from sinking. The next day the city was taken without resistance. Spain lost her last base of operations in the south of Chile, and Chile was now in possession of all her own territory except the islands of Chiloe.

Cochrane thought to finish his cruise by the capture of these islands, but Colonel Quintanilla, who was in command, was better prepared than was the garrison of Valdivia. A landing was effected on the 17th; a body of infantry was driven back and a battery was captured, but Miller, who led the assault on the principal fort, was again wounded, and the attack was repulsed. But the dominion of the Pacific was secured, and Cochrane returned in triumph. At Santiago he met San Martin, who, leaving Mendoza on the 20th January, had again crossed the Andes in pursuit of his great enterprise, and now found the road to Peru opened for him by the heroism of the great Admiral.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Disobedience of San Martin.

1819—1820.

The Court of Spain thought with this new expedition of 20,000 men against Buenos Ayres to strike a mortal blow at the heart of the revolution in South America; but matters had changed considerably since the year 1815, when the last great expedition under Morillo, originally intended for Buenos Ayres, had been diverted to Venezuela. The insurrection had made great progress, and above all, Portugal was no longer the ally of Spain, and had seized Monte Video, which was the necessary base of any operations against Buenos Ayres. Further, the war against the colonies was very unpopular in Spain, not only among the people but in the army.

In spite of all this, the preparations were pushed forward. Six ships of the line, thirteen frigates, three corvettes, ten brigs, three schooners, twenty-nine gunboats, and forty transports, with from 18,000 to 20,000 troops, were under orders to rendezvous at Cadiz, under command of the Count of Abisbal, better known to history as José O’Donnell.

The Argentine Government had secret agents in Cadiz, who kept them well informed of all that went on. These men reported great discontent among the troops in cantonments on the island of Leon, and that there was a conspiracy on foot to proclaim the Constitution of the year XII., in which most of the superior officers were implicated.

General O’Donnell, aided by General Sarsfield, affected to join the conspiracy in order to discover the plan of it, but when it was on the eve of breaking out, issued a proclamation to the troops, calling upon them to adhere to their allegiance, and promising them, among other rewards for their loyalty, that they should not be sent to America. The leaders of the conspiracy were without difficulty arrested, but the projected expedition was thus prevented from sailing. In July, 1819, yellow fever broke out in the army; but in spite of all this, Government was still resolved to send off the expedition. The Count of Calderon was put in command, and the Minister of Marine was instructed, in September, to embark the troops at once.

In July of this same year 1819, General Rondeau was, by the influence of the Lautaro Lodge, appointed Supreme Director of the United Provinces in place of Pueyrredon. This was merely a change of names, the reins of power remained as before in the hands of the oligarchy which had ruled for so many years. One of the first acts of the new Government was to send for San Martin to come to Buenos Ayres, to consult on the measures to be adopted in view of the threatened expedition from Spain. San Martin was himself full of apprehension, but without consulting his own Government, he proposed to O’Higgins that the Chilian squadron, under Cochrane, and in the pay of the Argentine Government, should sail to meet the expedition on the Atlantic and destroy it in the open sea, offering to pay at once 50,000 dollars towards the expenses.

This scheme would, he thought, have great attraction for the enterprising spirit of the Admiral, but Cochrane, bent upon destroying the Spanish fleet at Callao, would not listen to it until the business in hand was accomplished, when there would, he said, be ample time yet to meet the new fleet on the Atlantic and blow them to pieces with his Congreve rockets.

In answer to a second letter from Rondeau in August, San Martin offered to march with 4,000 men, of whom 3,000 would be cavalry, to drive the Spaniards into the river, as he had done before at San Lorenzo; “with sixteen squadrons and thirty light field pieces we can be sure of victory.”

In October news was received in Buenos Ayres that O’Donnell had rebelled against the Spanish Government, and had marched with the army of Cadiz upon Madrid. This news was false, but it had the effect of causing Rondeau to countermand the orders for the concentration of the army.

Meantime the truce between the central Government and the Gaucho chieftains of the interior had come to an end. Ramirez from Entre Rios, and Artigas from the Banda Oriental, had joined hands with Lopez of Santa Fé, and war had again broken out on the northern frontier of Buenos Ayres. For the third time Government looked to San Martin for help, and ordered him to Buenos Ayres, with the division quartered at Mendoza. Just at the same time he received advices from Chile that all was ready for the proposed expedition to Peru. San Martin hesitated, but wrote to Government that he was about to march to Buenos Ayres with 2,000 cavalry and eight guns, but should leave his infantry in Mendoza. One battalion of infantry was quartered in San Juan, the grenadiers were in San Luis, and his total force of regular troops in Cuyo was now raised by recruiting to 2,200 men, besides which he had called out the militia of San Luis to the number of 2,000 men.

The idea of Government was to concentrate the whole army in the Province of Buenos Ayres to the number of 8,000 or 10,000 men, ready to act either against the Spaniards or against the Gaucho hordes, but as the latter numbered only 1,500, it was a most cowardly measure to abandon the northern frontier, menaced by the Royalists of Upper Peru, and to break the terms of the alliance with Chile, and could only have ended in the isolation of Buenos Ayres from the rest of the provinces. The civil war was a spontaneous effervescence of the people, and could not be cured by the sabre. It arose not only from the semi-barbarous instincts of the masses, but also from the discontent of the more educated classes with a political system which was not in accordance with the principles of the Revolution, and this discontent permeated the ranks of the army itself.

Rondeau, in pursuance of his plan, took the field with the Army of Buenos Ayres, and marched to the northern frontier of the Province, against the Gaucho hordes, seeking a junction with the Army of the North, coming from Cordoba. His army alone was superior in number to the enemy. Why, then, did he send for another army from Cuyo?

The real object of this concentration was that Gomez, the Argentine envoy in Paris, had entered into an arrangement with the French Government to crown the Duke of Luca, a Prince of the House of Bourbon, King of the United Provinces; France engaging on her part to divert the projected expedition from the River Plate, and to secure the acquiescence of Portugal and the evacuation of the Banda Oriental by marrying the future king to a Brazilian Princess. Congress, setting at naught the Republican constitution so lately sworn, and without any attempt to consult the will of the people, sanctioned this arrangement in secret session, and on the 12th November authorised their agent to conclude the treaty. As the Spanish expedition would thus be set free to act against Mexico, Venezuela, or New Granada, or to reinforce the Government of Peru, this was an act of treachery to the programme of the revolution and a desertion of the cause of America.

Rondeau was the last weak representative of the centralized system of government, which had so far led the revolution; now the Argentine people took the matter into their own hands, and by civil strife crushed out the last remnant of the colonial system. Now was heard for the first time among them the word Federation. The people, groaning under a load of taxation to supply revenues in the disposal of which they had no voice, found the domination of Buenos Ayres equally oppressive with that of Spain, and gave a new interpretation to the word liberty: they now construed it to mean provincial independence.

At the close of the year 1819 the Army of the Andes was the only Argentine representative of the American propaganda. Stationed on foreign soil, it had escaped the contagion of party spirit, which had infected all the other armies of the Republic, and was ready to follow its great captain whithersoever he should choose to lead it.

Still San Martin hesitated. To obey Rondeau was to plunge into civil strife, to the destruction of his great plan; his regard for discipline impelled him to obey at any cost. He had already given orders to march, when news reached him that the Province of Tucuman had declared itself independent; that the army under Belgrano had mutinied and imprisoned its general; and that there was a similar conspiracy on foot in Cordoba among the officers of the army there, which had ramifications even in Cuyo.

He was suffering severely at the time from rheumatism, and leaving Alvarado in command of the division in Cuyo, he retired to the baths of Cauquenes in Chile, after writing to Rondeau that in view of these complications he had postponed the departure of the army until further orders; but before that he had written to O’Higgins asking him to collect mules in the valley of Aconcagua, in readiness for the day when he should recross the Andes.

Neither Rondeau nor Congress seem to have had any idea of the true state of affairs; they still thought that they could control public opinion by force, and the answer to the despatch from San Martin was a fresh order to him to march at once with all his army to Buenos Ayres. To this San Martin replied by sending in his resignation for the third time. Government refused to accept it, but gave him leave of absence until his health was restored.

The conduct of San Martin at this time has been very severely criticised, but there is no question that his 2,000 men would have been of no real assistance to Government, which fell a victim to its own errors and incapacity; and it is equally unquestionable that without him the expedition to Peru would never have set out. Without his co-operation the success of Bolívar in Columbia is highly problematical, and it is certain that had the Royalists been able to send another expedition from Upper Peru, they would have met no effective resistance in the northern provinces of what is now the Argentine Republic.

San Martin took upon himself the “terrible responsibility” of this disobedience, an act by which the accomplishment of the mission of emancipation which the Argentine people had undertaken was finally secured. Condemned by his contemporaries, he appeals to the judgment of posterity.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CONVENTION OF RANCAGUA.

1820

Immediately on his arrival in Chile, he proceeded to concert measures with O’Higgins for the despatch of the expedition. He offered to bring over from Mendoza 2,000 men and ten guns, but terrible news soon reached him. The mutiny of the Army of the North had been followed two days after by a similar mutiny in the 1st battalion light infantry of his own army, then in quarters at San Juan.

San Martin thought he had secured Cuyo from the anarchy that prevailed by the presence of his disciplined troops, but when distinguished officers of his own army and of that of Belgrano headed mutineers and joined hands with Gaucho chieftains, he saw that the elements of order were dissolved. The Army of the North, under command of General Cruz, was on the march to join Rondeau, when in the Province of Santa Fé it made a truce with the Gaucho levies, styled “montoneras,” and retreated to Cordoba, and there established a new system of military rule, withdrawing itself both from the civil war and from the war of emancipation.

The battalion quartered at San Juan was in reality a small corps d’armée, having both artillery and cavalry attached to it. It numbered 900 men and was under the command of Colonel Sequeira, a gallant officer, but a martinet who was greatly disliked by his men. At daybreak on the 9th January the men, headed by their sergeants, silently left their barracks, occupied the Plaza, and made a party of the civic guard prisoners, killing the officer; while the Colonel and some of his officers were left in the barracks under guard of a company. Some disaffected officers then took command, shouting, “Viva la Federacion!” and “Down with the tyrant!” but they had no plan of action, and soon quarrelled amongst themselves, and the Colonel and the officers who were with him were murdered. Alvarado marched against them from Mendoza, but fearing to trust his own men went back again. San Martin sent offers of pardon, which were rejected; the spirit of anarchy prevailed everywhere. The Governor of Cuyo and his deputy both resigned. The mutinous battalion soon after dispersed, and the Province of San Juan declared itself an independent state. Alvarado then, in obedience to orders from San Martin, joined him in Chile with 1,000 cavalry and two guns, leaving Godoy Cruz as Governor of Mendoza.

On the 1st February, 1820, the Army of Buenos Ayres was totally defeated at Cepeda by the Montonera horsemen. Congress was soon after dissolved, and the nation split up into fragments, of which each one was a small republic, and most of them fell under the rule of petty chieftains. From this chaos was presently to rise up a new people, with well-defined divisions and with one national spirit. For a time the Army of the Andes obeyed no superior authority, but it still upheld the Argentine flag on foreign soil, and followed the lead of its own General.

Such being the state of affairs, San Martin, on the 28th January, wrote officially to O’Higgins, asking him if he could still dispose of 6,000 men for the expedition, but stating that 4,000 were absolutely necessary. O’Higgins replied that he could promise 4,000 only, fully equipped. San Martin agreed that they should march under the Chilian flag, but stipulated that the Army of the Andes should carry its own, as representing the United Provinces.

Thus San Martin took upon himself the “terrible responsibility” of disposing of Argentine troops and military stores, without any authority so to do from his own government. In order to relieve himself in some measure of this responsibility, he convened a meeting of the officers of the Army of the Andes, then in cantonments at Rancagua, under the Presidency of Las Heras. He himself was not present, but a letter from him was read, which showed that as the Government from which he derived his commission no longer existed, the army was de facto without a General, and called upon them to appoint one, to whom he offered his services in any capacity.

San Martin had requested them to vote without discussion, but Colonel Martinez and several officers opposed this, on the ground that the commission of General-in-Chief was granted for a specific purpose which was not yet accomplished, and was therefore not cancelled by the fall of the Government by which it had been conferred. In these terms a document was drawn up and signed by all the officers.

Las Heras, in writing to San Martin an account of the result of the meeting, expressed his great surprise that he should have given him such a task, and said that many of his best friends felt themselves greatly aggrieved at the proposition, as the commissions of all of them were derived from the same authority as that of the General-in-Chief. Thus the army endorsed the disobedience of their General, an act which under any other leader would have had a most evil effect upon its discipline.

While the preparations of the Chilian Government went slowly forward a new difficulty arose. Cochrane, proud of his recent triumph in Valdivia, aspired to the command-in-chief of the expedition to Peru. Devoid as he was of all political talent, a more unfit leader for such an enterprise it would have been difficult to find. Peru was not to be conquered, it was to be liberated; he thought only of conquest. He might have won a battle, but he would never have founded a nation. His dream seems to have been inspired by the examples of Drake and Anson, who made great profit by gallant feats of arms; he purposed to enrich himself and his sailors by plundering the coasts of Peru. San Martin was an American, and thought only of his great purpose, nothing of its results to himself. On the 6th May, 1820, San Martin was appointed by the Senate and by the popular vote, Generalissimo of the expedition.

Still Cochrane insisted, and several times sent in his resignation. Government was about to appoint Guise to the command of the fleet, as Spry and many others of the English officers preferred him to Cochrane, but this was prevented by the intervention of San Martin, and the proud sailor at last submitted, though with a bad grace, after another fruitless attempt to supplant San Martin by Freyre. The Chilian Government was not to be led astray by national susceptibility, and knew that no Chilian officer could compare with San Martin in military capacity.

San Martin knew the importance of a thorough understanding between himself and the Admiral, and went to visit him at Valparaiso, but in spite of his friendly overtures there was never much cordiality between them.

The presence of San Martin and his army was not only a great burden to the Chilian treasury, but it was also a political peril, of which Government was well aware. Party spirit was only kept in check by the danger which menaced the country from Peru, and personal ambition would impel party leaders to seek the aid of so powerful an auxiliary so long as it was at hand. The Government of Chile in sending off the expedition, thus performed a deed of heroism which was not only conducive to their own security as a nation, and was worthy of the gratitude of America, but was also one that saved the political situation in their own country.