The brig Pueyrredon of fourteen guns was the first vessel of war that the state possessed: the brig Araucana of sixteen, and the sloop Chacabuco of twenty-two, were afterwards purchased. Captain Guise brought out the brig Galvarino of eighteen guns, formerly in the British service, and sold it to the government; the San Martin of sixty-four guns, and the Lantaro of forty-four, were two East Indiamen, purchased by the state, and converted into vessels of war. When Chile was possessed of this force, the news arrived of the sailing of the expedition from Cadiz, under the convoy of the Maria Isabel, and having obtained possession of the orders given to the captains of the transports from the Trinidad that entered Buenos Ayres, and of their rendezvous in the Pacific, Don Manuel Blanco was appointed to command the Chilean vessels of war, San Martin, flag ship, Captain Wilkinson, commander; Lantaro, Captain Worster; and the Araucana: they had the good luck to take the frigate, Maria Isabel in the bay of Talcahuano on the twenty-eighth of October, 1818, and four of the transports off the bay and at the island of Santa Maria. On the seventeenth of November the victorious Blanco entered Valparaiso with his prizes, amid manifestations of joy in this port. The government of Chile, to commemorate the action, ordered a badge of honour to be presented to Commodore Blanco and each of his officers: this was a scutcheon of a pale green colour, having a trident in the centre, with the motto, "this first essay gave to Chile the dominion of the Pacific"—este primer ensayo dió a Chile el dominio del Pacifico.
The naval force of Chile having a native as commander in chief, and the captains, officers, and crews composed principally of foreigners, must of course have been conducted in a very irregular manner; and as Don Manuel Blanco had never served in a situation higher than that of an ensign, alferes, in the Spanish navy, it could not be expected that he was competent to fill that of a commander in chief, and to conduct with either honour to himself or profit to his country the operations of a body composed of such discordant materials as the squadron of Chile then was. It must be recollected, notwithstanding, that he added a page of glory to the annals of South American naval triumphs by the capture of the Maria Isabel of forty-eight guns, and part of her convoy.
For the future success of the Chilean navy, the welfare of the state, the progress of independence, and the consummation of South American emancipation, Lord Cochrane arrived at Valparaiso, on the twenty-eighth of November, 1818. The known valour of this chief, his love of rational liberty, and the voluntary sacrifice which he had made by accepting a command in the new world, had reached Chile before the hero himself, and his arrival was hailed with every demonstration of jubilee by the natives. Before his arrival, however, Captain Spry, an Englishman, and Captain Worster, a North American, both in the Chilean service, had been very loud in declaiming against him; without alleging any other reason, than that it was quite contrary to all republican principles to allow a "nobleman" to retain his title in the service; but the true motive was too visible to escape the most blunted apprehension. Commodore Blanco had then the command of the squadron, and these gentlemen had assured themselves that they could controul him just as they chose, on account of his indifferent knowledge of his duties as commander in chief, and especially as he had to manage British seamen. This with all possible delicacy had been mentioned to Blanco, together with many whispers detrimental to the character of Lord Cochrane. On the arrival of his lordship, Commodore Blanco was one of the first to hail him as the preserver of the liberties of his country, and to offer his services under the command of his lordship; and thus the patriotic Chilean smothered dissention in the bud, and left its cultivators to feel the rankling of those thorns which they themselves had planted.
A few days after the arrival of Lord Cochrane he received from the government of Chile his commission as Vice-admiral of Chile, Admiral and Commander in Chief of the naval forces of the Republic; and on the twenty-second of December he hoisted his flag at the main of the ex-Maria Isabel, now the O'Higgins, which flag Chile can exultingly say, was never hauled down until the last Spanish flag in the Pacific had acknowledged its empire, and either directly or indirectly struck to it. At the close, when the fleet had finished its career of glory, it was lowered by the same individual who hoisted it; it dropped like the sun in the west, while the descendants of the Incas blessed it, for the benefits they had received, with songs of heartfelt gratitude.
On the sixteenth of January, 1819, Lord Cochrane left the port of Valparaiso on board the O'Higgins, Captain Forster, with the San Martin bearing the flag of Rear-admiral Blanco, Captain Wilkinson, the Lantaro, Captain Guise, and the Galvarino, Captain Spry; the Chacabuco, Captain Carter, followed, but a mutiny taking place on board, he entered Coquimbo, where the principal mutineers were landed, sentenced by a drum head court martial, and shot.
Lord Cochrane chose the first day of the carnival for his first entrance into the bay of Callao, suspecting that the whole of the inhabitants would be engaged in the follies of the season—but he was deceived. The Viceroy Pesuela had chosen that day for one of his visits to Callao, and was sailing about the bay in the brig of war Pesuela; when the Chilean squadron appeared off the headland of San Lorenzo, the captain at first mistook the Chilean vessels for Spanish merchantmen expected from Europe; however, fortunately for himself and the party, he immediately came to an anchor under the batteries. The circumstance of the visit of the Viceroy had caused the whole of the military force to be under arms, and the whole of the batteries were manned. A thick fog coming on, the San Martin, Lantaro, and Galvarino, lost sight of the flag ship; however, without waiting for them, the admiral stood close in under the forts, and dropped his anchor; a very brisk cannonading immediately commenced, and the dead calm that followed obliged his lordship to remain alone nearly two hours, under the continued cannonading from ashore, besides a brisk fire from the two Spanish frigates Esmeralda and Vengansa, brigs Pesuela and Maypu, and seven gun-boats. As soon as the breeze sprang up, the O'Higgins stood out, having sustained very little damage either in her hull or rigging, and without a single person on board having been killed. The north corner of the Real Felipe was considerably shattered by the shot from the O'Higgins, and thirteen persons were killed on shore.
His lordship next entered into a correspondence with the Viceroy, concerning the treatment which the prisoners of war (Chileans and Buenos Ayreans) had received, and were actually receiving in the Casas Matas of Callao; the Viceroy denied that they had received any ill treatment, asserted that they were considered as prisoners of war, although rebels, and traitors to their king, and concluded by expressing his surprise, that a nobleman of Great Britain should so far have forgotten his dignity, as to head a gang of traitors against their legitimate sovereign, and his lawfully constituted authorities. To this his lordship replied by saying, that the glory of every Englishman was his freedom, and that this had entitled him to choose to command the vessels of war of a free country, in preference to that of a nation of slaves—a command which had been offered to him by the Duke de San Carlos in the name of his master, Ferdinand VII.
The following proclamations were distributed along the coasts of Peru, and sent also to the Viceroy.
Lord Cochrane to the inhabitants of Lima, and other towns of Peru: