"May success preside over your destinies, and may they be crowned with felicity and peace. Free Town, September, 20th, 1822. (Signed) San Martin."
Had San Martin been sincere, even in his last assurances, or had he been conscious that his services would have been of public utility; if, as a citizen, his modesty would not allow him to take upon himself the chief command of the force of the country, he certainly ought not to have abandoned Peru, when he was well aware that the army of the enemy was almost under the very walls of the capital; for he himself confesses, that a numerous army would march in a few days to terminate the war for ever: this march, however, would never have been necessary, had he followed the Spanish army when it evacuated Lima, if he had brought the army under Canterac to an action, or if he had headed his troops at Ica. The children of his compatriots will "pronounce the true verdict," not, I regret to say, an honourable one to San Martin; indeed thousands of them have already shed their blood on those plains which they might have cultivated in peace and security under the protection of their own constituted authorities and laws. It is impossible that a consciousness of not having fulfilled those promises which were calculated to do good, and would have established the absolute independence of rational liberty, and the prosperity of the Peruvians, it is impossible but that the memory of those breaches of good faith must ever cling to the heart of this deceiving mortal.
San Martin remained a few days in Valparaiso, until an escort arrived from Santiago to conduct him to that city; he resided there until December, or the beginning of January, when, observing the threatening aspect of affairs in Chile, owing to the fixed determination of O'Higgins not to discard his favourite minister Rodrigues, he crossed the Cordillera to his old favourite residence at Mendosa.
General Freire, who had the command of the Chilean troops, stationed on the frontiers of Araucania, consisting of about three thousand men, came to the determination to march on the capital. In this he was supported by the inhabitants of the province of Coquimbo, the only object of the whole being to displace Rodrigues, and to bring him to justice. This they eventually did, obliging O'Higgins at the same time to abdicate his supreme authority on the twenty-second of January, 1823.
During this epoch of convulsions, Lord Cochrane was residing on his estate at Quintero, where he received the following communication from Peru:
"The sovereign constituent congress of Peru, contemplating how much the liberty of Peru owes to the Right Honourable Lord Cochrane, by whose talents, valour and constancy the Pacific has been freed from our most inveterate enemies, and the standard of liberty has been displayed on the coasts of Peru, resolves that the junta of government, in the name of the Peruvian nation, do present to Lord Cochrane, Admiral of the squadron of Chile, expressions of our most sincere gratitude for his achievements in favour of this country, once tyrannized over by powerful enemies, now the arbiter of its own fate."
"The junta of government obeying this, will command its fulfilment and order it be printed, published and circulated.—Given in the Hall of Congress, Lima, the 27th of September, 1822. (Signed) Xavier de Luna Pizarro, president—Jose Sanches Carrion, deputy secretary—Francisco Xavier Marreategui, deputy secretary."
"In obedience we order the execution of the foregoing decree. (Signed) Jose de la Mar, Felipe Antonio Alvarado, El Conde de Vista Florida, by order of his Excellency Francisco Valdivieso."
Here his lordship received from the government of Chile a copy of the libel presented to them by the plenipotentiaries of the Protector of Peru, which he answered with "victorious reasonings," although the supremacy assured his lordship, that the charges had never been believed; perhaps for the best of all possible reasons, that they could scarcely be understood.