Having now one ship of war, the Peruvian Government commenced to organize a navy, which they placed under the command of Blanco Encalada.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE DISASTER AT ICA.
1821—1822.
AFTER the return of the expedition from Callao, La Serna removed his head-quarters to Cuzco, leaving the bulk of the army behind him in the valley of Jauja, under Canterac. He strengthened the garrisons of Puno, Arequipa, and Tacna, and entrusted the defence of the southern coast to the army of Upper Peru.
Canterac detached two light columns under Loriga against Pasco, where the insurrection had still a footing under Otero, who had 200 regulars with him and 5,000 Indians. On the approach of Loriga, Otero marched out to attack him, and fell upon him suddenly, in the early morning of the 7th December, at the village of El Cerro, where the Royalists had halted to collect supplies. In the confusion a part of the ammunition blew up, and the troops in the darkness were seized with panic, but Loriga succeeded in rallying them, occupied the church and some neighbouring houses, and waited for daylight, when he in his turn attacked the Patriots, and completely routed them, killing 700 Indians.
In Upper Peru, Lanza, the guerilla chief, maintained himself in the mountains between Cochabamba and La Paz.
In Potosí a mutiny broke out among the troops, which was quelled by General Maroto.
The Indians of Cangallo and Huamanga again rose in arms; but the former town was burned by Carratala, and the Viceroy issued a decree forbidding any attempt to rebuild it. The Government of Peru erected a monument to the memory of the unfortunate town, and Buenos Ayres named one of her principal streets Cangallo, as a lasting record of this barbarous deed.
But these transitory events had no effect upon the war itself, the Cordillera formed a barrier between the opposing forces which neither of them could pass. The Royalists still outnumbered the Patriots, two to one, but the territory occupied by them, extending from Pasco to the Argentine frontier, was so enormous, that they were nowhere strong.
Bolívar was on the march against Quito; success would enable him to assist San Martin to crush the Royalist forces in Peru, but no cordial alliance was possible with Bolívar until all these new nations had agreed upon one common form of government, and the unsettled state of Guayaquil, which was claimed as a province by both Columbia and Peru, threatened to produce discord between them.
San Martin rose to the emergency. He sent a contingent of 1,500 men from Peru to assist Bolívar in his operations against Quito, and so secured his success. Then, setting on one side his monarchical ideas, he, on the 27th December, 1821, issued a decree summoning a Congress:—