This blow spread consternation in Santiago. The people crowded to the Plaza, and Irizarri proposed the appointment of a Dictator, following the example of the Roman Republic in times of danger, and Colonel Lastra, Governor of Valparaiso, was named Supreme Director. The new Government in a few days organized a force of 1,500 men with six guns, and placed in command a young man named Don Manuel Blanco Encalada, but these raw troops were repulsed in an attack upon Talca, and were afterwards completely routed at Cancha-Rayada on the 27th March.
The position of Mackenna at Membrillar became very difficult. The loss of Talca cut his communications with the capital; he threw up more entrenchments and remained steadily on the defensive. O’Higgins started to his assistance on the 16th March, leaving weak garrisons in Concepcion and Talcahuana. It was time; Gainza was already between them. On the 19th O’Higgins drove in the Royalist vanguard at Quilo, and Gainza, withdrawing the garrison from Chillán, fell next day upon Mackenna, but was beaten off with the loss of eighty killed.
On the 23rd O’Higgins joined Mackenna, and next day moved off northwards with 2,600 infantry, 600 cavalry, and twenty guns. Gainza, harassing his rear, marched in the same direction; victory would lie with him who could first cross the Maule. O’Higgins, by a skilful manœuvre, captured a pass, and throwing up defences of brushwood in his rear, beat off an attack, and crossed on the 4th April. Gainza crossed by a different pass on the same day, and tried to stop the march of the Patriot army at a pass on the Claro River. On the 7th O’Higgins forced the pass, and the two armies faced each other between that river and the Lontué. At Quecheraguas O’Higgins threw up entrenchments, and on the 8th and 9th beat off attacks of the enemy, giving time for the arrival of reinforcements from Santiago. Gainza then retreated to Talca, and the garrisons of Concepcion and Talcahuano capitulated.
By this time the Anglo-Spanish armies had driven the French from Spain, and the Government of Spain called upon the insurgent colonies to send deputies to Cortes. In Mexico the Royalist arms were triumphant; the rising star of Bolívar at Caracas was about to suffer eclipse; the revolutions of Quito, Venezuela, and New Granada were crushed; Lima, still the great centre of reaction, prepared yet another expedition for the conquest of Chile; only in the united provinces of the River Plate did the revolution still hold its ground. In these circumstances Hillyar, commodore of the British squadron of the Pacific, offered his mediation to the Viceroy of Peru for the pacification of Chile. His offer was accepted, and he reached Santiago just after the successful defence of Quecheraguas. Government appointed O’Higgins and Mackenna to conduct the negotiation. It was accordingly arranged on the 3rd May that Chile should return to the state of the year 1811, under the rule of a provisional Junta subject to the Regency of Spain; that the Royalist troops should withdraw from Chile within one month; that Chile should send deputies to the Peninsula to settle all disputes, and should do what she could to help the cause of Spain. This arrangement, which is known as the Treaty of Lircay, was badly received in the Royalist camp, and also by public opinion in Chile, and resulted in nothing more than a truce.
It is a question whether these terms were agreed upon in good faith by either party. So far as Gainza was concerned, they saved him from certain defeat.
Don Francisco Antonio Pinto, diplomatic agent of Chile in London, was instructed to repair to Madrid in representation of her interests, but the Royalist troops were not withdrawn, and the Government remained in the hands of Lastra as Supreme Director. Chile was resolved upon liberty at any cost, and public opinion, which had forced on the treaty, was now equally pronounced against it.
The alliance between Chile and the United Provinces was de facto at an end, and the Argentine auxiliaries were withdrawn from the army to Santiago. On the 22nd July a mutiny in the barracks restored the Carreras to power. They proclaimed themselves the saviours of the country. By the Treaty of Lircay Don José Miguel and Don Luis were excluded from the arrangement for a mutual exchange of prisoners; they were to be sent by sea to Valparaiso, and thence banished into honourable exile; but, escaping from their prison at Chillán, they had reached the capital and raised this mutiny, in which style of work Don José Miguel displayed more skill than he had done in the field against the national enemy. A provisional Junta was named by the noisy shouts of an open Cabildo, of which Carrera made himself president.
Had Carrera torn up the Treaty of Lircay, he would have had both reason and patriotism on his side, but his first step was to confirm the clause relating to freedom of commerce with Peru and to exhort the people to preserve peace. As before, he had neither ideas nor courage, and in his hands Congress, army, and revolution were all lost together. In spite of the protests of Las Heras, the Argentine auxiliaries were ignominiously expelled from the capital, on the pretext that it was their duty to assist the Government when called upon. O’Higgins counselled them to observe absolute neutrality in all civil disputes, following the example of the Chilian auxiliaries in Buenos Ayres in the revolution of 1812, and at the invitation of the Cabildo marched his army upon Santiago. Carrera met him on the plains of Maipó, where, for the first time, Chilian blood was shed by Chilians, and O’Higgins was defeated.
Meantime, the Viceroy of Peru had refused to ratify the treaty of peace, had despatched a fresh expedition to Talcahuano, and General Osorio at the head of 5,000 men was now marching on the capital. In this emergency O’Higgins put himself and the remnants of his force under the orders of Carrera, who speedily collected five or six thousand men, who might have done something had they been well led, but neither he nor O’Higgins showed any capacity for command. The latter, with 1,700 men, was cut off from the main body and shut up in Rancagua, where he defended himself with desperate valour for thirty-two hours against the whole army of the Royalists, till, his ammunition being exhausted, he cut his way through the enemy at the head of 300 men, and rejoined Carrera, who had retreated to Santiago.
Here all was confusion; and the people having lost confidence in their own leaders were ready to shout for the King. Las Heras, marching south with the Argentine auxiliaries, met O’Higgins in full retreat towards the Cordillera, and protected the rear until the fugitives from Santiago were safe on Argentine soil.