The Hercules and the Trinidad, in the attempt to double Cape Horn, were driven into the Straits of Magellan by a tempest, where they both received serious injury from sunken rocks, but, being repaired, reached the barren island of Mocha in the Southern Sea, where they were joined by the Halcon. The quetch was wrecked, the captain and master being drowned. Brown with his two ships, and Buchardo with his one, then sailed by different courses to Callao, where they reunited to blockade the port, and captured two large prizes, one of which, the Consequencia, was armed and added to the squadron. On the 21st January, 1816, they sailed boldly into the harbour, and forced the Spanish ships to take refuge under the guns of the batteries.
On the night of the 22nd the gallant Commodore attacked the Royalist flotilla with five armed boats, but was beaten off with a loss of thirty killed and wounded. After maintaining the blockade for three weeks, they sailed for Guayaquil. The fort at the entrance to this port was taken by assault by Freyre with the crew of the Halcon, who effected a landing under the fire of the guns of the squadron. The Commodore then entered the port with the Trinidad, captured a schooner carrying marines, and took the first battery with four brass guns, which were transferred to the schooner. He then attacked another battery, but a sudden squall drove the Trinidad ashore, and he was forced to haul down his flag to prevent the massacre of his men by the Spanish infantry. He himself stripped off his clothes and sprang overboard intending to swim to the schooner, but seeing that the Spaniards were commencing to kill their prisoners, he climbed on board again, seized a lighted match, ran down to the magazine, and threatened to blow up the ship with all on board unless the laws of war were respected. This daring action brought the Spaniards to their senses, the slaughter was stopped, and Brown, with no other clothing than the Argentine flag which he wrapped round him, was led a prisoner on shore.
Buchardo, with the rest of the squadron, attacked another battery in the hope of rescuing his comrades, but was beaten off. One of the prisoners taken on the Consequencia off Callao was Mendiburo, the Governor of this province, and the commandant of Guayaquil was so eager to get rid of his enemies that he proposed an exchange of prisoners, which was at once accepted. The three remaining vessels with the schooner then left the port.
On the open sea the jealousy latent in the hearts of the two commanders broke into an open flame. Each of these two adventurers considered that the other deserved hanging at the yardarm; but in times of danger they had most nobly supported each other. Now they agreed to separate, dividing the plunder between them, and Buchardo returned with the Consequencia to Buenos Ayres. Brown sailed on to Santa Fé in New Granada, but, finding that city occupied by Royalist troops, he followed his late comrade to the Atlantic.
The Argentine Government had hoped great things from this expedition, and had written to San Martin to hold himself ready to take advantage of any movement it might occasion in Chile; but the astute general replied that a naval force, to be of any effective aid to an invading general, must consist of ships of war, not of privateers, and must be under his orders. The result showed that it was but of slight service to the cause, and was a waste of material which might have been much more usefully employed.
CHAPTER XI.
THE IDEA OF THE PASSAGE OF THE ANDES.
1815—1816.
THE plans of San Martin were not in accordance with the ideas which prevailed in the military circles of the United Provinces. The many disasters which had befallen Argentine armies in Upper Peru had failed to show either the leaders of those armies or Government that the true road to Lima did not lie through those mountain passes. He did not obtrude his opinions upon any one, still his idea at times leaked out in despatches, and after the fate of Alvear, met with a somewhat better reception at headquarters. Carrera had made a proposal to Government for a foolhardy attempt upon Coquimbo, which was rejected after a consultation with San Martin, but his application for permission to assume the offensive had also been refused. He then caused a report to be circulated in Chile that he was about to march his army to the north, to reinforce the routed forces of Rondeau, in the hope that Marcó might be induced to cross the Andes and attack Mendoza, and by representing this danger to Government, he succeeded in persuading them to send him some light field guns and other war material, of which he was in need; and also to grant him power to assume the offensive in spring. He also prevailed upon them to unite the scattered squadrons of the mounted grenadiers, and to place them under his orders, as the nucleus of a cavalry brigade.
In March, 1816, a detachment of the grenadiers, under Aldao, made a successful reconnaissance by the Uspallata Pass, of the Royalist positions on the western slopes of the Andes, and brought back much useful information; but true to his principle of concealing his plans, San Martin reported to Government that the central passes were so well defended that the only practical course was by those to the south of Mendoza; and also that advanced field works were necessary about Uspallata, in order to secure the Province of Cuyo as the base of operations. This procured him a further much needed supply of guns.
In April General Balcarce, the hero of Suipacha, succeeded Alvarez as Provisional Director, and San Martin was thenceforward much better supported by the central power; military supplies were sent to him on a much more liberal scale than under the previous administration.
The power of the Lautaro Lodge had fallen with Alvear, but the society still existed, and San Martin now established a branch in Mendoza, in which the principal leaders of the Chilian refugees, and many of the foremost men of Cuyo, were affiliated.