San Martin, writing of this affair, says:—
“After the action of Maipó, I used all my influence with the Government of Chile in favour of the Carreras, and I procured a pardon for them, but it was then too late.” O’Higgins had acceded to his request when they were no longer dangerous.
Now that the victory of Maipó had secured the independence of Chile, the latent spirit of opposition to the dictatorial government of O’Higgins again broke out. The most moderate desired the establishment of a constitutional régime; the more extreme deemed that the time had come for a radical reform. Among these were the old adherents of the Carreras, who from local patriotism were inimical to the Argentine-Chileno Alliance, and to the influence of San Martin. Dr. Rodriguez was one of them, and aspired to be their leader. During the forty-eight hours of his rule, in the confusion which followed the disaster of Cancha-Rayada, he had raised a squadron of horse, which he styled the Hussars of Death, entirely composed of men disaffected to the Government. He now declared that they would bring the rulers of the people to order.
O’Higgins saw in this corps a focus of sedition, and ordered it to be disbanded. Rodriguez protested but was compelled to submit. Rodriguez was at once a guerilla chief and a demagogue; he was a lawyer who wore the epaulets of a colonel. He was a true patriot, but had neither judgment nor foresight, and infused his own disorderly spirit into the agitation.
The municipality of the capital called upon the Director to convene an open Cabildo. It met on the 17th April. Rodriguez called upon the Assembly to declare itself a representative body until the convocation of a Congress, and as such superior in authority to the actual rulers of the State. The motion was carried. O’Higgins ordered the arrest of Rodriguez, and the ferment subsided. O’Higgins then decreed the appointment of seven principal citizens as a committee to draw up a plan of a provisional constitution, which “should define the powers of each authority and should establish on a solid basis the rights of citizens.” A constitution was accordingly drawn up and promulgated.
Rodriguez was sent under arrest to the barracks of Alvarado’s battalion under charge of a Spanish officer named Navarro, who was told by Alvarado and Monteagudo that Government desired “the extermination of Rodriguez,” for the sake of public tranquillity and the existence of the army. On the 23rd May the battalion left Santiago for Quillota, where Rodriguez was to be tried by court-martial as a disturber of public order. On the march an officer presented Rodriguez with a cigarette on which was written, “It would be well for you to fly.”[12] On the evening of the 24th the party encamped on the banks of a stream. As night fell Navarro, with a corporal and two men carrying carbines, walked with Rodriguez into a gorge near by. Soon after a shot was fired. “Rodriguez is dead,” said some officers in the encampment. Next morning his body was found covered with stones and twigs; his escort said he had tried to escape, and the affair was hushed up.
Of all the trophies of the victory of Maipó, San Martin had reserved only one for himself; this was the portfolio containing the secret correspondence of Osorio, which was found in his carriage when it was captured by O’Brien. On the morning of Sunday, the 12th April, San Martin, attended only by O’Brien, and taking the portfolio with him rode out from Santiago some seven miles to a secluded spot called “El Salto.” Procuring a chair from a house close by he seated himself under the shade of a tree, opened the portfolio and read the contents carefully. They were letters written by several of the leading citizens of Santiago to Osorio after the affair of Cancha-Rayada, declarations of their loyalty. Then asking for a small fire of sticks to be lighted in front of him, he burned them one by one, the wind carrying away their ashes; proofs of treachery which arose only from panic, were buried in oblivion. No one but himself ever knew who were the writers of these letters.
The next day he left for Buenos Ayres, on the same errand which had caused his sudden journey after Chacabuco, to concert measures for an expedition to Peru. On the 11th May, again avoiding a triumphal entry, he quietly took up his residence in his own house in the Argentine capital. Again the Argentine Government decreed him a commission as Brigadier-General; again he declined all promotion, but Congress insisted upon giving him a public vote of thanks, and a crowd of Argentine poets celebrated his victory in verse.
San Martin spent the whole of June in consultation with the members of the Lautaro Lodge, upon the means of fitting out a squadron for the Pacific. In July it was resolved that 500,000 dollars should be raised by a loan for that object, and soon afterwards Don Miguel Zañartu was officially received in Buenos Ayres as the representative of Chile.
San Martin then returned to Mendoza and made two attempts to cross the Cordillera, but was driven back by snowstorms, and remained there all the winter, nothing loth, for he found himself much more at home among the simple, bluff-spoken Cuyanos than in the more polished society of Santiago.