The repassage of the Andes by a portion of the army had the effect San Martin expected upon the Government of Chile. On his return from San Luis to Mendoza he found despatches awaiting him from Guido, from O’Higgins, and from the Lautaro Lodge, informing him that all were convinced that the safety of the country depended upon the despatch of the expedition to Peru. At the end of March Major Borgoño arrived as the representative of the Lodge, fully authorised to arrange all the details with him.
San Martin required an army of from 4,000 to 6,000 men, and a supply of 500,000 dols., of which he would provide 200,000 dols., furnished by the Argentine Government. He also accepted the rank of Brigadier-General in the Chilian army, which was again offered to him.
By return of post he received the ratification by the Lodge of the arrangement made with Borgoño, and an order to proceed at once to Chile to superintend the preparations.
It was in these circumstances, when he gave himself up entirely to the great work of his life, that he separated from his wife for the last time. She returned to Buenos Ayres never to see him again in this world. When he again saw his native land she was dead, leaving him one only daughter, who went with him into exile.
On the 19th June, 1819, Pueyrredon retired from public life into that obscurity which is the fate of great men when their appointed task is accomplished.
CHAPTER XXII.
COCHRANE—CALLAO—VALDIVIA.
1819—1820.
THE new Admiral when hoisting his pennant on the O’Higgins might, after the manner of the old Dutch admirals, have nailed a broom to his masthead; his commission was to sweep the Spanish fleet from the Pacific.
This ideal hero was one of the first sailors of the first navy of the world, and became indisputably the first in the naval annals of three Nations of South America, yet he never was master of his own destiny, he founded no school which should endue posterity with his spirit. With great faculties, both moral and intellectual, he had no political talent, there was no method in what he did. His exploits were performed under many flags, and in both the Old and in the New World, but he made no country his own. He left his native land with curses, he parted from Chile, from Peru, from Brazil, and from Greece in anger, stigmatizing them as ungrateful. He valued his deeds in gold as though they had been merchandize. Yet, in the abstract he was a lover of liberty; he placed his sword and his genius only at the service of some noble cause.
On the 14th January, 1819, he sailed from Valparaiso with four ships, the San Martin, O’Higgins, Lautaro, and Chacabuco, leaving Rear-Admiral Blanco Encalada to follow him. On the 10th February he was off Callao.
The bay of Callao is one of the largest on the South Pacific. Near its centre stands the city of Callao, on the shore at the foot of the coast range of the Cordillera, three miles from the pass through it, which gives access to the beautiful valley of Rimac, in which stands the city of Lima. The port of Callao is a roadstead shut in by two islands. One of them, named San Lorenzo, is seven miles in length, and shelters the roadstead from all winds except those which blow from the west. Off its southern point lies a smaller island called the Fronton. The open water between the two islands is the main entrance to the inner bay, but between the Fronton and the land there is a much narrower passage, called the Boqueron, in which there are only five fathoms of water and many rocks. To the north of the island of San Lorenzo lies a sandbank, off the mouth of the river Rimac, which is called the Bocanegra.