During those two years and a half the Spaniards were masters in Santiago, and Chili was once more a Spanish province, in which the inhabitants were punished terribly in confiscations, imprisonments, and executions for their recent defection. Deliverance, however, was at hand. General San Martin, through whom chiefly La Plata had achieved its freedom, gave assistance to O'Higgins and the Chilian patriots. The main body of the Spanish army, numbering about five thousand, had been stationed on the heights of Chacabuco, whence Santiago, Valparaiso, and the other leading towns of Chili were overawed. On the 12th of February, 1817, San Martin and O'Higgins, with a force nearly as large, surprised this garrison, and, with excellent strategy and very little loss of life, to the patriots at any rate, it was entirely subdued. Santiago was entered in triumph on the 14th of February, and a few weeks served for the entire dispersion of the royalist forces. The supreme directorship of the renovated republic was offered to San Martin. On his declining the honour, it was assigned, to the satisfaction of all parties, to O'Higgins.

The new dictator and the wisest of his counsellors, however, were not satisfied with the temporary advantage that they had achieved. They knew that armies would continue to come down from Peru, the defeat of which, even if that could be relied upon, would waste all the resources of the republic. They knew, too, that the Spanish war-ships which supplied Peru with troops and ammunition from home, passing the Chilian coast on their way, would seriously hinder the commerce on which the young state had to depend for its development, even if they did not destroy that commerce at its starting-point by seizing Valparaiso and the other ports. Therefore they resolved to seek for efficient help from Europe. With that end Don Jose Alvarez, a high-minded patriot, who had done much good service to Chili in previous years, was immediately sent to Europe, commissioned to borrow money, to build or buy warships, and in all the ways in his power to enlist the sympathies of the English people in the republican cause. In the last of these projects, at any rate, he succeeded beyond all reasonable expectation.

Beaching London in April, 1817, Alvarez was welcomed by many friends of South American freedom—Sir Francis Burdett, Sir James Mackintosh, Mr. Henry Brougham, and Mr. Edward Ellice among the number. Lord Cochrane was just then out of London, fighting his amusing battle with the sheriffs and bailiffs of Hampshire; but as soon as that business was over he took foremost place among the friends of Don Alvarez and the Chilian cause which he represented. With a message to him, indeed, Alvarez was specially commissioned. He was invited by the Chilian Government to undertake the organization and command of an improved naval force, and so, by exercise of the prowess which he had displayed in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, to render invaluable service to the young republic.

He promptly accepted the invitation, being induced thereto by many sufficient reasons. Sick at heart, as we have seen, under the cruel treatment to which for so many years he had been subjected by his enemies in power, he saw here an opportunity of, at the same time, escaping from his persecutors, returning to active work in a profession very dear to him, and giving efficient aid to a noble enterprise.

CHAPTER VII.

LORD COCHRANE'S VOYAGE TO CHILI.—HIS RECEPTION AT VALPARAISO AND SANTIAGO.—THE DISORGANIZATION OF THE CHILIAN FLEET.—FIRST SIGNS OF DISAFFECTION.—THE NAVAL FORCES OF THE CHILIANS AND THE SPANIARDS.—LORD COCHRANE'S FIRST EXPEDITION TO PERU.—HIS ATTACK ON CALLAO.—"DRAKE THE DRAGON" AND "COCHRANE THE DEVIL."—LORD COCHRANE'S SUCCESSES IN OVERAWING THE SPANIARDS, IN TREASURE-TAKING, AND IN ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE PERUVIANS TO JOIN IN THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—HIS PLAN FOE ANOTHER ATTACK ON CALLAO.—HIS DIFFICULTIES IN EQUIPPING THE EXPEDITION.—THE FAILURE OF THE ATTEMPT.—HIS PLAN FOR STORMING VALDIVIA.—ITS SUCCESSFUL ACCOMPLISHMENT.

[1818-1820.]

Having accepted, in May, 1817, the offer conveyed to him by the Chilian Government through Don Jose Alvarez, Lord Cochrane's departure from England was delayed for more than a year. This was chiefly on account of the war-steamer, the Rising Star, which it was arranged to build and equip in London under his superintendence. But the work proceeded so slowly, in consequence of the difficulty experienced by Alvarez in raising the requisite funds, that, at last, Lord Cochrane, being urgently needed in South America, where the Spaniards were steadily gaining ground, was requested to leave the superintendence of the Rising Star in other hands, and to cross the Atlantic without her.

Accompanied by Lady Cochrane and his two children, he went first from Rye to Boulogne, and there, on the 15th of August, 1818, embarked in the Rose, a merchantman which had formerly been a warsloop. The long voyage was uninteresting until Cape Horn was reached. There, and in passing along the rugged coast-line of Tierra del Fuego, Lord Cochrane was struck by its wild scenery. He watched the lazy penguins that crowded on the rocks, among evergreens that showed brightly amid the imposing mass of snow, and caught with hooks the lazier sea-pigeons that skimmed the heavy waves and hovered round the bulwarks and got entangled among the rigging of the Rose. He shot several of the huge albatrosses that floated fearlessly over the deck, but was not successful in his efforts to catch the fish that were seen coming to the surface of the troubled sea. The sea was made so boisterous by rain and snow, and such a stiff wind blew from the west, that for two or three days the Rose could not double the Cape. She was forced to tack towards the south until a favourable gale set in, which carried her safely to Valparaiso.

Valparaiso was reached on the 28th of November, after ten weeks passed on shipboard. There and at Santiago, the seat of government, to which he proceeded as soon as the congratulations of his new friends would allow him, Lord Cochrane was heartily welcomed. So profuse and prolonged were the entertainments in his favour—splendid dinners, at which zealous patriots tendered their hearty compliments, being followed by yet more splendid balls, at which handsome women showed their gratitude in smiles, and eagerly sought the honour of being led by him through the dances which were their chief delight—that he had to remind his guests that he had come to Chili not to feast but to fight.