This proclamation aroused the patriotism of many Peruvians, who brought quantities of food and supplies to the Army. While numbers of them joined the Army, including six hundred slaves, to whom San Martin promised their freedom.
Then San Martin prepared to invest Lima, with the help of Lord Cochrane’s fleet.
THE FALL OF THE CITY OF THE KINGS
Lima, “the City of the Kings,” stands not far from the sea on a plain near the foot of the Cordilleras.
When San Martin landed in Peru, Lima the proud, the rich, was the seat of the Spanish Viceroy’s Court with all its pomp and vices. She was shut in by walls above which rose her turrets and domes. Many of her people were slaves, Indians, or freedmen; the rest were haughty Spanish grandees and rich royalists. Lima was the civil, and military, despot of all Spanish America.
San Martin had now but one thought and aim—to drive the Spaniards from Lima, and make the city independent. He besieged her by sea and land. Through proclamations sent far and wide, he urged the Peruvians to rise up and help gain their own Freedom. Peruvian Colonists, Indians, and slaves flocked to his standard.
The siege began to tell on Lima. Her pride was humbled to the dust. Her food was exhausted. Fresh supplies were cut off by the blockade. The poor suffered dreadful want. The rich were deprived of their luxuries. Rich and poor alike lived in terror of their lives. To add to the miseries of the unhappy city, her officials, who should have protected her, fell to quarrelling among themselves.
On the Fifth of July, universal terror reigned. The Spanish Viceroy had announced that he was about to abandon the city to her fate. Every one believed that San Martin’s troops would fall upon her to pillage and burn. At dawn the Viceroy marched out with his troops.
There was one mad rush to escape to Callao, the port of Lima, several miles away. All the people who could, hastened to leave. Crowds of fugitives hurried along the highways, people on foot, in carts, on horseback; men, women, and children, with bundles and household goods, with horses and mules, and with slaves bending under heavy burdens of baggage and treasure.
Inside the city, there was pandemonium. Women were seen fleeing toward the convents. The narrow streets were choked with loaded wagons and mounted horsemen.