With Cochrane the Dauntless

by G. A. Henty

CHAPTER XIV.

A PRISONER.

As soon as it was dark the admiral prepared for the attack. From the prisoners he had learned all details as to the fort, and found that while almost impregnable from the river face, the flank of the fort was defended chiefly by a strong palisading. He detached a small party of marines, under Ensign Vidal, to endeavour to enter at that point. Another party then silently moved forward to the direct attack of the fort, and as soon as it had taken up its position under the wall, the [pg 250]main body advanced, cheering and firing. The enemy at once opened a heavy fire of artillery and musketry, but in the dark they were unable to take aim, and but little damage was caused by their fire. The movement had the result intended—of occupying the whole attention of the eight hundred men in the fort, and of drowning any noise that might be made by those tearing down the palisades.

With great exertions Ensign Vidal succeeded in getting up a couple of the beams; he and his men passed through the opening, used the beams as a bridge across a wet ditch inside the palisade, and then advanced noiselessly until near the Spaniards, into whom they fired a volley. The Spaniards were seized with a sudden panic at finding themselves thus unexpectedly taken in flank, and instantly took to flight. The moment the fire of the marines told the admiral that the flank attack had succeeded, he led the main body round to the rear of the fort. The Spaniards, as they poured out there, communicated their panic to a body of three hundred troops drawn up behind in reserve, and the whole fled toward the next fort, followed hotly by the Chilians, who bayoneted numbers of them, and pressed so closely on their heels that they entered the works, one after the other, with them, driving them from fort to fort, together with two hundred men who had been placed with a battery of guns on rising ground to sweep the rear of the forts.

The last of these, the castle of Coral, was stormed with scarcely any opposition, the enemy thinking only of escape. Numbers of them got away in boats to Valdivia, while the rest plunged into the forests behind the forts. Little over a hundred prisoners were taken, and a like number of men were killed, their panic having been too great for anything like resistance to be offered. On the Chilian side the loss was seven men killed and nine wounded. The fall of all the western forts [pg 251]practically entailed that of Valdivia, for while preparations were being made to attack the eastern forts, the O’Higgins appeared off the mouth of the river, and the Spaniards, seeing this reinforcement to their foes, at once abandoned the remaining forts and the town, and retreated into the interior. The booty taken by the Chilians included fifty tons of gunpowder and ten thousand cannon-shot. One hundred and seventy thousand musket cartridges, a large number of muskets, and one hundred and twenty-eight cannon also fell into the hands of the victors. A large ship with valuable stores, together with a quantity of plate taken by the Spaniards from Chilian churches, also were captured.

The value of the conquest was not, however, to be reckoned by the amount of spoil taken. Its effect on the struggle was enormous. It raised the spirits of the Chilians to the highest pitch, whilst it brought home to the mind of the Spanish government the hopelessness of continuing a struggle against an enemy so well led, and capable of carrying out the most desperate enterprises.

Although Lord Cochrane was received with unbounded enthusiasm by the population at large on his return to Valparaiso, his success had excited the jealousy of the minister of marine and other officials, and by them he was treated with the grossest ingratitude. They even proposed to bring him to court-martial for having exceeded his orders; and although the indignation the proposal excited compelled them to abandon this, it was but to resort to other measures hostile to him.

It was months before the fleet received their share of the prize-money of the capture of Valdivia, in spite of the admiral’s earnest efforts on their behalf. His own share, which was sixty-seven thousand dollars, he never received at all. He failed altogether in his endeavour to obtain a fleet of sufficient force to attempt the capture of Callao, and for many months [pg 252]was kept in a state of inactivity. So irritating was the persecution to which he was subjected, that on the 14th of May he tendered his resignation.

The resignation was refused, but nothing was done. O’Higgins, who was an honest man, was practically powerless, as the entire government was in the hands of a senate of five members, which assumed dictatorial powers, and without whose approval nothing whatever could be done. It was determined, however, to raise an army for the liberation of Peru; and although Lord Cochrane had vainly asked the year before for a small land force to capture Callao, an army was now raised without difficulty by the dictators, and General San Martin was placed in command. This man had rendered good service to Chili when, in conjunction with O’Higgins, he had led the movement of independence; but his success had turned his head. He was vain and arrogant, and at the same time dilatory and vacillating. He, like the dictators, was jealous of the success and popularity of Lord Cochrane, and was bent upon thwarting him to the utmost. His army, four thousand two hundred strong, was embarked at Valparaiso in the ships of the squadron. Lord Cochrane proposed to him to land at Chilka, the nearest point to Lima and Callao. San Martin, however, chose Pisca, and the troops were landed there on the 18th of September. For fifty days they remained there doing nothing, the fleet being compelled to remain inactive off the port.

On the 28th of October they were re-embarked. San Martin again refused to listen to Lord Cochrane’s proposal for a vigorous attack upon Callao and Lima, and requested to be landed at Ancon, a port as unsuitable for the purpose as was Pisca. Lord Cochrane, however, determined that the fleet, furnished at such expense and effort by Chili, should not be wholly wasted, and when he sent his ships in to anchor off the [pg 253]port, he retained the O’Higgins, the Independencia, and the Lautaro, with the professed intention of blockading Callao at a distance. His real intention was, however, to cut out the Esmeralda from under the guns of the forts, and also to carry off another ship, on board which, as he had learned, a million dollars were embarked. The Esmeralda was a forty-four gun frigate, and was considered the finest Spanish war-ship in the Pacific. She lay under the protection of three hundred guns on shore, and a strong boom moored by chains at short intervals; while near her lay twenty-seven gun-boats and several vessels that had been armed for the defence of the port. Only two or three of his officers knew of his intentions until a few hours before his intended attack, when he issued a proclamation to the seamen and marines, telling them that they had now an opportunity for dealing the enemy a mortal blow, and repeating the triumph of Valdivia.