THE
EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA

“Serás lo que debes ser,
Y sinó, no serás nada.”
San Martin.

THE EMANCIPATION OF
SOUTH AMERICA

BEING A CONDENSED TRANSLATION
BY
WILLIAM PILLING
OF
THE HISTORY OF SAN MARTIN
BY
GENERAL DON BARTOLOMÉ MITRE
FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL PRESIDENT OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC
With Maps
LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.
1893

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

THE title of this translation is the second title of the original “History of San Martin.” This transposition of title is an index to the relation which the translation bears to the original. This latter is truly a biography of San Martin, whose life could not be understood unless very full account were given of the events in which he took so prominent a part, therefore the biography is also a history.

No man who plays a prominent part in the history of a revolution can escape becoming involved in disputes with his contemporaries, and in many intricate questions which are of interest only to a very small number of their successors. These disputes and these questions greatly affect the career of a man, but have small influence upon the history of a Nation. Of such troubles San Martin had his full share, his biographer has entered fully into them, and with much detail has given proofs of the correctness of the view he takes of them. These details are, for the most part, suppressed in the translation, and all matters concerning San Martin himself are greatly curtailed, while prominence is given to the events of the times in which the scene passes. The translation is thus a history in which enter the biographies of the two principal personages, San Martin and Bolívar.

This translation is intended only for the general mass of English-speaking readers, to whom minute details are wearisome, and is thus in every part a condensation of the copious accounts which are given in the original of the stirring events described. The student of history will not find in it that ample information which he requires, in order fully to understand the subject in all its bearings; for him the original provides a mine of historic wealth, enriched as it is with notes and with a voluminous appendix.

William Pilling.

London, March, 1893.

CONTENTS.

PROLOGUE.

THE object of this book is to give a biography of General José de San Martin, combining therewith the history of the emancipation of South America. It is a necessary complement to the History of Belgrano, written thirty years ago. These two histories display the Argentine Revolution in its two principal aspects; one relates the development of a nation, the other the effect of this development upon the emancipation of a continent.

This history is based, for the most part, upon documents hitherto unpublished, some of which are truly posthumous revelations which throw new light upon mysterious or little known events, or correct errors resulting from defective information.

I believe I have consulted all the books, pamphlets, newspapers and fly-sheets which have ever been printed concerning San Martin, and of manuscripts I have a collection of at least 10,000 documents, bound in 73 thick volumes, which it is my purpose to deposit in the National Library.

The most important of these sources of information has been the archive of General San Martin himself, which was placed at my disposal by his son-in-law, the late Don Mariano Balcarce. I have also consulted the archives of this city from the year 1812 to the year 1824, without which it would have been impossible to compile a complete history. The archives of the Director Pueyrredón, which were given to me by his son, have also been of great service to me, as also those of General O’Higgins, Don Tomás Godoy Cruz, General Las Heras, and others. I have also acquired much verbal information from conversations held with many of the contemporaries of San Martin, and with some of his companions in arms.

In addition to consulting all available maps and plans relating to the campaigns of San Martin, I have inspected in person the routes followed by the army of the Andes and have made sketches myself of the scene of memorable events when plans were not forthcoming.

* * * * * * *

This book will not be the historical monument which posterity will some day consecrate to the immortal memory of San Martin, but those who do at some future date erect it, will herein find abundant materials, stones finished or but roughly cut, with which solidly to lay out the foundations.

Bartolomé Mitre.

Buenos Ayres, 1887.

Here follows, on 25 pages, a list of unpublished manuscripts consulted in the compilation of this work, which manuscripts will be deposited in the National Library of Buenos Ayres.

William Pilling.

THE EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

The Argument of the Book.

THREE great names stand forth conspicuous in the annals of America, those of Washington, Bolívar, San Martin. Of Washington, the great leader of the Democracy of the North; of Bolívar and of San Martin, who were the emancipators of the southern half of the continent. The story of the life-work of the latter of these two is the Argument of this book.

The scene of action passes on a vast theatre, a territory extending for more than fifty degrees of latitude, from Cape Horn to the Tropic of Cancer, and occupies twenty years of strife. The starting-point of this history is the Argentine revolution; it follows the course of this revolution as it spreads over the continent, and its object is to explain the laws which governed the establishment of a family of new Republics, and the fundamental principles from which they sprang.

This argument is dual and complex, for it treats both of political revolution and of social evolution. It shows how the Argentine revolution became a propaganda to the world outside, of the principles upon which it was based, and how under these auspices independent and sovereign nations sprang into existence, with forms and tendencies in the same likeness and similitude. It shows the proclamation of a new international law, which only permits of alliance against an enemy in the name of a common destiny, and forbids conquests and annexations. It shows also the failure of the attempt in Columbia to unite the emancipated colonies artificially into a monocracy in opposition to natural law and to the new idea of the rights of man inaugurated by the Argentine revolution.

The two hegemonies, the Argentine and the Columbian, unite to set the seal upon the emancipation of South America. San Martin and Bolívar cross the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific by different routes, giving liberty to enslaved peoples, founding new nations, and meeting as together they enclose the colonial system in its last entrenchments, they bring the two opposing systems face to face, the shock resulting in the triumph of the superior principle.

Thus considered, the history of the emancipation of South America presents a homogeneous character, with unity of action and with one dominant idea, which in the midst of accidental deviations reveals the existence of a law giving one accordant significance to facts accomplished.

The study of the theatre of the war of independence shows that the scene passes in two distinct revolutionary areas—one at the south, comprehending the United Provinces of the River Plate, Chile, and Upper Peru; the other, at the north, comprehending Venezuela, New Granada, and Quito. The strife and the triumph proceed simultaneously in each area until the two revolutions, like to two masses obeying a reciprocal attraction, converge towards the centre. This plan, drawn up and carried out by the two great Liberators, emancipates South America by the combined military action of the revolted colonies, which action has at once the ideal unity of a poem and the precision of a machine.

The unity of this action is clearly displayed in the general lines of the life of San Martin, and gives to his historic figure an importance far transcending both his deeds and his designs. He was born in an obscure American town, which disappeared as he commenced to figure upon the scene; thus America in its entirety became his country. He grew up as a soldier in the Old World, fighting by sea and on land in company with the first soldiers of the age, and so prepared himself for his warlike mission, unwitting of his destiny. In the New World he commenced his career by establishing tactics and discipline as his base of operations, and from their combination produced his machine of war. He consolidated the independence of the United Provinces of the River Plate as the point from which he might start for the conquest of South America. In command of the army of the North, his name is associated with the revolution of Upper Peru; as he passed the Andes in prosecution of his own plan, he became identified with the revolution of Chile, and after consolidating the independence of this country he initiated the first international alliance in America. He secured the command of the Pacific, without which the independence of America was at that time impossible, and gave liberty to Lower Peru. He then carried the revolutionary standard of the allies to the foot of Pichincha, where he met the liberator of Columbia. Under the equator, which divides the two theatres of the war, he clasped hands with Bolívar. Thus ended his grand campaign; at the apogee of his power he disappeared from the scene, knowing that his mission was fulfilled, that his strength was exhausted, and condemned himself to exile, faithful to the ruling maxim of his life, Serás lo que debes ser; y sinó, no serás nada.[1]

From exile he looked upon the results of his life-work: the definitive political organization of South America in accordance with geographical divisions, the foundation of a new constellation of independent States in obedience to natural laws as by him instinctively foreseen. He saw without envy that Bolívar, with whom he shared the glory of the redemption of a new world, wore the crown of the final triumph, though he knew that both as a politician and as a soldier he was his superior. Then the wild dream of Bolívar that he could found an empire of dependent republics under the auspices of Columbia faded away, and gave place to the Argentine plan of independent republics heralded by San Martin.

Synopsis of the South American Revolution.

It has been said that posterity will look upon the emancipation of South America as the most important political phenomenon of the nineteenth century, both in itself and from the probable extent of its future consequences. The immediate result was to bring into existence a new group of independent nations, founded on democratic principles, in open opposition to the right of conquest and to the dogmas of monarchy and absolutism which yet prevailed in the Old World. These new nations were organized on the principle of equality, and were emancipated from privilege, and thus offered an entirely fresh field for experiment in the development of the physical and moral faculties of man. This movement thus constitutes one of the most drastic changes ever effected in the condition of the human race.

The first throes of this revolution were felt at the two extremities and in the centre of South America in the year 1809. In 1810 all the Spanish American colonies rose up in rebellion as by one innate impulse, and proclaimed the principle of self-government. Six years later all, save one, of these insurrections were quelled.

The United Provinces of the River Plate alone maintained their position, and after declaring their own independence they gave to the conquered colonies the signal for the great and final struggle by making common cause with them.

In 1817 the Argentine revolution drew up a plan for the emancipation of the continent, took the offensive, crossed the Andes, and liberated Chile; in union with Chile obtained command of the Pacific, liberated Peru and carried her arms to the equator in aid of the revolution of Columbia. This vigorous impulse was felt in the extreme north of this southern continent, which in its turn defeated and expelled the champions of the old system, went through a similar evolution, and crossed the Andes to the point where the two forces united. The Highlands of Peru became the scene of the final struggle. Then the Spanish American colonies were free by their own strength, and from the chaos sprang up a new world.

During the progress of these events, the United States of the North, the pioneers of the Republican era, recognised the independence of the new republics (1822), as “an expression of the simple truth,” and declared—

“The peoples of South America have a right to break the chains which bind them to their mother country, to assume the rank of nations among the sovereign nations of the world, and to establish institutions in accordance with natural laws dictated by God himself.”

As a consequence of this recognition the United States, in the year 1823, promulgated the famous Monroe Doctrine which, in opposition to the Bull of Alexander VI., established a new principle of international law under the formula—“America for the Americans.”

Free England, who at first looked favourably upon the revolution, began, in 1818, to lean towards Spain and the Holy Alliance, advocating an arrangement on the basis of the “commercial freedom” of the colonies. The diplomatists of Washington interfered in favour of their complete emancipation, and Lafayette, in support of this idea, declared to the Government of France:—

“Any opposition which may be made to the independence of the New World may cause suffering but will not imperil the idea.”

Thus, much before the final triumph, the emancipation of the new continent was accepted as an accomplished fact, and the attitude of the United States supported by England turned the scales of diplomacy in its favour in 1823. When at the Congress of Verona the party of reaction proposed a contrary policy, Canning, Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote to Grenville those memorable words which re-echoed through two hemispheres:—

“The battle has been fierce, but it is won. The nail is clenched; Spanish America is free. Novus sæclorum nascitur ordo!”

The battle of Ayacucho was the response to these words, and Canning could then exclaim:—

“I have called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old.”

The Action of America upon Europe.

The land discovered by Christopher Columbus, which completed the physical world, was destined to re-establish its general equilibrium at the moment the base thereof was shaken.

Before the end of the fifteenth century Europe had lost its moral and political equilibrium. After the invasion of the barbarians, which imbued it with a new principle of life without destroying the germ of decay left by the fall of the Roman Empire, its civilization was again on the point of collapse. Not one homogeneous nation there existed, her productive energy was exhausted, liberty was but a latent hope, privilege was the dominant law, politics were founded on the principles of Macchiavelli, all healthy evolution in the path of progress was impossible. A fresh invasion from the East advanced under the standard of the Crescent, and the despotism of Mussulman fanaticism was the last hope of the people. Europe, shut in between the Danube and the Pillars of Hercules, seemed lost; the discovery of a new world alone could save her.

This discovery restored harmony to the discordant elements, gave new life to Christianity, and saved the liberties of mankind. The Reformation, which came immediately afterwards, engrafted upon the consciences of men the germ of the democratic principles of the Bible, which, transplanted to a new world, later on regenerated the effete civilization brought from Europe, and spread it as a vital principle of politics all the world over.

The popular belief that the fountain of eternal youth was to be found on the new continent discovered by Columbus, was no vain imagination. The decrepit civilization of the Old World drew fresh youth and strength from the virgin soil of America, the genius of progress therein latent developed rapidly in the genial air. The opening of this new and vast field to human activity, was truly a renovation of social order in accordance with natural law, and resulted in the organization of a democracy based upon labour. To this end it was only necessary that the European, leaving his old traditions behind him, should, on a vacant continent, work out his own destiny under the guidance of healthy instinct.

The Colonization of Spanish America.

In the repartition of the new continent the worst lot fell to the southern half. Spain and Portugal carried their feudal absolutism to their colonies, but they could not plant there their systems of privilege, of aristocracy, or of social inequality. The good and the bad seed alike were modified by cultivation in a new soil, the natural product being democracy. The mode of colonization contributed to this result. The most trustworthy annals of the Indies recognise the fact that the conquest was achieved at the expense of the conquerors, without any drafts on the royal treasury. Hence arose that spirit of self-reliance which they bequeathed to their descendants. A rebel world grew up under the auspices of absolutism. The colonial constitution, which inculcated a personal despotism and excluded the idea of a common country, contributed fatally to this result. Spanish America was looked upon as the personal property of the Spanish monarch, in virtue of the Bull of Alexander VI. Thus the colony did not form a part of the nation, and was united to her only by allegiance to a common sovereign. When the monarch disappeared, his power lapsed to his vassals; the logical and legal result being the separation of the colonies from the mother country.

The government of the colonies was entrusted to the Council of the Indies, represented politically by a Viceroy, and in law by the Audiencia, the bounds of whose authority were ill-defined. In municipal affairs, the Cabildos, derived from the free communities of the mother country, were nominally the representatives of the people. In them lay the germs of democracy, as they possessed the right to call public meetings for the settlement of their own affairs by vote, which right, for long in abeyance, became an active power when supported by popular force.

The great extent of the country, the want of moral cohesion, the admixture of races, the general corruption of manners, the absence of an ideal, the lack of political and industrial activity, and the profound ignorance of the masses, all contributed to produce a state of semi-barbarism by the side of a weakly civilization, and vitiated the entire social organism. From this embryo was to spring a new republican world, the product of the germs latent within it.

The Colonization of North America.

North America, more fortunate, was colonized by a nation which had practical notions of liberty, and by a race better prepared for self-government. The process commenced a century later. The colonists easily adapted themselves to a climate similar to that of the mother country, and founded there a new home to which they were bound by free institutions. Originally the English colonies were looked upon as Crown provinces, and were ruled by privileged companies, and by a Council similar to that of the Indies, the monarch reserving to himself, as in Spain, the supreme legislative authority and the right of appointment, without giving any legislative rights. The colonists of Virginia, by their own energy, soon acquired some political rights, which were secured to them by royal charters. This example was followed by the colonists of Maryland. Colonial assemblies absorbed the privileges of the companies, and the royal charters formed later on the basis of republican institutions.

After the planters of Virginia and Maryland came the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, who, flying from persecution in Europe, sought liberty of conscience in the New World. Authors of the great revolution, they were deeply imbued with the republican spirit, and with the democratic spirit of Switzerland and of the Netherlands, in which latter country they had seen their ideal of the ruler of a free people in the austere person of William of Orange, the antetype of Washington. In accordance with these ideas, they established at once a form of popular government hitherto unknown, based upon just laws. Finally came the Quakers, who proclaimed freedom of the intellect as an innate and inalienable right, and drew up their constitution on the basis of democratic equality, absolute and universal; in this anticipating the most advanced of the modern era. Under William Penn they established the representative colony of Pennsylvania, the nucleus and the type of the great republic of the United States.

Such was the genesis of democratic liberty, destined to become universal.

Colonial Policy in both Americas.

The commercial monopoly which Spain adopted as a system on the discovery of America, had an influence quite as evil upon herself as upon her colonies. The intention was that Spain should draw to herself the wealth of the New World, by keeping in her own hands the exchange of European manufactures for the products of America. Every industry which might compete with those of the Peninsula was prohibited in America. At first Seville, and afterwards Cadiz, was declared to be the only port from which ships laden with merchandise could sail, or at which they could land cargoes of colonial produce. All direct trade between the colonies themselves was forbidden. The restrictive system was completed by collecting all the merchant vessels into annual or biennial convoys sailing in charge of ships of war to or from Portobello and Panama. Merchandise so introduced, was carried across the isthmus and distributed by way of the Pacific and by land to Potosi, where the Southern and Atlantic Provinces could supply themselves at prices five or six hundred per cent. over the original cost. Such a system could only spring from a mind enfeebled by the possession of absolute power, and could only be tolerated by a race of slaves.

Before one century had elapsed, the population of Spain was reduced by one-half, her manufacturing industries were ruined, her mercantile marine no longer existed, her trade was in the hands of foreign smugglers, and the gold and silver of the New World went everywhere except to Spain.[2] When Spain, taught by experience, sought to remedy the evil, it was already too late, her colonies on the southern continent were lost to her. Neither force nor love, nor a common interest, bound the disinherited children to their parent; the separation was complete, and the independence of the colonies a question of time and of opportunity.

The colonial system of Spain was not an invention, it was an ancient tradition, it was the economic theory of the epoch reduced to practice. England followed the same system, committing even greater errors in the establishment of privileged companies, such as the East India Company, giving territories to them on a feudal basis, the monarch reserving absolute authority over commercial relations.

In practice these errors furnished their own remedies. Tyrannical laws fell into disuse from the resistance of colonies armed with municipal rights. Thus the results sought by England were achieved without great violence and with advantage both to the mother country and to her colonies. The navigation laws of 1650—1666 gave supremacy to the mercantile marine of England, and by shutting out foreign competition from her markets, monopolised the trade with the colonies. This monopoly in skilful hands, colonized North America and corrected to some extent the errors of the system. In 1652, under Cromwell, freedom of commerce was established between England and her colonies, the right being given to the colonists to tax themselves by the votes of their representatives and to regulate their own Customs duties. This was almost independence. Even when their charters were mutilated or abrogated by the Stuarts, this doctrine was respected by common consent. When England disregarded it came the revolution.

The Emancipation of North America.

A special question of constitutional law concerning Customs duties, was the immediate cause of the revolution in North America. The revolution of South America arose from a question of fundamental principles.

The Stamp Tax imposed by England on her colonies was repealed on the ground that it was an internal tax, but Parliament sanctioned the imposition of Customs duties on the ground that they were an external tax, the produce of the colonies being subject to the will of the king. The colonists protested and took a further step by declaring that the Mutiny Act had nothing to do with them, as it was sanctioned by a Parliament in which they were not represented. They called out their municipal militia, and so in 1774 commenced the great struggle for the emancipation of America. During ten years their resistance had been kept within the limits of the laws, but from this moment they took their stand on the wide basis of natural and ideal right, independent of law and of tradition.

The Declaration of Independence on the 4th July, 1776, was the proclamation of an innate universal human right, of a new theory of government independent of precedent, inspired by natural law, by philosophy, and by political science. This declaration became, as has been said,

“The profession of faith of all the liberals of the world.”

The echo of these theories was heard in France, and by her was transmitted to the Latin nations of both hemispheres. The people embraced them with enthusiasm. Up to that time two schools of politics had divided the empire of free thought. The historical school, led by Montesquieu, looked upon the constitution of England as the finished work of experience and of human logic. The philosophical school, led by Rousseau, denied the value of experience and thought to establish liberty and the sovereignty of the people by seeking “the best form of association for the defence and protection of each associate against the force of all, so that each one should obey only himself and remain free as before.” This second doctrine formulated in the constitution of the United States, became a new principle in political science, and as such met with general acceptance throughout the colonies of South America.

The most important feature of the revolution of North America is not the achievement of her national independence, but her emancipation, political, intellectual, and moral, in the name of human rights and in constitutional form. From this moment, English constitutionalism ceased to be a model, and the English constitution to be an ideal, even among the English themselves, who have had to recognise their descendants and political pupils as their masters.

The spirit of free England, anticipating the verdict of posterity, justified insurrection in America. Statesmen and thinkers such as Chatham and Burke, sympathised in the movement, declaring, “There is no monopoly of principle,” but its effect upon France was still more marked, being the outcome of the reasonings of her philosophers.

Thus it was that America reacted for the second time upon Europe with most beneficial effect. On the third occasion the part of teacher is played by South America.

The Affiliation of the Revolution of South America.

Hardly was Peru conquered by the Spanish race, than it became the theatre of civil war. The conquerors, headed by Gonzalo Pizarro, rebelled against their king in the name of their rights as conquerors, cut off the head of the king’s representative and burned the Royal Standard. Hardly had one generation time to grow up in America, ere a son of Hernan Cortez, in whose veins flowed the blood of the celebrated Indian Doña Marina, conspired to give independence to Mexico in the name of the same territorial rights invoked by Pizarro. The far off colony of Paraguay was from the first a turbulent municipal republic. The colonists deposed their royally appointed governors with shouts of “Death to Tyrants,” elected rulers of their own, and did as they liked for more than twenty-five years (1535-60). These and many other similar facts, prove that the colonization of South America was imbued from the commencement with the principle of individuality and with the instinct of independence, which naturally resulted in emancipation and democracy.

These insurrections were outbursts of Castillian spirit, but early in the eighteenth century, Creoles begin to call themselves with pride Americans, and for the first time is heard in Potosi the cry of Liberty. In 1711 the half-breeds proclaimed a mulatto King of Venezuela. In 1733 the Creoles rose in arms and compelled the abrogation of the commercial monopoly of the “Compania Guipuzcoana de Caracas.” In 1730 two thousand half-breeds at Cochabamba (Upper Peru), made armed protest against the poll-tax, and acquired the right to elect Creoles as officers of justice to the exclusion of Spaniards. In 1765 the Creoles of Quito rose in armed insurrection against the imposition of direct taxes. None of these outbreaks had as yet any definite political character. The embryonic republic of Paraguay gave the first example of a revolutionary movement based upon the sovereignty of the people.

José Antequera, by birth an American but educated in Spain, appeared on the scene during a dispute between the governor of Paraguay and the Cabildo of Asuncion. The people named him governor by acclamation. He placed himself at their head, in opposition to the theocratic rule of the Jesuits, who were ruining the country. He fought pitched battles against the royal troops and was blessed as a saviour, but died on the scaffold as a traitor to his king.

After his death, his pupil Fernando Mompox organized the popular party under the name of the Comuneros, deposed another governor and established a governing Junta, but was also overcome.

In 1781 the Comuneros broke out in insurrection in New Granada, but the movement was suppressed.

These were not events of great historical importance, but they show that throughout the period of Spanish domination, the rule of the mother country was irksome to the Spaniards themselves, and was hateful to all Americans.

The Moral Revolution of South America.

There can be no revolution until the ideas of men become the conscience of the mass, and until the passions of men become a public force, because “it is man and not events which constitute the world.” The revolution was accomplished in the man of South America before the end of the eighteenth century; after that all his actions have one object and one meaning. Emancipation was no longer an instinct, it became an active passion.

Spain through jealousy of England joined France in aiding the rebels of the North, and her recognition of the independence of the new republic was virtually the abdication of her own authority over the South. Aranda, one of the first statesmen of his time, advised his sovereign in 1783 to forestall the inevitable future by making one infante King of Mexico, one King of Peru, and one King of the Mainland, taking to himself the rank of Emperor. The King of Spain shut his ears to these counsels.

The revolution of 1789 proved that the ideas embodied in the Declaration of Independence were of universal application. The monarchs of Europe took the alarm and formed reactionary leagues. To South America these ideas were conveyed by educated Creoles, who travelling in Europe learned them from French writers. “The Rights of Man” was translated, printed in secret, and circulated through New Granada by Antonio Nariño. Charged with this as a crime, no proof could be brought against him as no copy of the book could be found, tortures failing to extract information from suspects. He was banished to Africa, his property confiscated, and his original copy of the work was burnt by the public executioner. From the men of culture the new ideas filtered to the masses, transforming their minds by the creation of an ideal, which each one interpreted in accordance with his own talents, interests, or prejudices.

The Precursor of the Emancipation of South America.

During some years previously an ardent apostle of human liberty had wandered about the world. He was a dreamer with confused ideas and undisciplined attainments, a generous minded warrior, above all, a man of strong will. A soldier of Washington, a comrade of Lafayette, a general under Dumouriez,[3] a companion of Madame Roland in her prison, a confidant of Pitt in his schemes of insurrection in the colonies of Spanish America, distinguished by Catharine II. of Russia, whose favours he put aside in deference to his austere mission, looked upon by Napoleon as a lunatic with a spark of the sacred fire, Francisco Miranda, a native of Caracas, was the first to foresee the great destinies of republican America, and the first to raise the banner of freedom on the southern continent.

He it was who organised the revolutionary efforts of South Americans in Europe; establishing an understanding with the Creoles of the colonies. It was he who towards the close of the eighteenth century founded in London the political society, the “Gran Reunion Americana,” to which they were all affiliated. In this society were initiated in the mysteries of future liberty, O’Higgins of Chile, Nariño of New Granada, Montufar and Rocafuerte of Quito, Caro of Cuba, who represented the patriots of Peru, Alvear, an Argentine, and others who later on became illustrious. Here the two great liberators, Bolívar and San Martin, took an oath to work out the triumph of the cause of the emancipation of South America.

This society was the type of the secret societies which, transplanted to the theatre of action, impressed its seal upon the characters of those who directed the revolution of South America. They inoculated it with the true American idea, which, heedless of frontiers and disregarding all obstacles, looked upon the enslaved colonies as one, with one aspiration, with one love, and with one hatred of their common master. This gave cohesion to the revolution in America, and ensured triumph by the union of all forces to one common end. Here was the point of contact of all Creoles, wherever they might work for independence and for liberty. Here is the explanation of the identity of the original movements in spite of the isolation of each colony.

Miranda sought to interest the whole world in the cause of independence; chiefly he sought the help of England. Three times (1790—1801) he obtained a promise of moral and material support from Pitt, with the co-operation of the United States. European complications and the hesitation of the cabinet at Washington, prevented the fulfilment of these promises. In 1791 he published a letter to the Americans, in which he attacked the colonial system of Spain, declaring that nature had separated America from Spain by the interposition of the ocean, thus emancipating her sons from the mother country, and that they—

“Were free by natural right received from the Creator; that the moment had arrived for opening up a new era of prosperity; and with the aid of Providence, to raise up in America a grand family of brothers united by a common interest.”

Failing in his attempt to secure the help of England and the United States, Miranda ventured upon the enterprise by himself. In the year 1806 he made two attempts to kindle the fire of revolution in his native country. He landed on the mainland at Ocumare with two hundred men, and at Vela de Coro with five hundred. None responded to his call, but the cry was heard, and its echo resounded through two worlds.

England, on the death of Pitt, abandoning his projects for the emancipation of the colonies of Spanish America, attempted to conquer them for herself, and was twice defeated at Buenos Ayres in 1806 and 1807. Miranda was pleased at this defeat, and in 1808 wrote to congratulate the Cabildo of Buenos Ayres. At the same time he wrote to the Cabildo of Caracas, giving notice of the invasion of Spain by Napoleon, advising them to take charge of the government and to send deputies to London to arrange the future course of the New World. At the same time he published in London a pamphlet written in English by an Englishman, in which from the defeat of the English was drawn a lesson, based upon the opinion of General Auchmuty, that the Creoles would only make alliance with England on condition of their own independence. Miranda translated this pamphlet into Spanish, and added a sketch of a constitution for the new States proposed, the dominant idea of which was a federal republic on a basis of independent Cabildos.

As the victory of Buenos Ayres made a great noise in the world, and more especially in the hearts of Americans, this propaganda fell in with the new sentiment of nationality, disclosed in the words of Don Cornelio Saavedra in his address to the Patricios[4] of Buenos Ayres in 1807: “Those born in the Indies, whose spirits are undaunted, are in no way inferior to the Spaniards of Europe, and in valour give place to none.”

The Races of South America.—The Creole.

Five races, which for historic purposes may be looked upon as three only, peopled the Southern Continent at the outbreak of the War of Independence: the European Spaniards, the Spanish-American Creoles, and the half-breeds; also the indigenous Indians, and the negroes from Africa. The Spaniards formed a privileged class, and by reason of their origin enjoyed both political and social pre-eminence. The Indians and the negroes formed the servile class. The half-breeds, derived from a mixture of three races, formed an intermediate class, and in some places were in a large majority. The Creoles, direct descendants of Spaniards, of pure blood, but modified in character by contact with the half-breeds, were the true sons of the soil, and constituted the basis of society. Generally the most numerous, they were always the civilising force of the colony. They were the most energetic, the most intelligent and imaginative; and with all their inherited vices and their want of preparation for freedom, were the only ones animated by an innate sentiment of patriotism.

Those born in South America thus formed a race apart, an oppressed race, who saw in their ancestors and in their contemporaries not fathers and brothers, but masters. The colonial system placed, to a certain extent, all natives of the soil upon the same level, and drew a broad line of distinction between the Spanish-American colonists and their mother country. Spain, by reason of distance, yielded to her colonists greater freedom and more municipal rights than she gave to her own sons in their own land, but her absolute government could not bind her colonies to her by the tie of nationality. Men of Spanish birth looked upon the colonies as feudal territory, over which they, as beings of a superior race, were the natural lords, and thought that if only a shoemaker remained in Castile, this shoemaker had the right to govern all America.

The natural aspiration of slaves is for freedom, and that of oppressed races who know their own strength is to assume their place in the human family. In this double aspiration lay the germ of revolution in America. In 1780 the indigenous race under Tupac-Amarú, a descendant of the Incas, rose en masse in Peru against their oppressors, but were naturally defeated. They possessed no great social force, and did not represent the cause of civilized America. The day of the Creoles had not yet come, but they saw nothing to admire, to love, or to respect in Spain. An absolute King, generally an imbecile, was the sole point of contact between them. Their mother country was to them neither a country nor a mother. The instinct of independence became a passion, even more vehement in those who resided in Spain than in those who had never left their own hearths. Thus it was that the leaders who did most for the revolution came from Spain.

In the struggle each race took its own special part. The Creoles formed the vanguard and directed the movements. The indigenous races formed the first line in Mexico, but elsewhere they were only useful as auxiliaries. In South America the half-breeds formed the rank and file of the armies of the revolution. The Argentine gaucho, with the fatalism of the Arab and the strength of the Cossack, gave the type to the cavalry, renowned for the impetuosity of their charge from La Plata to Chimborazo. The llaneros[5] of Venezuela, half-breeds for the most part, formed the famous squadrons of Columbia, whose feats were celebrated from the Orinoco to Potosi. The rotos[6] of Chile, mostly of Indian blood, formed with Argentines in solid battalions, who measured their strength with Spanish regiments, victors over the soldiers of Napoleon in the Peninsula. The manumitted negroes gave their contingent to the American infantry, showing the warlike qualities of their race. In Upper Peru the indigenous races kept alive for ten years the flames of insurrection when the patriot armies were defeated. The cholos of the Highlands of Peru espoused the cause of the king, and were highly esteemed as infantry by the Spanish generals, more especially on account of the extraordinary rapidity of their marches.

The Creole of South America is a sturdy off-shoot of that civilizing Indo-European race to which is reserved the government of the world. It is his mission to complete the democratization of the American continent and to found a new order of things destined to live and progress. He has impressed the peculiarities of his character upon the new nationalities.

When the revolution broke out in 1810, it was said that South America would become English or French; when it triumphed, that the continent would sink back into barbarism. By the will and the work of the Creole, it became American, republican, and civilized.

The First Throes of Revolution.

The initial outbreaks of the year 1809, were in some parts of a more radical character than were those of the following year, when the first political formula of the rebellion was merely a demand for relative and provisional independence, for a compromise between democracy and monarchy upon the basis of autonomy.

The doctrine that on the disappearance of the monarch his sovereignty reverted to his people, was for the first time boldly proclaimed in Mexico. From this it was deduced that they had the right to appoint governing Juntas for their own security, and owed no allegiance to those established in Spain at the time of the French invasion. Hence arose disputes between the Creoles and the Spaniards, and between the Audiencia and the Viceroy, which at the end of 1809 changed the movement into a conspiracy for independence.

In Quito the commotion assumed more definite forms. The colonial authorities were overturned and a governing Junta was set up, which took to itself the attributes of sovereignty and raised troops for its own defence. They exhorted the peoples of America by a proclamation to follow the example, announcing that “law has resumed its authority under the equator,” and that “the rights of man were, by the disappearance of despotism, no longer at the mercy of arbitrary power.” The authors of this premature revolution were overcome and put to death in prison.

In Upper Peru, the city of Chuquisaca was the first to move. In May, 1809, the Creoles, at the instigation of the Audiencia, tumultuously deposed the constituted authorities, and set up an independent government. In July the city of La Paz followed the example. Under the name of the Junta Tuitiva, an independent government composed exclusively of Americans was established, which raised an army, and hung on a gallows those who denied its authority. Both these revolts were suppressed by the combined arms of the neighbouring Viceroyalties of Peru and La Plata. The leaders of the insurrection of La Paz died either on the field of battle or on the gallows. One of the latter before being thrown off cried out:—“The fire which I have lighted shall never be quenched.” Their heads and limbs were nailed to the posts which mark out the public roads in that country, but before they had rotted away the fire was again burning in Upper Peru.

By the quelling of these conspiracies it was thought that the danger was averted, but as was said by the Viceroy of Peru fifty years before, on the first revolt of the Comuneros of Paraguay, “it was but a covering up of the fire with ashes.”

The Growth of the Revolution.

In the year 1810 the drama of revolution unfolded itself upon a vast continental scene, with a unity of action which from the first attracted the attention of the world. All the Spanish American colonies with the exception of Lower Peru, arose in rebellion simultaneously, and proclaimed one political doctrine. Some historians have thought that this movement was the result of an external impulse, and that the subsequent separation was as the falling of unripe fruit. Others, better informed, look upon this separation as a necessity: “The union of Spain with America, possible under an absolute régime, was incompatible with representative government and with the political equality of the citizens.” The truth is that the South American revolution was inspired by an innate sentiment of patriotism, in obedience to conservative instinct, and by its nature tended to independence.

The divorce of the colonies from the mother country took place at a critical moment, when their union was hurtful to them both. If America was not prepared for self-government, and if her attempts at self-government almost exhausted the forces already weakened by the struggle, what would then have been her condition had she remained under the rule of unnatural laws which condemned her to a lingering death, a prey to vices inoculated by an evil system?

It cannot be denied that without the invasion of Spain by Napoleon in 1808, and the consequent disappearance of the dynasty of Spain, the revolution would have been delayed; but this does not imply that America was not ripe for emancipation, the opportunity was nothing more than the spark setting fire to the combustibles already prepared for burning.

The Provisional Government established in Spain anticipated the complaints of the colonists, and recognised by its acts the justice of their cause, fomenting their resistance as much by its concessions as by its refusals. The Regency of Cadiz called upon Americans to join the national Cortes, thus raising them to the rank of freemen, but at the same time gave them only one deputy, chosen by itself, for each million of inhabitants, while to the natives of the Peninsula, for the most part under the yoke of the foreigner, it gave one deputy for each hundred thousand. The essential difference lay in the divergence of their political opinions. The Regency maintained “The American dominions are an integral part of Spain,” from which it deduced the right of Spain to rule America in the absence of the sovereign. Americans, as we have already seen, maintained that the crown was the only link between them. Take away this fundamental divergence of opinion, and the reason for the revolution disappears, the insurrection loses its legality, and the question becomes one of national representation, having no relation either to independence or to autonomy.

The colonial authorities were deposed without resistance by the force of public opinion, and new ones were instituted without any rupture of relations with the mother country, though all foresaw the logical end of the process. In answer to this moderate policy, the Regency refused to the colonies that freedom of trade which it had proposed to give them, avoided the mediation of England, and, without attempting to arrive peacefully at an understanding, stigmatised the Americans as rebels and declared war against them, punishing as high treason in them that which the Spaniards themselves had done in Spain. It was then (1811) that Venezuela declared herself independent, and gave herself a republican constitution.

South America was ill-prepared for the struggle; she had neither soldiers nor politicians, she had to improvise all she needed. Spain in alliance with England and supported by the first nations of the world, was mistress of the seas, her armies triumphant in Europe, were stronger than before the French invasion, nevertheless South America unaided accepted the challenge, and triumphed all alone.

The meeting of the Cortes and the promulgation of the Constitution of 1812, instead of reconciling the mother country with her colonies, fanned the flames of insurrection, and by concessions encouraged the spirit of independence. When in 1814 the King was restored, America was still governed in his name, and the movement having been crushed in Venezuela the revolution was placed in a false position. The refusal of America to surrender without conditions to absolute power, was replied to by the proclamation of a war of reconquest, and amicable arrangement was no longer possible.

In 1820 despotism triumphed in Europe under the banners of absolute kings allied against the liberties of the people, but in South America the cause of independence, fostered by the example of the United States, was successful. From this epoch the reaction of American thought is felt in the Parliament of England, and influences even Spain herself, where the armies collected to stamp out revolution in America, turn against the absolute king and re-establish a constitutional régime. This is a critical moment: upon the triumph or the defeat of revolution in South America depend the destinies of two worlds.

Five years later on, victory crowned her efforts, America is republican, independent, and free. From this moment the current of history, which has for three centuries carried despotism from the East to the West, now turns back; the action of the principles of American regeneration flows from West to East and spreads over Europe until stopped by the barrier of Islamism. Greece cries out for emancipation, and Europe instead of joining to crush her aspirations, runs to help her. Portugal becomes free by the example and influence of her American colonies, who send back to her her absolute kings, transformed into constitutional rulers. In France the revolution of 1789 revives in a compromise between monarchy and a republic, its champions being a comrade of Washington and an emigrant prince who had studied American democracy at close quarters. Take away the South American revolution of the year ’10, suppose it to be suppressed in 1820, or eliminate the final triumph of 1825, and the republic of the United States remains the sole representative of liberty; and the world, even with the help of free England, lies grovelling under the sway of absolutism.

Attempts at Monarchy in South America.

Had the idea of Aranda been adopted in 1783, it is probable that a bastard monarchy would have been established in America, upon which time would have impressed the seal of democracy. Had the King of Spain removed his throne to America in 1808, as did he of Portugal, it is possible that the course of the revolution might have been changed under dynastic auspices, delaying the advent of the republic and perchance accelerating constitutional stability. These two opportunities being lost, the revolution could only develop in accordance with its own nature and become essentially a republican movement.

The Pilgrim Fathers of New England and the Quakers of Pennsylvania carried with them the seed of republicanism. The Cavaliers who colonized Virginia became republicans by founding a new country of a distinct type, which produced Washington. The Spanish colonists of South America brought with them no such ideas but only germs of individualism, from which time developed desires for independence and for equality. The indigenous races knew nothing of any form of government except monarchy. The Creoles were born republicans. The idea of establishing a monarchy never sprang from a Creole brain, and when proposed was looked upon by them only as a compromise or as an artificial expedient when it was not folly. In 1808 the English constitution was the ideal of thinkers trained in the school of Montesquieu. In 1810 the social contract of Rousseau was their gospel, and the revolution of that year assumed spontaneously a popular form, producing municipal republics, whereby the course of opinion became exclusively democratic.

When early reverses damped the republican hopes of Argentine leaders, they looked to the establishment of a monarchy under the protection of the Great Powers as a means of securing independence and constitutional freedom. In 1814 it was proposed to crown an Infante of Spain King of La Plata. In 1816 that same Congress which declared the independence of the Argentine Provinces, embraced the idea of crowning a descendant of the Incas at Cuzco, and uniting Peru and the River Plate under his rule, a proposition quenched in ridicule. The same Congress, in 1819, after swearing to and promulgating a republican constitution, sought in Europe for a king, lowering their character in the eyes of the world, and bringing accusations of treachery upon themselves from their own countrymen.

This reaction took place precisely at the time when the perseverance of the republicans had gained for them universal sympathy, when the United States threw her shield over the infant peoples to protect them from the attacks of the Holy Alliance, and when England, after declaring that she would not recognise “the revolutionary governments of America,” became convinced of her mistake. The agents of this policy were men such as Rivadavia, who stands in America second alone to Washington as the representative statesman of a free people; such as Belgrano, the type of republican virtue; and such as San Martin, who, a republican at heart, had no faith in democracy, yet founded republics which by natural law became democracies. When San Martin ignored this law, his career as a liberator came to an end. So also, later on, fell Bolívar in the attempt to convert democracy into monocracy. The only American liberator who in his folly crowned himself emperor—Iturbide in Mexico—died on the scaffold, a presage of the sad end of another emperor, whose corpse was sent back to Europe as a protest against the imposition of monarchy.

The Empire of Brazil is apparently a proof of the possibility of establishing monarchy in America, but the contrary is the fact. Brazil is a democratic empire, founded upon the principle of the sovereignty of the people, without any privileged class or hereditary nobility, and has nothing monarchical about it except the name.

Retrospection.

When the war was over and the continent at peace, Bolívar exclaimed, “I blush to say it, independence is the only good we have achieved at the cost of all else.” Even at this price independence was solid gain, for it was life. The continuance of the colonial system was death by decomposition. Independence was, moreover, the establishment of the democratic republic, a system under which all losses may be retrieved. South America has no reason to complain of the task allotted to her in working out the destiny of humanity.

In the first decade of this century the republic of the United States was a sun without satellites. The apparition of a group of new nations from the colonial nebula of the South, formed, for the first time in the political world, a planetary system of republics governed by natural laws. An entire continent, almost one half the globe, extending from pole to pole and washed by the two greatest of the oceans, became republican.

At that time there were but two republics in the world—in Europe, Switzerland; in America, the United States. The influence of the latter was not yet felt, but the new system of republics soon became a power of the first rank.

The republics of South America were strong enough to conquer their independence, but they lacked the elements of self-government. They had passed at one bound from slavery to freedom, and it took them more than one generation to eradicate evils produced by three centuries of misgovernment. In the war they had expended not only their blood, their treasure, and their vital energy, but also their intellectual strength. Wealth came to them with independence, but the want of the elements of self-government made them an easy prey to anarchy and despotism, from which the conservative instinct at length saved them. Still they suffer the evils of inexperience, but nothing is lost while republican institutions, the great work of the revolution, are preserved.

No people so ill-prepared for the change could have done better. Even the United States passed through a critical period of transition, which imperilled their existence as an organised nation. The republics of South America have suffered greatly from misgovernment, but the instincts of the people have ever been superior to the incapacity of their rulers. Had they continued subject to Spain, they would have died of inanition; had the English invasion been successful, they might now be colonies of England, such as Australia and Canada, and might possibly be richer in material wealth than they are, but they would not be independent nations, charged with the mission of creating new elements of progress; they would but feebly reflect a far-off light. South America would but exist as an appendage of Europe, and Europe would be subject to the Holy Alliance of absolute kings.

If South America has not realised all the hopes awakened by the revolution, still it cannot be said that she has faltered in her course. She has resolved for herself the problem of life, educated herself in the hard school of experience, and by sorrow has purged away her vices. Giving the lie to sinister presage, which condemned her to absorption by inferior races, the energetic Creole has assimilated them, giving them freedom and dignity, or, when necessary, has suppressed them. With help from the most superior races of the world, acclimatized upon her hospitable shores, the reins of government have been secured to him. Her regenerated population doubles itself in twenty or thirty years; before the end of the next century South America will number four hundred millions of freemen, North America five hundred millions, and all America will be Republican and Democratic.

To these great results, following the example of Washington and equal to Bolívar, will have contributed, with such talents as he possessed, the founder of three republics, the emancipator of one-half of South America, whose history will now be told.

CHAPTER II.
SAN MARTIN IN EUROPE AND IN AMERICA.
1778—1812.

JOSE DE SAN MARTIN was born on the 25th February, 1778, at the town of Yapeyu in Misiones, and was the fourth son of Captain Don Juan de San Martin who was at that time Lieutenant-Governor of the Department of Yapeyu. When he was eight years old the family went to Spain, and he became a pupil in the Seminary of Nobles at Madrid, where he remained only two years, and learned little beyond the rudiments of mathematics and something of drawing. Before he was twelve years old, he joined the “Murcia” regiment as a cadet. The uniform of this regiment was white and blue, the same colours the mature soldier afterwards carried in triumph over half a continent.

His first campaign was in Africa, where he received his baptism of fire in battle against the Moors. When in garrison at Oran in 1791, the city, at that time besieged by the Moors, was destroyed by an earthquake. In 1793 he joined the army of Aragon, and served under Ricardos against the republicans of France on their own territory. This experience was of great value to him, as Ricardos was the best tactician among the Spanish generals of that day. After two successful actions at Masden and Truilles, Ricardos was forced to retire to the foot of the mountains, where he maintained his position for twenty days against the constant attacks of the enemy, and San Martin so distinguished himself that he was promoted to the rank of sub-lieutenant.

In the following May, after the death of Ricardos, the “Murcia” formed part of the garrison of Port Vendres, which, after beating off two attacks of the French, was forced to retreat to Collioure and there surrendered. San Martin gained another step by his conduct in these affairs.

In 1795 the peace of Basilea freed the young lieutenant from his parole. In the following year his father died, and the treaty of San Ildefonso brought Spain as an ally of the French republic into collision with Great Britain. On the 14th February, 1797, the “Murcia,” on board the Spanish Mediterranean squadron, took part in the disastrous affair off Cape Saint Vincent. On the 15th August, 1798, San Martin was marine officer on the Santa Dorotea, when that ship was captured after a desperate defence, by the English 64-gun ship Lion, and being thus for the second time debarred from active service, he devoted his leisure to the study of mathematics and drawing.

In the year 1800 at the head of a company of his old regiment, he took part in the serio-comic war with Portugal known as the “War of the Oranges,” and was present at the siege of Olivenza. After the Peace of Amiens in 1802, his regiment was employed in the blockade of Gibraltar and Ceuta, and in 1804 we find him in garrison at Cadiz, as second captain of a light infantry regiment, where his conduct during a pestilence was as honourable to him as had been his conduct in the field.

By the Treaty of Fontainebleau, in 1807, France and Spain divided Portugal and her colonies between them, and a column of 6,000 Spanish troops under Solano invaded Portugal. The regiment to which San Martin was attached, captured the town of Yelves, but took no further part in the campaign.

The émeute of the 2nd May at Madrid, gave the signal for an outbreak of popular indignation, against the usurpations of Napoleon. The news reached the army of Solano when on the march for Cadiz. Solano was at first undecided what course to adopt, but his appointment as Captain-General of Andalucia and Governor of Cadiz being confirmed by the French, he on the 28th May issued a proclamation condemning the insurrection. The people flocked in crowds to the palace, shouting for an immediate attack upon the French squadron lying in the harbour; in the confusion some shots were fired. San Martin, who was officer of the guard, withdrew his troops into the house and closed the door. It was blown in by a cannon-shot, but time had been gained for the escape of Solano across the roof to a neighbouring house, where, however, he was soon afterwards found and cruelly butchered.

This tragedy was never effaced from the memory of San Martin, and without doubt greatly affected his policy on many subsequent occasions. In spite of his love of liberty he ever after looked with horror upon mobs, and upon governments who relied upon them. He considered that intelligence supported by orderly strength should hold the government of the world. Nevertheless his reason and his heart must have told him that the cause of Spain was just, and that the executions on the Prado of Madrid on the 2nd May were more barbarous and less justifiable than was the murder of Solano.

About this time it is said that Miranda visited Cadiz in disguise, but for this report we can find no foundation. He was the founder and organiser of the secret societies to which South Americans throughout Europe were already affiliated, but Spain was the last country in Europe in which such societies were established. Cadiz being the one port open to American trade, became naturally at this time the centre of the revolutionary propaganda.

In the early years of the nineteenth century an association styled “Sociedad de Lautaro,” or “Caballeros Racionales,” had ramifications all over Spain, and was affiliated with the “Gran Reunion Americana” established in London by Miranda. This society had in Cadiz alone in the year 1808 more than forty members, some of them grandees of Spain. Those of the first grade were pledged to work for the independence of America; those of the second swore “to recognise no government in America as legitimate unless it was elected by the free and spontaneous will of the people, and to work for the foundation of the republican system.” Of this society San Martin became a member. An American by birth, a revolutionist by instinct, and a republican by conviction, he was, perchance, without knowing it, an adept of Miranda, and was destined to make the dream of the master a reality, when the bones of that master lay rotting on the mud banks upon which his eye might at this time often rest.

At the same time with San Martin three other members joined the lodge; Alvear, who was his confidant till he became jealous of his fame; José Miguel Carrera, who was to die cursing him; and, most modest of all, the naval lieutenant Matias Zapiola, who was afterwards his right arm on many a hard-fought field. San Martin was the least brilliant and the poorest of them all; his comrades recognised the superiority of his talents as a soldier, and said that he did the thinking for them all, but in the great revolutionary drama that all foresaw they assigned to him only the place of a stern warrior; Alvear and Carrera, the most arrogant and the most ambitious, were to be the heroes.

The general rising in Spain found San Martin in his place as an officer of light infantry under the command of Colonel Menacho. He was soon promoted, and his regiment joined the second division of the army of Andalucia, commanded by the Marquis of Coupigni. When the French under Dupont crossed the Sierra Morena, he was placed in charge of the line of the Guadalquivir. On the 28th June, 1808, he led a mixed column against the advanced guard of the enemy, and charged a detachment of cavalry with such impetuosity at the head of twenty-one hussars, that he killed seventeen of the enemy, took four prisoners and all their horses, and retired in triumph, in the face of very superior numbers. This action was greatly applauded by the whole army, a badge of honour was given to all who charged with him, and he was appointed captain in the Bourbon regiment “on account of distinguished conduct in the action at Argonilla.”

This small triumph was the precursor of one of the greatest victories of the epoch. Before one month had elapsed, the imperial eagles of Napoleon were beaten by an army of recruits inspired by patriotism, and Captain San Martin was mentioned with distinction in the order of the day of the battle of Baylen.

The road to Madrid being opened by this victory the army of Andalucia entered the capital in triumph, and San Martin received, with his commission as lieutenant-colonel, a gold medal for his conduct in the battle.

He was afterwards present at the disaster of Tudela, and in the retreat to Cadiz, and in 1810 was appointed aide-de-camp to the Marquis of Coupigni. In 1811 he took part in the bloody battle of Albuera, where the French were defeated by an allied army under General Beresford, the same who five years previously had capitulated to Liniers at Buenos Ayres. The same year he joined the Sagunto regiment, the escutcheon of which was a sun with this motto “Hœ nubila tolunt obstantia solvens”—dissipates clouds and removes obstacles. This was the last Spanish standard under which San Martin fought, and its symbol was identical with that of the flag of the as yet unthought of army of the Andes.

The prophecy of the dying Pitt was realised. Napoleon had stirred up against himself a national war and was irremediably lost. Spain allied with Great Britain, in saving herself, saved Europe from his brutal domination, and the American Creole having paid with usury his debt to the mother country could now honourably leave her. San Martin had fought under her flag for twenty years, he had seen the strategy of great generals, had learned the tactics of every arm in the service; the pupil was now a master able to give lessons. He turned his eyes to his own country, and seeing her in difficulty resolved to return and consecrate his life to her service.

The confidant of his projects and sentiments on this occasion was a singular personage. Lord Macduff, afterwards Earl of Fife, was a Scotch noble descended from that Shakespearean hero who slew Macbeth. He was in Vienna when the Spanish insurrection broke out in 1808, he came over at once and enlisted as a simple volunteer. As such he took part in most of the great battles of the time, in one of which he was seriously wounded, and was given the rank of a General of Spain for his services. Then it was that San Martin and Macduff became acquainted; their generous natures had a profound sympathy each for the other, their friendship was enhanced by the dangers they shared, and continued so long as both lived. By his help and by the interposition of Sir Charles Stuart, a diplomatic agent in Spain, San Martin obtained a passport for London, and received from his friend letters of introduction, and letters of credit of which he made no use.

In London he met his comrades Alvear and Zapiola, and other South Americans who were there at the time. All belonged to the secret society founded in London by Miranda, in which Bolívar had just taken the oath, before leaving for Venezuela in company with the illustrious master. San Martin and his two comrades were initiated in the fifth and last grade, and in January, 1812, embarked on the George Canning for the River Plate. On the 9th March they reached Buenos Ayres, accompanied by various officers who came to offer their swords in the cause of independence.

The moment was a critical one in the history of the American revolution; the serious work was just commencing; the real struggle between Patriots and Royalists was yet to come, and the discordance of the various elements of society only now became apparent.

The Argentine revolution had provoked insurrection in Chile, both by diplomacy and by example. Her first army of volunteers had marched to Upper Peru with the object of striking the enemy in the centre of his power; and in November, 1810, had won the first victory of the war at Suipacha, but was eight months later defeated at Huaqui, and compelled to retreat to Tucuman. Buenos Ayres had attempted to gain command of the rivers by arming a small squadron, which was destroyed by the enemy in the Paraná. A Portuguese army of four thousand men held the line of the Uruguay. Paraguay had commenced a system of isolation, almost of hostility.

The movement in Chile, at first successful, was in 1812 threatened by an expedition from Peru, and the young Republic unfortunately put her trust in José Miguel Carrera, who, with some attractive qualities, possessed no solid talents, either military or political.

In this same month of March an earthquake destroyed the city of Caracas. Reaction triumphed over Miranda in Venezuela; only in New Granada did the revolutionary cause maintain a footing for some time longer. In 1815 all the insurrections in South America had been suppressed, save only the Argentine revolution, which was never overpowered.

Meantime the viceroyalty of Peru, holding a central position, with a strong army and the command of the sea, was the centre of reaction; and the masses of the people not yet implicated in the revolution, began to look unfavourably upon it, as their eyes were opened to the perils it invoked and to the sacrifices it involved.

The Argentine revolution had as yet no fixed plan. In so rudimentary a state of society the actual leaders had but little power to direct the latent strength of the people, and even among themselves opinions were divided, some believing that the centralisation of power in the city of Buenos Ayres was the only means of ensuring the success of the revolutionary movement, while to others decentralization seemed the one necessary condition of national life. The revolution arose in the cities; its legality was based upon municipal rights, and could not long maintain its original form. It could only live by a wider popularity based upon the sovereignty of the people at large. Fortunately the men at this time at the helm were the most intelligent, energetic, and foreseeing who ever acted together on this stage.

The first Executive Government, installed on the 25th May, 1810, was a Junta, in imitation of those established in Spain to resist the domination of the French. Modified a year later by the admission of deputies from the provinces, it became a many-headed monster, useless alike for debate and for administration. It was succeeded by a Triumvirate under the name of “The Executive Government,” which, by the aid of those men, saved the State from shipwreck.

Such was the situation of The United Provinces of the River Plate when San Martin landed on Argentine soil.

Twenty-six years before, while yet a child, he had left his native land; now he returned in the ripeness of manhood, tempered in the struggles of life, tutored in the art of war, initiated in the mysteries of secret societies formed for the propagation of the new ideas of liberty. The new champion brought to the American cause tactics and discipline applied both to politics and to war; and, in embryo, a vast plan for a continental campaign which should embrace half a world and should result in its independence.

It has been said that San Martin was not a man but a mission, and, in truth, seldom has the influence of one man upon the destinies of humanity been greater than was his. He was at once the arm and the head of the Argentine hegemony; he combined the evolutions of armies with those of nations, marking each evolution with some achievement either political or military; obtained great results with the least possible means, and without waste of strength; and showed how a people may be redeemed without being oppressed. His character is even yet an historical enigma.

The grandeur of those whose names attain immortality is measured not so much by their deeds or by their talents as by the effect their memory has upon the consciences of men, causing them to vibrate from one generation to another in sympathy with an idea or with a passion. The moral grandeur of San Martin consists in this: that nothing is known of the secret ambitions of his life; that he was in everything disinterested; that he confined himself strictly to his mission; and that he died in silence, showing neither weakness, pride, nor bitterness at seeing his work triumphant and his part in it forgotten.

San Martin was a man of stalwart frame; his face was the reflex of his mind, a fiery spirit hidden under a studious reserve of manner, which at times exploded. His head, which was of medium size, he carried very erect. His thick black hair he always wore cut short; the straight high forehead indicated the presence of a strong and healthy brain. The darkness of his complexion was deepened by exposure; his large black eyes were fringed by long lashes and overhung by heavy eyebrows, which met when he frowned; these eyes were the characteristic feature of his face, disclosing the intensity of his nature, but hiding his purpose. His nose was long, aquiline, and prominent; mouth small, with firm red lips; teeth strong and white. His chin and jaw showed strength of will and the absence of animal passions. His voice was rough, his gestures simple, and his whole person inspired at once respect and sympathy.[7]

San Martin gave verbal orders with great precision, and in ordinary conversation was fond of a joke. He wrote laconically in a style of his own, and was much given to reading French authors. Very reserved and of warm affections, he was a great observer of men, studying how he might best avail himself of such talents as they possessed. Haughty by nature, unobtrusive both by temperament and by system, he forced upon himself a stoical disregard of injuries. He was studiously moderate, and patient in the elaboration of his plans. A slave to duty himself, he was tolerant of human frailty in others, but could be severe when severity was requisite. He was, as with truth and with posthumous justice he has been styled by Vicuña Mackenna, “the greatest of the Creoles of the New World.”

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CHAPTER III.
THE LAUTARO LODGE.
1812—1813.

THE Provisional Junta, which was established at Buenos Ayres on the 25th May, 1810, was a simple evolution of historic and municipal rights, and was legalised by the election of deputies to it from the Cabildos. This body was subsequently reconstructed, but this measure and the creation of Provincial Juntas were retrograde movements, arising from a latent tendency to decentralisation, in which lay the germ of the federal system of a later day. The next step was the creation of a Triumvirate, which, being a more centralised form of government, responded to the immediate needs of the revolution, and was a necessity of the time.

In the Junta the conservative and revolutionary elements of society were both represented, but the Triumvirate represented no party, and was merely an anonymous Dictator. The revolution had as yet no defined policy, and thus afforded no basis for the development of the democratic idea.

A Legislative Assembly was convened, formed of deputies from the various provinces, which drew up a constitution which virtually gave back the executive power to the Cabildos. This Assembly was dissolved by the Triumvirate, a measure greatly applauded by the public, but which attacked the fundamental principle of government.

The Triumvirate then drew up and decreed a constitution of its own, providing for the periodical election of the Executive by a mixed assembly of notables and of representatives of different towns, who should also act as a legislative council until the convention of a National Congress.

These measures were far from satisfying the requirements of the democratic party, who called for the immediate convocation of a National Congress, which would give form and life to the Republic, though government was still carried on in the name of the King. The Triumvirate opposed the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, considering the time for this had not yet come. Hence came about a fourth political evolution, more dangerous and more important than any of the others.

San Martin returned to his native country a man unknown, but with a certain repute as a brave soldier and a skilful tactician. His comrade, Alvear, on the contrary, came of a family already well known in the River Plate. Ambitious of glory and of power, and of a brilliant imagination, he was a great contrast to San Martin, and assumed an attitude of protection to him, recommending him to the Government of the United Provinces as a good soldier.

Eight days after his arrival San Martin was confirmed in his rank as a lieutenant-colonel, and was entrusted with the organization of a squadron of cavalry, in which Alvear held the rank of major and Zapiola that of captain. This was the origin of the famous regiment of mounted grenadiers, which fought in all the battles of the War of Independence, which gave to America nineteen generals and more than two hundred officers, and of which, after shedding its blood and spreading its bones across the continent from La Plata to Pichincha, a remnant returned under the command of a trooper who in thirteen years had fought his way up to the rank of colonel, and brought back their old standard with them.

The experience of San Martin in Spain had taught him that success is not possible in a long war without a solid military organization. He had seen the Spanish armies, ever routed in spite of their heroism, when remoulded under English discipline triumph over the first soldiers of Europe. He knew that Spain, once free from war in the Peninsula, would send her best troops and her best generals to America. Coolly he studied the situation, and came to the conclusion that the war was but commencing, that the armies of the revolution had no consistence, that there was no plan of operations and no preparation for future emergencies. He said nothing of this publicly, but quietly set to work to found a new military school. Under his command the first squadron of the mounted grenadiers became the school of a generation of heroes. He did as Cromwell did in his day; he made one regiment the model for an army. Under strict discipline, which did not repress individual energy, he formed soldier and officer alike, one by one, instilling into them a passion for duty and that cool courage which is the secret of success.

His first work was to instruct the officers, who under his guidance became the monitors of the future school. To the companions of his voyage he added men who had already seen service in the war, preferring those who had risen from the ranks, but took none of higher rank than lieutenant. To them he added cadets, chosen from respectable families of the city of Buenos Ayres. He was their master both in tactics and in the use of arms, and taught them both to study and to manœuvre with heads erect. Their nerves he tried by nocturnal surprises, those who failed being dismissed, as he wished “to have only lions in the regiment.”

He also established a sort of vigilance committee among them, and in extreme cases gave permission to fight duels. On the first Sunday in each month he presided at a meeting of this committee. In an adjoining room each officer wrote on a blank ticket an account of any misconduct he had observed. These tickets were folded and dropped into the hat of the Major, and were then inspected by himself. If among them was any accusation, the accused was sent from the room while the matter was discussed. A committee of inquiry was named and directed to report at a special meeting, where each officer gave his opinion in writing, and a secret ballot decided whether the accused should remain in the corps or not. In the first case the president, in the name of the committee and in their presence, gave a full apology to the accused; in the second, a special committee was appointed to wait upon him and procure his resignation, he being at the same time notified that if he continued to wear the uniform he would be forcibly stripped of it by the first officer he met.

This tribunal had a concise and severe code which classified transgressions worthy of punishment, from the act of ducking the head in danger to that of refusing to fight a duel, be it just or unjust; also striking a woman, even if insulted by her; and included all sorts of personal misconduct.

The troopers were all carefully selected, short men not being admitted. He subjected them to strict discipline, and armed them with the long sabre of Napoleon’s cuirassiers, telling them that with this weapon they could split like a melon the head of any Goth[8] they met. In their first skirmish they gave practical proof of the truth of this lesson. Finally, he gave to each trooper a war-name, forbidding him to answer to any other.

Other squadrons were formed on the model of this one till a regiment was embodied, and Government sent San Martin his commission as colonel with these words:—

“Government sends you a commission as colonel of the mounted grenadiers, and hopes that by the continuance of your steadiness and zeal you may present the country with a corps capable alone of securing the liberties of your fellow-citizens.”

Meantime San Martin had married Doña Maria de los Remedios Escalada, a beautiful girl of one of the first families of the city.

San Martin made no pretence of being a politician, but among friends he spoke plainly his opinions:—

“Until now the United Provinces have fought for no one knows what, without a flag, and without any avowed principles to explain the origin and tendency of the insurrection. We must declare ourselves independent if we wish to be known and respected.”

With these ideas he did not hesitate to join those who desired the convocation of a Constituent Congress, but he saw the necessity of establishing some powerful nucleus of political force which should bring superior intelligence to influence popular movements, preparing among a few that which should be the apparent will of all. This idea he, aided by Alvear, carried into effect by the installation of the celebrated secret society known as The Lautaro Lodge, which exercised so great and so mysterious an influence upon the destinies of the revolution.

This Lodge was established in Buenos Ayres about the middle of the year 1812. Its members were of all political parties, but the majority were of the party at that time dominant in the State. The society was organised in various grades; in the first, neophytes were initiated according to the ritual of the Masonic lodges which were introduced into Buenos Ayres prior to the outbreak of the revolution; in the higher grades they were initiated into the higher purposes of the society, and behind these was hidden the central lodge (Logia Matriz), in which lay the supreme power of the society.

The declared object of the Lodge was:—

“To work systematically for the independence and happiness of America, proceeding with honour and justice.”

Thus membership was exclusively confined to men of American birth. By its constitution, if any of the brotherhood was elected supreme ruler of the State, he could take no important step without consulting the Lodge; he could not appoint a diplomatic agent, general-in-chief, governor of a province, judge of an upper court, high church dignitary, nor general officers, and could not punish any member of the brotherhood, by his own authority. It was a law of the Society that all members should mutually assist each other in all the exigencies of civil life; that at the risk of life they should uphold the decrees of the Lodge; and should inform it of anything which could influence public opinion, or affect the public security. To reveal the secret of the existence of the Lodge “by word or by sign” was punishable by death by such means “as might be found convenient.” This penalty, was, however, only intended to have a moral effect. By an addition to the constitution, it was arranged that when any brother of the Logia Matriz was named general of an army or governor of a province, he should have power to establish an affiliated society, with a smaller number of members.

The Society failed to secure the adhesion of the members of the then Government, but most of the popular leaders joined the Lodge, and its ramifications soon extended to all classes, the most notable adherent being Dr. Don Bernardo Monteagudo, who had great influence among the younger citizens.

Very exaggerated ideas have been held as to the influence of the Lautaro Lodge. Events have been attributed to its action and it has been held responsible for executions and crimes with which the Society had nothing whatever to do. It has been made the scapegoat of all the mistakes and errors of the epoch. The Lodge of Lautaro was not a machine of government or of speculative propaganda, it was an engine of revolution, of war against a common enemy, and of defence against internal dangers. In this sense it greatly contributed to give tone and direction to the revolution, concentrating the forces of government, giving unity and regularity to political evolutions, and a vigorous impulse to military operations. Under its auspices was created the first popular Assembly which gave form to the sovereignty of the people; to it was due that spirit of propaganda which characterized the Argentine revolution, and the maintenance of the alliance with Chile, which gave independence to half the continent; but there was danger in the secrecy of its debates, and in the irresponsibility of its collective power, which was manifest when it became a tool in the hands of personal ambition. The limited sphere in which its influence was felt proves that the Argentine revolution was impelled by forces of much greater power, and obeyed general laws over which it had no control.

The Portuguese army, then holding the left bank of the Uruguay, had agreed to retire within the frontier in pursuance of an armistice arranged, on the 26th May, 1812, by the interposition of the English minister, between the United Provinces and the Court of Rio Janeiro. The Spanish flag yet floated on the walls of Monte Video, but the road was now open and a strong patriot army was concentrated on the right bank of the Uruguay.

In Buenos Ayres public spirit revived on the discovery of a vast conspiracy of European Spaniards under Alzaga, which was to have broken out on the 5th July, in concert with the forces in Monte Video and the Spanish squadron in the roadstead, aided by the Portuguese army, which had not yet retired. The Triumvirate punished the conspirators with great severity, and the base of operations was solidly secured.

In the North the situation was less promising. The Royalist army, after completing the subjugation of Upper Peru, advanced in triumph to the heart of the United Provinces, and invaded the Province of Tucuman. The relics of the Patriot army were in retreat, under command of Belgrano, and it was only hoped that they might reach Cordoba in safety. At this critical juncture Belgrano, disregarding the positive orders of Government, turned on the enemy, who were double in number to his own forces, and completely routed them on the 24th September, near to the city of Tucuman, capturing flags and cannon, and thus saved the Argentine revolution.

By the constitution drawn up by the Triumvirate, it was established that one of their number should retire every six months. On the expiration of the first six months, they convened another Assembly to elect one in place of the outgoing Triumvir. This Assembly, repeating the errors of the previous one, took upon itself the attributes of a representative body. Government dissolved it as it had the former one, and called upon Don Juan Martin Pueyrredon to fill the vacant chair; but the national spirit was no longer confined within the limits of the municipality of Buenos Ayres, and demanded the immediate convocation of a National Congress, elected by the people. The Triumvirate proposed that a third Assembly should devote itself to drawing up a plan for the election of the Congress. This Assembly accordingly met on the 6th October, in the midst of the excitement caused by the news of the victory of Tucuman, and elected as Triumvir a nominee of the Executive. Public opinion saw in this only a continuance of the provisional system and was greatly incensed, both against the Triumvirate and against the Assembly.

Behind the popular movement was the Lautaro Lodge under the direction of Monteagudo, who secured the concurrence of San Martin and his grenadiers, as also that of Alvear. This movement was much more carefully prepared than that of the 25th May, 1810, or than that of the 5th and 6th April, 1811. The leaders drew up a plan of operations, defining the parts to be played by the people, by the corporations, and by the troops. They chose beforehand the members of the future Government, and even made a programme of the policy they should pursue.

At half-past eleven on the night of the 7th October the troops of the garrison commenced to defile into the Plaza Victoria, and took up positions in front of the Cabildo. The grenadiers, with sabres sheathed, were headed by San Martin and Alvear; after them came Colonel Ortiz Ocampo with the 2nd regiment, and Lieutenant-Colonel Pinto with the cavalry. At daybreak on the 8th, the bell of the municipality was rung and the people commenced to assemble. Soon three hundred persons, among whom were the principal members of the religious orders, occupied the galleries of the Chamber and presented to the Cabildo a petition with more than three hundred signatures, asking—

“Under protection of the military for the suspension of the Assembly and the deposition of the Triumvirate, so that the Cabildo, reassuming the authority delegated to it by the people on the 22nd May, 1810, might immediately create a new Executive encharged to convene a truly national Assembly.”

The Cabildo acceded to everything, declaring by proclamation that the Assembly when convened should have supreme power within limits defined by the towns, in order to draw up a Constitution. They also appointed an executive, consisting of Don Juan José Passo, Don Nicolas Rodriguez Peña, and Don Antonio Alvarez Jonte, under the rules of the Provisional Statute. All which was submitted to the people and approved of by acclamation.

This revolution, which was municipal in its form, was essentially national and democratic in its tendency. The principle of the sovereignty of the people was recognised by calling a general Congress; the old traditions, which gave supremacy to the capital, were set aside; and the first bold step was taken in the path of independence.

The new Triumvirate lost no time in setting about their appointed task; the Constituent Assembly was speedily convened, the victorious army of Tucuman was strongly reinforced, and another army was despatched to besiege Monte Video.

Thus in the space of seven months from the arrival of San Martin in Buenos Ayres the aspect of affairs was completely changed. Government was consolidated, its policy defined, public spirit was aroused, and the revolution, with two armies, boldly displayed the flag of independence. But the military situation was precarious, everything depended upon the result of a battle.

Monte Video was a fortress of the second class, was defended by 335 guns, of which 175 were in battery, was garrisoned by more than 3,000 troops and by 2,000 militia, and was further protected by a squadron of 14 ships of war, mounting 210 guns, and by a flotilla, while the United Provinces had not even a gunboat. Here was the centre of reaction and the natural base for any expedition from the Peninsula, while the state of relations with Brazil increased the danger from this quarter.

The Royalist army, beaten at Tucuman, had been strongly reinforced, and lay entrenched at Salta, waiting the arrival of another army from Upper Peru.

Government summoned a council of military chiefs—of whom San Martin was one—and of influential citizens, to aid the Cabildo in devising measures to meet these threatening dangers. It was decided that Monte Video must be taken at any cost, and that Belgrano should be instructed to drive the enemy from Salta, in order to open the road to the centre of the Spanish power at Lima.

CHAPTER IV.
SAN LORENZO.
1813—1814.

ON the 31st December, 1812, the vanguard of the army sent against Monte Video, under the command of Colonel Rondeau, completely defeated a strong sortie of the garrison and laid siege to the city.

On the 31st January, 1813, the general Constituent Assembly met in Buenos Ayres. The majority were members of the Lautaro Lodge, so there was no longer that anarchy of opinion which had neutralized the former Assemblies. For the moment it fulfilled popular aspirations; the nominal sovereignty of the King of Spain was eclipsed, his name disappeared for ever from public documents, the escutcheons of Spain were torn down, titles of nobility, the Inquisition, and judicial torture were abolished. The effigy of former monarchs was substituted on coins by the seal of the United Provinces—a sun with rays and a Phrygian cap, within a wreath of laurel. The colours of the Spanish flag were replaced by the blue and white of the Patriot cockade, and the last link with the mother country was broken by declaring the supremacy of the National Courts of Law. Everything was reformed, even to the prayers of the priests and the songs of the people, who now in inspired verse saluted,

“A new and glorious Nation,
With a conquered lion at her feet.”[9]

So was inaugurated the sovereignty of the Argentine people; a formal Declaration of Independence was now all that was wanting for the establishment of a republic.

The armies in the field swore obedience to the Assembly and marched with enthusiasm under the new flag upon the fortifications of Monte Video and upon the entrenchments of Salta; only upon the water did the spirit of revolution as yet make no progress. The maritime power of Spain seemed invincible in America; her ships of war dominated the coasts from California on the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico on the Atlantic. The sailors of Monte Video dominated the River Plate and its affluents. One day they bombarded Buenos Ayres, another they spread terror along the banks of the Uruguay, and sacked defenceless towns on the Parana. Batteries were thrown up on the banks in front of Rosario and at Punta Gorda, which only diverted attack from these points to others more defenceless.

In October, 1812, the towns of San Nicolas and San Pedro, on the western bank of the Parana, were cannonaded and sacked. Then, with the object of diverting the attention of the Patriots from the siege of Monte Video, cutting off all communication by the rivers with the interior, and of procuring supplies for the garrison of Monte Video, a flotilla was organised under the command of a noted smuggler, Ruiz by name, on which was shipped a detachment of infantry, led by a red-haired Biscayan, named Zabala, a man of colossal stature and of approved valour.

The Government of Buenos Ayres, hearing of this expedition, ordered the battery at Rosario to be dismantled and the guns to be sent higher up the Parana, to Punta Gorda, where the garrison was strengthened. The colonel of the mounted grenadiers also received orders to march with two squadrons for the protection of the coast from Zarate to Santa Fé.

The Royalist expedition, under convoy of three small ships of war, concentrated at the mouth of the Guazu, below the delta of the Parana, about the middle of January, and were there delayed by a north wind, so that when San Martin reached the coast they were only commencing the ascent of the main river. Keeping his troops out of sight, San Martin, disguised in the hat and poncho of a countryman, kept watch upon their movements from the bank, by day and by night. On the 28th January they passed San Nicolas, and on the 29th anchored above Rosario, without having as yet made any attempt to land.

Escalada, commandant of Rosario, collected twenty-two men, carrying muskets, and thirty horsemen, and with a small gun prepared to make what resistance he could. At daybreak on the 30th the flotilla cast anchor inside the island of San Lorenzo, which lies in the middle of the river about seventeen miles to the north of Rosario. The western bank here consists of high bluffs, affording no landing-places except where narrow paths were cut through them to the water’s edge; in front of one of these cuttings the flotilla anchored. Beyond the low trees which bordered the edge of the bluff stood the lonely monastery of San Carlos, a two-storey building with a belfry on the roof.

About a hundred men landed, but all the provisions they could obtain from the peaceful friars were a few fowls and melons; all cattle had been withdrawn from the coast. As the monastery bell struck half-past seven, a cloud of dust was seen on the Rosario road. It was Escalada, with his fifty men and his one small gun. The Spaniards retreated with drums beating to their boats, and Escalada opened fire upon them from the edge of the bluff, but was obliged to draw off as the guns of the flotilla had much longer range than his one piece.

On the night of the 31st, a Paraguayan prisoner escaped from the flotilla, swimming ashore on a bundle of sticks. From him the Patriots learned that the whole force of the enemy did not exceed three hundred and fifty men, that they were mounting two small guns, intending to land next day in greater force for the purpose of searching the monastery for treasure which they supposed to be there hidden, and that after securing the treasure they intended to proceed up the river, passing the batteries of Punta Gorda by night, if they could not destroy them, and so cut off the trade with Paraguay.

Escalada sent out messengers with this news, one of whom met San Martin and his grenadiers, who, following the windings of the river had been left behind by the flotilla, which was favoured by a southerly breeze. Fortunately the wind now chopped round to the north and delayed the intended landing, so that when San Martin, by forced marches, reached the post-house of San Lorenzo, three miles from the monastery, on the night of the 2nd February, nothing had yet been done. At the post-house he found fresh horses waiting for him, sent there by Escalada.

In front of the post-house stood an old carriage without horses. Two troopers rode up to it, and asked:—

“Who is here?”

“A traveller,” answered a sleepy voice.

Another horseman rode up saying—

“Be careful; this is not an enemy, but an Englishman on his way to Paraguay.”

The traveller put his head out of one of the windows of the coach, and thinking he recognized the figure and voice, said:—

“Surely you are Colonel San Martin?”

“If so, you have a friend here, Mr. Robertson,” answered the other.

And so it was; this was the well-known traveller, William Parish Robertson, who was destined to witness the memorable events of the next day, and to record what he saw.

The two friends laughed together at their unexpected meeting in the dark, and San Martin spoke of his project.

“The enemy has double the number of men that we have, but I doubt if they get the better of us.”

“So say I,” replied the Englishman, offering his visitors wine to drink to their success, and asking permission to go with them.

“Agreed,” answered San Martin, “but take care; it is no part of your duty to fight. I will give you a horse, but if the day goes against us you must run for it.”

Then, giving the order to mount, he put himself with his friend at the head of the silent troopers, and soon after midnight reached the monastery, which they entered by a gateway in the rear of the edifice.

All the cells were vacant: not a sound was to be heard in the cloisters. The gate being shut the troopers dismounted in the large courtyard. The Colonel enjoined silence upon them, and forbade them to light fires.

“It brought to mind,” says the English traveller, “the Greek host hidden in the bowels of the wooden horse, so fatal to Troy.”

San Martin, with a night-glass, ascended the tower of the church, and saw by their lanterns that the enemy was yet there. He then carefully reconnoitered the country round him, and from information furnished by Escalada formed his plans.

On the river face of the monastery a level plain, apt for cavalry manœuvres, extended for three hundred and fifty yards to the edge of the bluff. Two winding paths, one only of which was practicable for infantry in formation, led to the beach below. He then withdrew his men from the courtyard and formed them, holding their horses by the bridle, behind the cloisters and outhouses, leaving Escalada and his volunteers within the edifice. At dawn he again mounted the tower. At five o’clock, as the shades of night melted away, boats laden with armed men, were seen to leave the flotilla for the shore. At half-past five, two small columns of infantry marched up the main path.

Then San Martin came down from his post of observation, and, meeting Robertson at the foot of the stairs, said:—

“In two minutes more we shall be upon them, sword in hand.”

A few paces off his orderly held his charger ready, a fine cream-coloured horse, fully caparisoned. In a moment he was in the saddle. Drawing his curved sabre he galloped off to his grenadiers, who were now to enter into action for the first time, and in a few words exhorted them to remember his lessons, and, above all, not to fire a shot, but to trust to their lances and sabres. He put himself at the head of the second squadron and gave command of the first to Captain José Bermudez, directing him to attack the flank and cut off the retreat of the invaders, and added:—

“We will meet in the centre of the enemy’s columns; there I will give you further orders.”

The enemy, about two hundred and fifty strong, had in the meantime advanced some two hundred and odd yards. They came on quickly to the sound of drums and fifes, and with a flag, in two parallel columns of half companies, with two four-pound guns between the columns and a little in advance. Then was heard for the first time the war clarion of the mounted grenadiers.

From the right and from the left of the monastery the two squadrons dashed forward at full gallop, sabre in hand. San Martin led the attack on the left, Bermudez that on the right. San Martin being nearest was the first to fall on the enemy. The fire of the two guns failed to check the onset; the heads of the Spanish columns were thrown into disorder, but, falling back, opened a heavy fire of musketry. San Martin with his squadron encountered the column led by Zabala in person; his horse was killed by the first volley, and a fierce hand-to-hand fight raged round him as he lay upon the ground caught by the leg by his fallen steed, in which he received a slight sabre cut in the face. A Spanish soldier ran forward to bayonet him, but was run through the body with a lance by a grenadier named Baigorria. Another trooper, named Juan Bautista Cabral, sprang from the saddle and released his leader from the fallen horse, and fell himself pierced by two mortal wounds, shouting:—

“I die content! We have beaten the enemy.”

Almost at the same moment, Cornet Bouchard killed the bearer of the Spanish ensign and captured the flag.

The other column was also driven back by the charge of the squadron led by Bermudez, and the Spaniards abandoning their guns, retreated to the bluff, where they attempted to form square under protection of the guns of the flotilla. Bermudez leading a second charge upon them was mortally wounded by a cannon-shot, and Lieutenant Manuel Diaz Velez, carried away by his enthusiasm, fell with his horse over the bluff, with a ball in his forehead, and two bayonet wounds in his chest, but the Spaniards were driven headlong to the beach, leaving behind them, besides their flag, their guns and fifty muskets, forty dead and fourteen prisoners. Many of those who escaped were wounded, one of these being Zabala, their leader.

The grenadiers had fifteen killed and twenty-seven wounded, among whom each of the United Provinces had at least one representative. Lieutenant Diaz Velez, being taken prisoner, was carried on board the flotilla.

San Martin assisted by Robertson, generously furnished the flotilla with fresh supplies for their wounded, and arranged for an exchange of prisoners, giving up those he had captured for three previously taken by the boats and for his wounded officer; but Velez died in the arms of his comrades a few hours after. One of these released prisoners was a Paraguayan named José Felix Bogado; he at once enlisted in the regiment, and during thirteen years’ service with it, from San Lorenzo to Ayacucho, won his way up to the rank of Colonel, and then returned to Buenos Ayres, accompanied by seven of the original troopers of the corps.

Still covered with the blood and dust of the fight, San Martin signed the despatch announcing his victory, under the shade of an old pine-tree which still stands in the garden of San Lorenzo.

The affair of San Lorenzo, though of little military importance, had a most beneficial effect upon the Patriot cause. The safety of the towns on the banks of the Parana and Uruguay was secured; communication with Entre Rios, which was the base of the army besieging Monte Video, was maintained; the expected supplies to this city were cut off; the trade with Paraguay was preserved; and above all, a new general given to the army and new vigour to the spirits of the men.

Three days afterwards, the discomfited flotilla descended the Parana, laden with wounded instead of plunder, and carried the news to Monte Video. At the same time San Martin returned to Buenos Ayres, and the enthusiasm of his reception somewhat deadened the calumnies which already began to embitter his life.

On the 20th February the Spanish army entrenched at Salta was completely routed by General Belgrano; the third victory in less than three months. The revolution of the 8th October and the influence of the Lautaro Lodge were justified by these results.

When San Martin returned to Buenos Ayres, he found that political parties, confined within the limits of the capital, weakened by local animosities, and ultimately enclosed by the four walls of the Lodge, had degenerated into circles ruled by personal influences, and like most of the influential men of that day he became imbued with the belief that a constitutional monarchy backed by Europe was the true solution of the political problem. Neither he nor they saw that the sentiment of the people was essentially republican.

Secret societies have been at times the only means of organization left to an enslaved people, but they have never accompanied the development of revolutionary ideas; as a general rule they have produced nothing beyond abortive conspiracies; among a free people they are impotent. Thus the continuance of the secret and irresponsible influence of the Lautaro Lodge, could have no other effect than to weaken the power of the General Assembly, its own creation.

Within the Lodge itself there soon arose two distinct parties, one strove only for democratic independence, the other was a personal party with Alvear at its head, which presently absorbed the whole society.

The dream of Alvear was military glory and a dictatorship. His friend Carrera was at this time (May, 1813), both a dictator and a general in his own country; he took him as his model, but was clear-sighted enough to see that their circumstances were not identical.

In June, 1813, the army of the North a second time invaded Upper Peru under the orders of Belgrano, but was badly beaten at Vilcapugio on the 1st October, and almost destroyed at Ayohuma on the 14th November. The remnant retreated to its former position, and Belgrano requested to be relieved of the command.

The United Provinces had not at this time any general conspicuous for military genius. The laurels gained by Don Antonio Gonsalez Balcarce at Suipacha were blighted at the Desaguadero. His brother, Don Martin Balcarce, was in Chili in command of Argentine auxiliaries. The victory of Don José Rondeau, in front of Monte Video, was the first and last of his career; he lacked the qualities of a commander-in-chief. Belgrano was wanting both in technical knowledge and in warlike instinct, but was the best of them all. Of the generals of division, none had as yet shown any capacity for separate command. The revolution which had been so far opposed by mediocre generals and badly-organized troops, had now to contend against skilful generals and well-disciplined troops.

Alvear applied for the command of the army of the North. San Martin, who considered the expedition against Monte Video of more importance, willingly gave place to him, but Alvear, ever vacillating and loth to leave the field of politics, changed his mind and recommended San Martin for the post. San Martin was anxious to free himself from the trammels of party in order to gain freedom of action in the course he had marked out for himself; he accordingly accepted the command of a reinforcement for the army of the North, and received instructions to assume the command-in-chief if he should deem it advisable.

This reinforcement consisted of the 7th battalion of infantry, 700 strong, two squadrons of the mounted grenadiers, and 100 artillerymen, and reached Tucuman before the close of the year 1813. Soon after San Martin and Belgrano met at Yatasto on the road to Salta, and swore friendship to each other, an oath most faithfully kept by both.

These two celebrated men had never met before, but had for some time corresponded. San Martin presented himself as a subordinate, but Belgrano looked to him as a master in the art of war, and regarded him as his successor. After some delay, due to the reluctance of San Martin to supersede his friend, he at length assumed the command on receipt of positive orders to that effect from Government, Belgrano remaining with him in command of a regiment. Belgrano died in the belief that San Martin was the tutelar genius of South America, and San Martin to the end of his days honoured the memory of his illustrious friend as that of one of the purest patriots of the New World.

On the 22nd January, 1814, the executive power was concentrated in one person, who took the title of Supreme Director. Don Gervasio Antonio Posadas was selected by the Lodge to fill this post, and was duly elected by the General Assembly. No one was more surprised than himself at this appointment, for which his only special recommendation was that he was the uncle of Alvear, who for the present contented himself with the command of the army of the capital, until such time as he could take command of the army of Monte Video, and there achieve such military glory as should entitle him to supreme power.

The first care of San Martin, on assuming command of the army of the North, was to insist upon the regular payment of his men. There existed in the army chest a sum of thirty-six thousand dollars, drawn from Upper Peru, which Government had directed should be paid over to the General Treasury. San Martin disobeyed the order and applied the money as he wished, giving Government at the same time his reasons for so doing. Government approved of his conduct as justified by necessity, for the army was at the time in the last stage of destitution.

CHAPTER V
UPPER PERU.
1814.

THE military policy of the United Provinces had three distinct ends: first, to construct a new nation within the geographical limits of the old Viceroyalty of the River Plate; second, to aid in the establishment of other South American nations, who would be their natural allies; and third, to carry their arms beyond their frontiers for the removal of obstacles to their expansion. Hence the expeditions to Paraguay and Monte Video, the aid given to the insurgents in Chile, and the war waged with the Viceroyalty of Peru. The army of the North, as the embodiment of this threefold policy, was styled “The Auxiliary Army of Peru,” and its mission was to incorporate the Provinces of Upper Peru as a portion of the old Viceroyalty, to capture Lima, the centre of Spanish power in South America, and to bring Lower Peru into an alliance similar to that already contracted with Chile.

For four years Upper Peru had been the battlefield of the Patriots and Royalists; it was now completely in the power of the latter. The four provinces known as Upper Peru are shut in by mountain ranges, and have no fluvial communication with either ocean. Situate within the tropics, their high tablelands and intervening valleys furnish at once examples of perpetual winter and perpetual spring, and yield all the natural products of the globe.

Upper Peru is divided by two spurs from the Andes into three districts. The western range runs parallel to the Pacific Ocean from the desert of Atacama—which is a high tableland—to the first valleys of Lower Peru on the coast, cutting off an arid and thinly-peopled district. The central plain, well peopled but inclement, is the natural road from the Argentine Republic to Lower Peru, and was the theatre of operations during the preceding campaigns. The eastern range, with lofty peaks covered with perpetual snow, looks down upon a truly intertropical paradise. At its foot extends to the west the smiling valley of Clisa, where stands the city of Cochabamba, with easy access over the hills to the central plateau, and to Chuquisaca by valleys on the south-east. Behind Cochabamba and to the east of the range lies the Valle Grande, which collects the mountain streams and delivers them to the Amazon. More to the north-east lies Santa Cruz da la Sierra in the midst of a vast grassy plain, which slopes gradually away to the confines of Brazil, Paraguay, and the Argentine Chaco.

The social organization of Upper Peru was a continuation of the system of the Incas, complicated by the antagonism of races. Europeans had established themselves in six cities, whose former inhabitants, driven out to the ice-covered hills or to the torrid valleys, worked as serfs for their lords and masters as cultivators of the soil or as miners. The lower class in these cities consisted of half-breeds, and formed the greater part of the population. All the rest of the country was peopled exclusively by two indigenous races, who paid a capitation tax, and had no civil rights. The language of the conquerors was unintelligible to the mass of the people.

In this country the first rebellion against the domination of Spain was quenched in blood in 1809, but news of the revolution of Buenos Ayres in 1810 rekindled the smouldering embers. The movement was supported by Argentine troops under Balcarce, who won the first victory of the war at Suipacha, but was afterwards totally defeated on the Desaguadero. The Patriots of Cochabamba being thus left alone, fought another battle by themselves at Sipe-Sipe on the 13th August, 1811, but were defeated. The repulse of the second invasion under Belgrano in 1813 was another great disappointment to them, but still the spirit of the people was not crushed. There was, however, no cohesion among them; they had the courage to resist and to die on the field of battle or on the scaffold, but they were unable to concert any plan of action; thus these successive disasters greatly weakened the ties which bound them to the Patriots of Buenos Ayres, but vain were the efforts of the Spaniards to overcome the passive resistance of the people. Heads of rebels were exposed along the public roads, the properties of such as had fled were confiscated and sold, towns were sacked, military commissions terrorized the country, prisoners taken in the last campaign were sold as slaves to the owners of the vineyards and plantations of Peru, but still insurrectionary movements constantly broke out; even the Indians, armed with nothing more than clubs, slings, and arrows, braved death with the utmost stoicism, certain that they would be avenged. The Spanish general, unable either to retreat or to advance, established his headquarters at Tupiza; and while a portion of his army kept open communications in the rear, his vanguard advanced to Salta, constantly harassed by the country people, who rose in arms on the retreat of the Patriot army to Tucuman.

The army which had twice defeated the armies of the United Provinces was almost entirely composed of natives of the Highlands of Lower Peru. They were men inured to hardships and privations, untiring on the march, faithful to their flag, obedient to their officers, and undaunted under fire. They were half-breeds, who spoke the same language as the people of the country in which they fought. The climate of this country was the same as that of their own, and they were accustomed to the peculiar requirements of mountain warfare. All this gave them great advantages over the Argentine troops on that field of action, and the remembrance of defeats disheartened the Patriot army.

Belgrano after the rout of Ayohuma had left Colonel Don Juan Antonio Alvarez de Arenales as governor of Cochabamba and commandant of the Patriot forces in the rear of the enemy, and Colonel Don Ignacio Warnes as governor of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, under the orders of Arenales. Only men of their stamp could have undertaken the desperate enterprise of keeping alive the flames of insurrection in the mountains of Upper Peru after such disasters.

Arenales is one of the most extraordinary characters of the Argentine revolution. Born in Spain and educated in Buenos Ayres, he embraced with ardour the American cause, and took a prominent part in the insurrection at Chuquisaca in 1809. Taken prisoner, he was sent to Peru, and remained in the casemates of Callao till set at liberty by the Cortes of Cadiz in 1812. At the time of the battle of Tucuman he was in Salta, and there headed a patriotic movement which was immediately quelled. Previous to the battle of Salta he had joined the army of Belgrano, and accompanied it to Upper Peru. To austere manners, tenacity of purpose, and untiring activity he added the virtues of a good citizen, great talents as an administrator, inflexible will, and a brain fertile in warlike stratagems. His face never displayed any signs of either pleasure or pain, and his stern look and voice joined to his lion-like head, marked him as one born to command; but under all lay a warm heart, more anxious to do right than to win glory.

Warnes was of English descent, but was born in Buenos Ayres, and in 1807 had distinguished himself in defence of his native city.

San Martin, on learning from Belgrano the character of Arenales, at once opened communications with him, and on two occasions sent him arms and ammunition, with officers, to aid him in his operations.

While Belgrano was in Upper Peru, Colonel Landivar, a Spaniard, was made prisoner at Santa Cruz de la Sierra. This man had been one of the most merciless agents of Goyeneche, and he was kept for trial by the General, “not for having fought against our system, but for the murders, robberies, burnings, violences, extortions, and other excesses perpetrated by him in contravention of the laws of war.” It was proved that he had executed fifty-four prisoners of war, whose heads and arms had been cut off and nailed to posts on the public roads. The accused alleged that he had only ordered the execution of thirty-three individuals, and that in obedience to express orders from Goyeneche, which he produced in evidence. The defence was ably conducted by an officer of the Grenadiers, who pleaded that the prisoner having acted only in obedience to the orders of his superior could not be looked upon as other than a prisoner of war. The Court pronounced sentence of death, which sentence was laid before San Martin on the 13th January, 1814, who at once signed it without consulting Government.

This trial gives an idea of the mode in which war was waged in Upper Peru. The cruelties of the Spaniards produced reprisals on the part of the insurgents, which so filled the land with bloodshed that “the inhabitants looked calmly upon these scenes; no one hesitated to risk his own life, and all sought to shed the blood of those of the other party.” Such was the war into which Arenales now entered as leader of the fifth insurrection of Cochabamba.

The Royalist army being in possession of the central plateau the position of Arenales at Cochabamba was untenable, but the road by the Valle Grande was open to him; he could join Warnes at Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and communicate with the Argentine Provinces by the Chaco, and from Santa Cruz he could march over well-wooded plains to Chuquisaca.

On the 29th November he commenced his retreat with sixty musketeers, four small guns, a few cavalry, and a crowd of countrymen armed with clubs and slings, who covered his flanks and rear. In the valley of Misque he attempted to make a stand, but was forced across the Cordillera to the head waters of the eastern streams. Overtaken at Chillán, he beat off his pursuers, and reached the Valle Grande, where he recruited his forces, forming an infantry battalion of one hundred and sixty-five men, and two squadrons of cavalry, and was joined by some guerilla chiefs.

The insurrection spread, and Pezuela despatched Colonel Blanco with six hundred men and three light guns, to subdue it. On his march Blanco met with six heads nailed to posts, a gage of defiance from the guerillas who swarmed in the adjacent valleys.

On the 4th February the two armies met. The Patriots had at first the advantage, till a part of their raw troops were seized with panic; the Royalists captured their guns and remained masters of the field. Blanco shot his prisoners, and cut off the heads of three leaders, after which he retreated to Chillán for reinforcements.

Arenales retreated to the frontier of Santa Cruz, taking his arms and spare ammunition with him on mule-back. Reinforced by Warnes he halted at Abapo on the Rio Grande, and in March had two hundred and four infantry and four small guns. Warnes refused to recognise his authority, and took up a position for himself at Horcas with a thousand men, advancing his outposts to Herradura and Petacas, passes of the Cordillera considered impregnable, as they were nothing more than flights of stairs cut in the sides of the mountain.

At the same time the Indians of the Chaco along the banks of the river Pilcomayo rose up in favour of the Patriots; guerilla chiefs aroused a part of the Province of La Plata; and the towns in Blanco’s rear were again in insurrection. Pezuela despatched Colonel Benavente with five hundred men, against this new insurrection; but in spite of sundry advantages gained by both columns, Benavente was so weakened that he was soon reduced to inaction, and Blanco, whose troops suffered greatly from fever, was forced to evacuate the Valle Grande early in April and to retreat to Misque.

Arenales, while encamped at Tumina, received information that Blanco, resuming the offensive, had forced the passes of Herradura and Petacas, and had dispersed the division under Warnes. He at once marched towards the scene of action, and met Warnes at the head of only three hundred men. The latter, learning wisdom by his reverses, placed himself under his orders. Blanco had in the meantime taken the city of Santa Cruz, and was now coming in search of them with six hundred men, of whom one-half were regular infantry.

On the 24th May the Royalists came in sight, and the Patriots retreated by a narrow defile, leaving a small party to draw on the enemy. At dawn on the 25th they reached the town of La Florida, on the river Piray. Arenales took up a position on the right of this small river, in an open space where the bank was about two yards high. Below, the river spread out, while in front lay a wide plain. His flanks were protected by dense brushwood; the town was behind him. He planted his guns on the open, placed his cavalry in ambuscade on each flank, with Warnes in command on the right and De la Riva on the left. At the foot of the bank he opened a trench, concealed by sand and brushwood, where he stationed his infantry, kneeling, and awaited the attack. His entire force numbered about eight hundred men.

Just before noon the same day a dropping fire was heard in the woods in front. It came from the outpost, who were retreating before the enemy. Soon after that the Royalist column debouched from the wood, preceded by skirmishers. Blanco drew up his men on the plain, with strong cavalry reserves on the flanks, and opened fire with his four-pounders. Then, as the infantry advanced firing, the Patriot guns opened upon them. When the skirmishers entered the river, the entrenched infantry poured in a volley, and, springing from their shelter, charged through the smoke with such impetuosity that, aided by the cavalry on the left, they completely routed the enemy, Colonel Blanco remaining dead upon the field.

Arenales headed the pursuit in person with so little caution that he was attacked by a group of fugitives, who left him for dead with fourteen wounds, three of them in the face. His men rushed in and saved him, carrying him on their shoulders back to the camp.

Two flags, two guns, two hundred muskets, one hundred killed, and ninety-nine prisoners, were the trophies of this victory, while the Patriots lost only one man killed and twenty-one wounded, including their leader.

Such was the action of La Florida, which saved Santa Cruz de la Sierra and compelled the retreat of the Royalist army from Salta. It gives the name to one of the principal streets of Buenos Ayres. For it Arenales was raised to the rank of general, and a badge of honour was decreed to the troops engaged.

Arenales was no sooner well of his wounds than he marched with his division and reoccupied the Valle Grande, routing a Royalist force of two hundred men at Postrer Valle on the 4th July, but was on the 5th August himself defeated at Sumapaita. Afterwards reinforced by Padilla with a body of Indian slingers, he forced Benavente to retreat from Tomina, and again reoccupied the Valle Grande.

Eighteen months he maintained this extraordinary war at a cost to the enemy of 1,300 men in killed, wounded, and missing, entering Cochabamba at last in triumph, and joining the Argentine army with 1,200 men.