Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, from Spanish and Portuguese Domination by Earl of Dundonald Thomas Cochrane (best classic literature .TXT) 📕

Ignorant of this, the Protector, having delegated the supreme authority to the Marquis of Torre Tagle, and appointed General Alvarado Commander-in-Chief in his absence, departed for Guayaquil, for the purpose of the proposed interview.

No sooner had San Martin turned his back, than a public meeting of the Limeños took place in the Plaza, and insisted on the reconstitution of the Cabildo, which assembly had been put down by the Protector immediately after the declaration of independence. The members having complied, it was decided that "the Minister Monteagudo should be deposed, tried, and subjected to the severity of the law," a note being despatched to this effect to the Supreme Delegate, Torre Tagle. The Council of State met, and informed Monteagudo of what had taken place, when he was induced to resign; the Supreme Delegate politely informing the Cabildo that the ex-Minister should be made to answer to the Council of State for the acts of his administration.

This note not satisfying the municipality, the Cabildo requested that Monteagudo should at once be placed in arrest till called upon for his defence, which was immediately complied with; but the step was disapproved by the Limeños, who feared that some crafty subterfuge might again place him in authority. The Cabildo, therefore, in order to satisfy the people and get rid of the ex-Minister, requested of the Government that he might be put on board ship, and exiled for ever from Peru. This was also acceded to; and, on the anniversary of his arrival in Lima, Monteagudo was sent under escort to Callao, and forthwith taken to sea.

Torre Tagle was unable to cope with the returning spirit of the Limeños, nor did he attempt it, as the army was as much disgusted as were the inhabitants, and would not have raised a hand against them. The liberty of the press returned, and the first use of it was the following picture of the exiled Minister, taken from the Lima newspapers; this would not have been inserted here, except to shew the class of men with whom I had so long to contend.

"Every honourable citizen found in Don Bernardo Monteagudo, (this is the name of the man of whom we speak,) an enemy who at any price would have sacrificed him. How many victims has he not immolated in his one year's ministry! More than eight hundred honourable families have been reduced by him to extreme indigence, and the whole city to misery! Amongst the patriots of Lima, nothing was thought of but where they might find an asylum in a foreign land. Without agriculture, commerce, industry, personal security, property, and laws, what is society here but a scene of the most afflicting torments?"

"The religion of our forefathers suffered an equal persecution in its ministers and its temples; these were deprived of their riches, not for the service of our country, but for the reward of espionage, and to deceive us with useless trickeries. The satellites of this bandit were equally despotic with himself, and committed under his protection the most horrid crimes. This is not a proper place in which to insert the baseness with which he abused the delicacy and weakness of females. Fathers of families * * * *. Every man was intimidated. Every feeling man wept, because all were the victims of the caprice of this insolent upstart, who made an ostentation of atheism and ferocity."

"It is impossible to recapitulate his actions. Volumes would be necessary to shew the world the arbitrary crimes of this atrocious individual. It would appear that for the commission of so many offences he must have had some cause that impelled him, for they could not possibly be the effect of ignorance. It was impossible to believe that by insulting and ruining every one, plundering our property, despising the ingenuity and talents of the Peruvians, and endeavouring to introduce anarchy, he could be longer tolerated in this capital. Was the reduction of Peru to the most degrading slavery, the means to make us or even himself happy?" &c. &c. &c

The reader can—from what has been narrated in these pages,—form pretty correct opinions upon the majority of the enormities which drove Monteagudo into exile. Of his private character I have always foreborn to speak, as considering it a thing apart from official acts—but as the Limeños themselves have forcibly alluded to it, I can say that in no respect can their allegations be called in question.

The opinion of the roused Limeños, that for Monteagudo's plunders, insults, and cruelties, there "must have been an impelling cause," is correct, though it is rather surprising that they should not have more justly estimated that cause. The vast amount of silver and gold which I spared in the Sacramento at Ancon, as being the property of the Protector, shews the gulf which swallowed up his plunder of the inhabitants. The costly extravagance of the Government—amidst which the degraded Minister's ostentation was even more conspicuous than that of the Protector himself—could have had no other source but plunder, for of legitimate revenue there was scarcely enough to carry on the expenses of the Government—certainly none for luxurious ostentation; which, nevertheless, emulated that of the Roman Empire in its worst period—but without the "panem et circenses."

The "impelling cause" was the Protector himself. Ambitious beyond all bounds, but with a capacity singularly incommensurate with his ambition, he believed that money could accomplish everything. Monteagudo supplied this literally by plunder and cruelty, whilst San Martin recklessly flung it away in ostentation and bribes. In return for the means of prodigality, the Minister was permitted to carry on the Government just as he chose, the Protector meanwhile indulging in the "otium cum dignitate" at his country palace near La Legua—his physical powers prostrated by opium and brandy, to which he was a slave, whilst his mental faculties day by day became more torpid from the same debilitating influence. This was well known to me, and alluded to in my letter to him of August 7th, 1821, in which I adjured him to banish his advisers and act as became his position. I now mention these things, not to cast a slur on San Martin, but for the opposite purpose of averting undue reproach, though my bitter enemy. The enormities committed in his name were for the most part not his, but Monteagudo's; for, to paraphrase the saying of a French wit, "San Martin reigned, but his Minister governed." Duplicity and cunning were San Martin's great instruments when he was not too indolent to wield them; and while he was wrapped in ease, his Minister superadded to these qualities all the cruelty and ferocity which sometimes converts a ruler into a monster, as the Limeños very appropriately designate him. San Martin was not innately cruel, though, as in the execution of the Carreras, he did not hesitate to sacrifice men of far greater patriotism and ability than himself, regarding them as rivals; but he would not, as Monteagudo did, have endeavoured to tempt me ashore to the house of Torre Tagle, for the purpose of assassinating me; nor, failing in this, would he as Monteagudo also did, have liberated a convict for the express purpose of murdering me on board my own ship. At this distance of time these things may be mentioned, as there can be no delicacy in thus alluding to Monteagudo, who, having lived the life of a tyrant, died the death of a dog; for having sometime afterwards imprudently returned to the Peruvian capital, he was set upon and killed in the streets by the enraged Limeños.

This bad commencement of the Peruvian Government subsequently entailed on the country years of misery and civil war, from intestine feuds and party strife—the natural results of the early abuse which unhappily inaugurated its liberation. No such features have been exhibited in Chili, where the maritime force under my command at once and for ever annihilated the power of Spain, leaving to the mother country neither adherents nor defenders, so that all men agreed to consolidate the liberty which had been achieved. The same good results followed my expulsion of the Portuguese fleets and army from Brazil, where, whatever may have been the contentions of the parties into which the country was divided, the empire has ever since been preserved from those revolutions which invariably characterise states based at the outset upon virulent contentions. In Peru, the liberty which had been promised was trodden under foot by the myrmidons of San Martin, so that a portion of the people, and that the most influential, would gladly have exchanged the degradation of their country for a return to Spanish rule, and this was afterwards very nearly achieved. Another portion, dreading the Spaniards, invited Bolivar to free them from the despotism to which, in the name of liberty, they had been subjected. A third party sighed for independence, as they originally hoped it would have been established. The community became thus divided in object, and, as a consequence, in strength; being in constant danger of the oppressor, and in even more danger from its own intestine dissensions; which have continued to this day, not in Peru only, but in the majority of the South American States, which, having commenced their career in the midst of private feud and public dissension, have never been able to shake off either the one or the other monuments of their own incipient weakness.

The intelligence of Monteagudo's forced exile was received at Valparaiso on the 21st of September; and if this excited the surprise of the Chilians, still greater must have been their astonishment when, on the 12th of October, General San Martin himself arrived at Valparaiso, a fugitive from his short-lived splendour, amidst the desolation of despotism.

The story of this event is brief, but instructive. Having met Bolivar, as previously agreed upon, the Liberator, in place of entering upon any mutual arrangement, bitterly taunted San Martin with the folly and cruelty of his conduct towards the Limeños; to such an extent, indeed, that the latter, fearing designs upon his person, precipitately left Guayaquil, and returned to Callao shortly after the expulsion of Monteagudo. Finding what had taken place, he remained on board his vessel, issuing vain threats against all who had been concerned in exiling his minister, and insisting on his immediate recal and reinstatement. A congress had however, by this time been appointed, with Xavier de Luna Pizarro as its head, so the remonstrances of the Protector were unheeded. After some time spent in useless recrimination, he made a virtue of necessity, and sent in his abdication of the Protectorate, returning, as has been said, to Chili.

One of the first acts of the Peruvian Congress, after his abdication, was to address to me the following vote of thanks, not only marking my services in the liberation of their country, but denouncing San Martin as a military despot:—

Resolution of thanks to Lord Cochrane by the Sovereign Congress of Peru.

The Sovereign Constituent Congress of