a more effective force, whereby he might not only blockade--that was
too slow and luxurious a method of fighting for him--but even drive
the enemy out of Callao, and so himself command the approach to Lima
from the sea. His plan was, by means of rockets and explosives, to
blow up the booms protecting the enemy’s ships to seaward, and to burn
the shipping. To superintend the making of the rockets Mr. Goldsack,
principal assistant of Sir William Congreve, at Woolwich, was engaged,
and to actually make the rockets the Government foolishly employed the
prisoners-of-war. These prisoners, knowing that the explosives they
were engaged in making were intended for the destruction of their own
friends, put sand, sawdust, manure, and whatever other rubbish they
could find, at intervals in the tubes, which should otherwise have
contained a continuous packing of gunpowder. The result was that when,
some months later, Cochrane again found himself before Callao, and
proceeded to put his scheme into execution, the rubbish in the rockets
prevented the progress of their combustion, and reduced his elaborate
design to a fiasco. It was then the Spaniards fired red-hot shot upon
him, and, after losing twenty men and a lieutenant, who was cut right
in two by a round shot, he was forced to abandon the attempt.
However, he did not proceed home until he had gathered fresh laurels,
equipped though he was with weapons more useless than toys. He captured
one or two treasure-ships, of which one, the _Potrillo_, had on
board 30,000 dollars, the pay of the garrisons at Valdivia; he also
captured Pisco, in the square of which town General Miller was shot
with three bullets--one entered the arm, another entered his chest and
passed out at his back, while the third shattered his left hand. He
even captured Valdivia itself--a feat that was considered impossible.
The result of all these achievements was that, when he again put in at
Valparaiso, he was covered with fresh glory, to the discomfiture of
those who had been sedulously seeking to discredit him and to put upon
him the entire blame of the failure of the expedition against Callao.
Strange to say--and, indeed, mortifying to those who would entertain
favourable views of human nature--Cochrane’s brilliant exploits and
consequent popularity had awakened feelings of jealousy against him
amongst political intriguers at Santiago. Their machinations drove him
to offer his resignation. Thereupon the officers of his fleet tendered
him their commissions, with the assurance that under him, and him
alone, would they serve. This brought his enemies to their senses. He
was implored to withdraw his proffered resignation, and induced to do
so by the promise of more earnest support.
The Chilian Government had not behaved well to the sailors who had been
fighting so bravely for them under Cochrane. These sailors actually
had not been paid their wages, and had not received their proper
prize-money, though their captures of money and stores had been more
than sufficient to keep the squadron afloat. The result was that, when
preparations for the next expedition were nearing completion, seamen,
naturally, refused to enlist. To overcome this difficulty the following
proclamation was issued:
“On my entry into Lima I will punctually pay to all foreign
seamen who shall voluntarily enlist into the Chilian service the
whole arrears of their pay, to which I will also add to each
individual, according to his rank, one year’s pay over and above
his arrears, as a premium or reward for his services, if he
continue to fulfil his duty to the day of the surrender of that
city and its occupation by the liberating forces.
“(Signed) JOSE DE SAN MARTIN.
“COCHRANE.”
General San Martin signed this proclamation as commander-in-chief; but
his signature alone would not have moved the men. They knew Cochrane
was their friend. In him they had faith; on him they could rely to do
whatever he promised, if it were humanly possible. Consequently, on the
appearance of this proclamation the crews were immediately completed,
and the squadron sailed, amid the enthusiastic plaudits of the people,
on August 21st, 1820.
Under convoy Cochrane had transport vessels, laden with 4,200 troops
under the command of General San Martin. These troops were to be
disembarked in close proximity to Lima, and to march upon the city by
land, while the ships-of-war engaged the enemy by water at Callao.
Differences between Cochrane and San Martin early developed themselves.
Cochrane was for an immediate attack upon Lima. San Martin delayed, and
was landed, according to his varying wishes, now here and now there,
all the while accomplishing nothing; so that at last Cochrane lost
patience, and on the 30th of September they parted company in the roads
of Callao. Cochrane had reconnoitred the fortifications, and urged
San Martin to immediately disembark and storm the forts of Callao.
He himself would see that the troops were safely landed. San Martin,
however, shrank from the undertaking, and insisted on being landed at
Ancon, a little to the north. Cochrane, having no power as regarded
the disposition of the troops, detached from his squadron the _San
Martin_, _Galvarino_, and _Araucano_ to convoy the transports to Ancon.
He himself retained the _O’Higgins_, _Independencia_ (an American-built
corvette that had been added to the squadron in the previous year), and
_Lautaro_, under the pretence of continuing the blockade. In reality,
he had, while reconnoitring the fortifications, formed a daring plan of
attack, which he kept concealed even from the commander-in-chief. That
plan was nothing short of capturing the brigs-of-war in Callao harbour,
moored though they were beneath the ordnance of the surrounding forts,
putting their crews to the sword, cutting adrift or burning the entire
shipping of the enemy, and getting possession of a treasure-ship
on which he had learnt was embarked a million of dollars, kept in
readiness in case it should be necessary for the authorities at Lima
to seek safety in flight. How far he succeeded in carrying out his
ambitious design, it now remains for us to describe.
The attack was to begin on the _Esmeralda_--a frigate of 44 guns
and manned by 370 picked sailors and marines, who slept every night at
quarters in readiness against surprises. The _Esmeralda_, with two
other frigates, lay under the protection of 300 pieces of artillery
mounted in the batteries ashore. Surrounding her, in semi-lunar shape,
were 27 gunboats and armed blockships; and exterior to them, as the
first line of defence, was a strong boom with chain moorings. How on
earth was Cochrane to capture this, the finest ship on the Pacific
Ocean? How even was he to get near her, situated amid such defences?
As well try, one would think, to capture the Castle of Callao itself
by proposing to creep into the mouths of the cannon and pluck out the
charges! However, Cochrane went to work; and for three days, without
divulging his design to anyone, continued to make ready for the final
_coup_. Let it here be said that two neutral warships were lying
in Callao--the British man-of-war _Hyperion_ and the American
_Macedonian_.
[Illustration: CALLAO in 1819.]
On the evening of November 5th, Cochrane’s intentions were revealed
with this proclamation, which was posted up on his own ship, the
_O’Higgins_, and sent to be similarly posted up on the other two,
_Independencia_ and _Lautaro_, which comprised his squadron:
“Marines and seamen! This night we are going to give the enemy
a mortal blow. To-morrow you will present yourselves proudly
before Callao, and all your comrades will envy your good
fortune. One hour of courage and resolution is all that is
required of you to triumph. Remember that you have conquered in
Valdivia, and be not afraid of those who have hitherto fled from
you.
“The value of all the vessels captured in Callao will be yours,
and the same reward in money will be distributed amongst you as
has been offered by the Spaniards in Lima to those who should
capture any of the Chilian squadron. The moment of glory is
approaching, and I hope that the Chilians will fight as they
have been accustomed to do, and that the English will act as
they have ever done at home and abroad.
“(Signed) COCHRANE.”
While the men on the different ships, gathered in groups, discussed the
proclamation, it was announced that Cochrane was to lead the attack
in person, and volunteers were invited to come forward, as he would
lead no man unwilling to go into so hazardous an undertaking. A buzz
of excitement followed this, and the whole of the marines and seamen
on the three ships stepped forward. As it was impossible to take them
all, the captains of the ships were ordered to select men from each
crew--the total not to exceed 160 seamen and 80 marines. These having
been assembled on the flagship, Cochrane gave the signal for the
_Independencia_ and _Lautaro_ to weigh anchor with all haste,
and put off to sea as if in pursuit of some vessel in the offing. This
manœuvre had the desired effect. The look-out on the _Esmeralda_
reported the departure of the two vessels, and the officer in command,
as he received the report, observed: “Ah, well, then we may sleep
soundly to-night!” It had been all along the constant fear of the
Spaniards that Cochrane would spring a night-attack upon them; and, in
the case of such, an arrangement had been made with the two neutral
vessels, the _Hyperion_ and _Macedonian_, that they should
display certain peculiar lights, so as not to be mistaken for the enemy
by those directing the fire from the batteries ashore.
The Spanish officer had scarcely finished his comforting remark, “We
may sleep soundly to-night,” when the picked men from Cochrane’s crews,
who had been receiving minute instructions as to what each was to do,
were paraded on the deck of the _O’Higgins_. It was now dark; so
the enemy, however keen their vision, could see no movement. The men
presented a ghostly appearance as they moved quietly to the ship’s
sides and dropped into the fourteen boats arranged below to receive
them. Not a word was spoken, not even an order given. Besides, the men
were draped in white with a blue band round each left arm--this, that
in the conflict so soon to stain the waters of Callao Harbour, and in
the blindness of their ferocity, with their blood boiling, they might
not in mistake fall upon and slay one another. In each right hand was
a gleaming cutlass and in each left a loaded pistol. In each man’s
ears, too, still lingered Cochrane’s last command, given below: “Not a
word, not a sound, not a whisper; use your cutlasses alone: now come
and do your duty.” It must have been a weird sight that band of 200
white-sheeted men, in the darkness of night, dropping silently and
stealthily into the boats.
[Illustration: “THE CHILIAN CUTLASSES SWEPT THE
DECK” (_p._ 274).]
By ten o’clock this strange company, every one with visage firmly set,
began to move slowly towards the small opening left in the boom for
the enemy’s own convenience. Cochrane’s boat led the way. The boats
were in two divisions--the first commanded by Flag-Captain Crosbie, the
second by Captain Guise. One division was to board the _Esmeralda_
at different points on one side, while the other division was
simultaneously to board her from the other side. Thus, in the same
instant of time upon the unsuspecting Spaniards would rush from every
point a couple of hundred armed and determined men. Meanwhile, these
daring seamen have more than two hours’ silent rowing--for the oars
are muffled--before them, and during their progress to the scene of
action we shall give an extract from the orders issued, as revealing
somewhat of Cochrane’s full design. “On securing the frigate,” runs
the order, “the Chilian seamen and marines are not to give the Chilian
cheer; but to deceive the enemy, and give time for completing the
work, they are to cheer ‘_Viva el Rey_.’ The two brigs-of-war
are to be fired on by the musketry from the _Esmeralda_, and
are to be taken possession of by Lieutenants Esmonde and Morgell, in
the boats they command; which, being done, they are to cut adrift,
run out, and anchor in the offing as quickly as possible. The boats
of the _Independencia_ are to turn adrift all the outward
Spanish merchant-ships; and the boats of the _O’Higgins_ and
_Lautaro_, under Lieutenants Bell and Robertson, are to set fire
to one or more of the headmost hulks; but these are not to be cut
adrift so as to fall down upon the rest.” This shows that Cochrane
meant nothing less than clearing out the entire port so far as Spain
was concerned in it.
Just on midnight, to return to our surpliced dare-devils, they are
nearing the opening in the boom and are challenged by the vigilant
gunboat set to guard it. Cochrane himself is well in front of his
party, and in a low voice, but with a look that means all he says,
gives the watch to know that instant death will follow any attempt at
raising the alarm. So no alarm is raised, and in a few minutes the
boats are in line alongside the unsuspecting frigate. Another moment
and that peaceful deck is the scene of a hundred fights. The Chilian
crews have swarmed up her sides, and their bare cutlasses are already
drenched in blood. Cochrane, boarding her by the main chains, has
been knocked back by the butt-end of a sentry’s musket and has fallen
on the thole-pin of his boat. The pin has entered his back near the
spine, and inflicted a severe injury. He feels it not, however, and,
recovering his feet, re-ascends. This time he reaches the deck, and is
immediately shot through the thigh. Hastily a handkerchief is bound
round the bleeding wound and he takes his place in the fight, hewing
down Spaniards till he meets Captain Guise with his party hewing them
down from the other side. Together they drive them back now, and
the Spaniards retreat to take their final stand on the forecastle.
Meanwhile Cochrane hails the foretop, and receives an “Ay, ay, sir,”
from his own men; he similarly hails the main-top, and is similarly
answered. So far his orders have been carried out, and his men have got
possession of the ship.
The Spaniards, however, entrenched on the forecastle have yet to be
overcome. The Chilians charge them with their cutlasses, and are driven
back scorched with their fire. The Spaniard, as the Chilian knows by
experience, cannot face cold steel; so another charge immediately
follows, and again the Chilians have to retire. It is only for a
second, and, at the third charge, the Spanish musketry being spent,
the Chilian cutlasses sweep the deck. At this juncture it became
known that this scene of carnage had its onlookers. The British ship
_Hyperion_ was so near the _Esmeralda_ that those on board
witnessed the whole proceeding, and a midshipman standing at the
gangway so far forgot his neutrality as to cheer at the way Cochrane
cleared the forecastle. For this he was immediately ordered below by
his commander, Captain Searle, and, further, threatened with arrest.
After the forecastle was cleared as described, the fight was renewed
on the quarter-deck--only for a moment, however, the Spanish marines
who did not leap overboard or into the hold being instantly cut down.
Meanwhile, the last quarter of an hour’s uproar had attracted the
attention of the garrisons ashore, and these, presuming that what
had been so much dreaded--viz., the capture of their frigate--had
been accomplished, opened fire upon the _Esmeralda_. For this,
however, Cochrane was prepared. He knew the arrangement made with the
neutral vessels whereby they were to be distinguished by carrying
certain lights, so he hoisted similar lights on the captured frigate.
The result was that the garrisons were puzzled, and struck the neutral
vessels oftener than they did the _Esmeralda_. This made these
vessels cut their cables and move away.
Now it was that Cochrane’s orders began to be departed from. Wounded
twice, as we have already seen, he was at length obliged to retire
from the direction of the conflict. The command, accordingly, fell
upon Captain Guise, who gave orders to cut the _Esmeralda’s_
cables. This done, there was nothing for it but to loose her topsails
and follow the retiring neutrals. Captain Guise’s excuse for so
violating his superior’s commands was that he had lost all control of
the men, who had burst into the spirit-room of the _Esmeralda_,
and had otherwise broken up into disorganised bands bent solely upon
pillage. But for this, seeing that they had succeeded in capturing the
_Esmeralda_, with her picked and specially equipped crew, they
might surely have chased the Spaniards from the other ships, one after
another, as fast as their boats would take them, and so the whole fleet
might either have been seized or burned. This was Cochrane’s intention,
and to this end all his previous plans had been laid. But Cochrane
now lay a wounded and exhausted man, and perhaps, under any other
leadership, his daring design--if attempted in full--would have ended
disastrously.
As it was, their prize was no mean one. They certainly missed the
treasure-ship with its million of dollars, which the captured frigate,
provisioned for three months and with stores sufficient for a two
years’ cruise, was meant to convoy. Aboard, however, they found and
made prisoner the Spanish admiral, with his officers and 200 seamen.
The rest of the 370, who had originally manned her, had been either
killed or drowned. On Cochrane’s side the losses were eleven killed and
thirty wounded. The whole affair, from the moment of boarding to the
cutting of the frigate’s cables, occupied only a quarter-of-an-hour.
Yet in that quarter-of-an-hour, according to Captain Basil Hall, who
at the time was commanding the British warship _Conway_ in the
Pacific--Cochrane had struck “a death-blow to the Spanish naval force
in that quarter of the world; for although there were still two Spanish
frigates and some smaller vessels in the Pacific, they never afterwards
ventured to show themselves, but left Lord Cochrane undisputed master
of the coast.”
The bitter feelings aroused in the breasts of the Spaniards by the
disaster of that night received brutal exemplification next morning.
Then, as usual, the market-boat put off from the United States ship
_Macedonian_ for the shore for provisions. As the boatmen jumped
ashore they were surrounded with an angry crowd, who began to accuse
them of assisting the Chilians the previous night. The boatmen’s
denials were made in vain, and were answered with the confident and
positive statement that, without such assistance, the feat had been
impossible. Then the mob, their anger increasing and their belief in
the charges they were making becoming more assured by the mere force of
repetition, set upon the innocent boatmen and foully massacred them.
After this, Cochrane tried hard to draw the Spaniards from the shelter
of their guns by placing the _Esmeralda_ in positions that might
tempt them to try to recapture her. Only once, when she was placed in
a more than usually tempting position, did they venture out with their
gunboats, and an hour’s sharp firing followed. As soon, however, as
they saw the _O’Higgins_ manœuvring to cut them off, they hastily
retreated. Thus, finding it impossible to draw the enemy into an
engagement afloat, Cochrane induced General San Martin to lend him 600
soldiers, and with these and the ships of his squadron he so harassed
the Peruvian coast from Callao to Arica, that he virtually compelled
Lima to capitulate on July 6th, 1821. Three weeks later, on the 28th
of July, the national flag was hoisted in the city of the Incas and in
these words Peruvian Independence declared:--
“Peru is from this moment free and independent by the general vote of
the people and by the justice of her cause, which God defend.”
[Illustration:
_The Taking of the Gate Pah_
_by A. Hilliard Atteridge_]
“A poor benighted heathen, but a first-rate fighting-man,” is the
description of a savage adversary which Mr. Rudyard Kipling puts into
the mouth of Tommy Atkins. The New Zealanders who fought against us in
the sixties were not all of them “poor benighted heathens”: some of
them had been pupils in the mission schools, others had come into the
mission stations as grown men to learn something of the religion of the
white men. When the everlasting quarrel between natives and settlers
over land rights led to strife and bloodshed, and the Maories, or
natives, took to the bush, most of them forgot what Christianity they
had learned, though some of them clung to the old observances; and it
is said that when one of their forts was surprised on a Sunday morning,
they told the victors that, had it not been for a service which they
were holding, they would have been at their posts, and that the English
must be strange Christians to fight on Sunday. But whatever were the
opinions of the Maori tribesmen in such matters, there is no doubt the
second part of the description applied to them. They were “first-rate
fighting men.” They had a skill in constructing earthworks which no
other race has ever surpassed, and they held them with desperate
courage. Frequently when they abandoned them it was not from any fear
of their adversaries, for it was one of the principles of their mode
of warfare that the rapidly constructed pah, or fort, was only to be
held long enough to inflict labour, delay, and loss upon the enemy, and
then it was to be secretly evacuated and another work of the same kind
held further inland. Of all the battles they fought against us, none
displayed their soldierly qualities in a higher degree than the fight
at the Gate Pah, which for a time seemed likely to end in a serious
disaster to a force that far outnumbered the Maori garrison of the
pah, and that brought against it all the resources of modern civilised
warfare.
The fight was one in a long series, all of which ended in successes
for our arms. Sir Duncan Cameron, who commanded the British forces
operating against the rebel Maories in the North Island of New Zealand,
was a brave and skilful Highland soldier, and the temporary check at
Gate Pah was no fault of his, for he had done everything to ensure
success, and it was the first time that there was anything like failure
in his whole career. In the spring of 1864, which in that southern
climate is the late summer and early autumn of the year, he had made
Auckland his base of operations, and while the navy blockaded the coast
to prevent arms and ammunition being conveyed to the rebels, he had
made a successful expedition up the valley of the Thames, and with very
little bloodshed had broken up the Maori power on that river and on the
Waikato.