THE SPY SYSTEM OF THE PATRIOTS.
1815--1816.
The restoration of royalty in Chile was attended with such excesses as
might have been expected had some foreign power triumphed over the
country. A system of blood and fire was established for its
pacification, which had the natural result of reanimating the spirit of
resistance. The great majority of the people were tired of war, and
failed to see that revolutionary anarchy was any improvement on colonial
despotism; they were anxious only for peace, and welcomed their
conqueror as a liberator. A moderate policy might have consolidated
Spanish power in Chile for a considerable time, but these excesses
fanned into a blaze the embers of the old patriotic spirit, which was
buried under the ashes of Rancagua.
Osorio was by nature inclined to clemency, but the instructions of
Viceroy Abascal prohibited him from adopting any such course, and the
Spaniards who surrounded him urged upon him the necessity of the most
severe measures of repression. Yielding to these influences he became
the instrument of a pitiless persecution, the result of which was to
arouse the spirit of insurrection in every Chilian heart.
Forced loans and arbitrary contributions formed the sources of his
revenue, and so crushed all industry that soon even these sources dried
up, and supplies could only be obtained by confiscations. All the
civilizing reforms of the revolutionary epoch were abolished, and the
old monopolies were re-established. The most distinguished patriots were
exiled to the island of Juan Fernandez; all the native inhabitants were
classified as “suspects,” and many were murdered in the prisons by the
soldiery. A new spirit of patriotism was engendered by misery and
despair. Spaniards again became a privileged class, they occupied all
the public offices, they alone were allowed to carry arms, their
testimony only was received in the courts. Every native Chilian had to
be in his own house at nine o’clock at night, and could not travel even
the shortest distance without a permit. Fights between the soldiery and
the “rotos,” as the men of the labouring class are called, were of daily
occurrence. Many men of the Talavera regiment, which was particularly
obnoxious, were murdered by the populace. Even the Chilian troops, which
had done such good service under Sanchez and other leaders, were most
thanklessly treated. Commissions won by their officers on the field of
battle were not recognised, their pay was scanty, and the pensions of
their widows were not paid at all.
At the commencement of 1815 Osorio had 5,000 men, perfectly armed and
equipped, under his orders. His instructions were, as soon as he had
pacified the country, to cross the Andes with 3,000 men, and to act in
Cuyo and Cordoba in combination with Pezuela. Abascal had the converse
of the same idea, which was later on carried out by San Martin. Small
bodies of armed men had frequently crossed the Andes, but it is not the
number of the troops employed, nor the power of the peoples in conflict,
which constitutes the fame of such achievements, that fame lies in their
motives and results. In this lay the importance of the passage of the
Alps by Hannibal and by Napoleon; and the passage of the Andes by San
Martin and by Bolívar, are famous as parts of a great scheme for the
emancipation of a continent. Osorio was not the man for such an
enterprise, and his force was so weakened by detachments in aid of
Pezuela, that he never attempted it.
The disasters suffered by the Patriots in this year were not fruitless;
time was gained, in which San Martin perfected his preparations, and
this he lengthened by entering into a correspondence with Osorio,
proposing some arrangement for the prevention of further bloodshed. He
also took advantage of the correspondence so established to set on foot
an extensive system of spies and secret agents all over Chile, by whose
means he propagated false intelligence of such great military
preparations in Mendoza as filled Osorio with fears of an immediate
invasion, and had still more effect upon the feebler spirit of Marcó del
Pont, who relieved him of the command in December.
The secret agents, who rendered the greatest service to San Martin, he
found among the Chilian refugees in Mendoza. When the talents or social
position of any of these men inspired him with confidence, he put them
under arrest on some charge of treachery, from which he aided them to
escape and fly across the Andes, “from his tyranny.” Their alleged
sufferings disarmed the suspicions of the Spanish rulers of Chile to the
extent that some of them were actually employed by them to procure
information from the eastern side of the Andes. By their help San Martin
discovered that several Spaniards in Mendoza held secret communications
with Osorio. He arrested them, and by threats of immediate execution,
compelled them to show him all the letters they received, and to return
answers dictated by him. His principal care was to persuade the
Spaniards that the projected expedition would attack the south of Chile,
in order to induce them to relax their vigilance in the quarter which
was really menaced, and to concentrate their troops in positions where
they could be of no service.
His agents were incessantly occupied in furnishing him with details
concerning the number, armament, and positions of the Royalist forces,
and in stirring up the Chilian people to co-operate with the invading
army. Thus the whole country was soon on the watch for the moment when
their liberators would pass the Andes. The name of San Martin became so
popular, that his agents had no difficulty in obtaining all the help
they needed; horses were always to be had when they wanted them, and
they were warned in time of any danger which threatened them.
Chilian patriots, among whom the most active was Manuel Rodriguez, also
secretly organised bands of volunteers, who waited but the signal to
rise in arms. Some of them gave their lives for the cause on the
gallows. Marcó del Pont adopted the most severe measures of repression,
which only served to fan the flame of discontent.
In September, 1816, Rodriguez imprudently raised the flag of
insurrection in the south of Chile. His raw troops were speedily
dispersed, but San Martin made good use of his mistake by writing him an
angry despatch, telling him that he had ruined his plans by drawing the
Royalist forces to the south and causing them to occupy the passes by
which he had hoped to cross the Cordillera. This despatch he caused to
fall into the hands of Marcó del Pont, whose attention was thus again
diverted from the real point of danger.
At this time Brown, the gallant Irishman who had driven the Spanish
naval forces from the River Plate, and had been rewarded by the gift of
his flagship, the _Hercules_, again offered his ship and his services to
the Argentine Government. He was well supplied with guns, small arms,
and ammunition, and was granted letters of marque as a privateer. On the
15th October, 1815, he sailed from Buenos Ayres for the Pacific with
Captain Buchardo, a Frenchman, as his second in command. His squadron
consisted of four vessels--the _Hercules_ of 20 guns, commanded by
Michael Brown; the _Trinidad_ of 16 guns, commanded by Walter Chitty;
the _Halcon_, commanded by Buchardo, which three vessels were brigs;
and the armed quetch _Uribe_, named after its commander, a Chilian, who
had been a colleague of Carrera in the late revolution. The crews of the
two first were almost entirely English. The _Halcon_ had a mixed crew of
Chilians and Argentines, and her marines were commanded by Ramon Freyre.
The crew of the quetch were all Chilians, and she carried a black flag
as a sign of no quarter. It was stipulated that any prizes they might
make should be sold in Buenos Ayres, one-ninth the prize money to go to
Government, two-ninths to the Commodore, and the rest was to be divided
among the officers and crews.
San Martin took care to inform Marcó of this expedition by means of his
secret agents, and at the same time spread through Chile a rumour that
an army from 4,000 to 7,000 men was assembled in Mendoza for the passage
of the Andes. Marcó, terrified at the idea of being attacked both by
land and sea, issued the most injudicious orders to his subordinates,
scattered his forces, and applied to the Viceroy for naval support.
The _Hercules_ and the _Trinidad_, in the attempt to double Cape Horn,
were driven into the Straits of Magellan by a tempest, where they both
received serious injury from sunken rocks, but, being repaired, reached
the barren island of Mocha in the Southern Sea, where they were joined
by the _Halcon_. The quetch was wrecked, the captain and master being
drowned. Brown with his two ships, and Buchardo with his one, then
sailed by different courses to Callao, where they reunited to blockade
the port, and captured two large prizes, one of which, the
_Consequencia_, was armed and added to the squadron. On the 21st
January, 1816, they sailed boldly into the harbour, and forced the
Spanish ships to take refuge under the guns of the batteries.
On the night of the 22nd the gallant Commodore attacked the Royalist
flotilla with five armed boats, but was beaten off with a loss of thirty
killed and wounded. After maintaining the blockade for three weeks,
they sailed for Guayaquil. The fort at the entrance to this port was
taken by assault by Freyre with the crew of the _Halcon_, who effected a
landing under the fire of the guns of the squadron. The Commodore then
entered the port with the _Trinidad_, captured a schooner carrying
marines, and took the first battery with four brass guns, which were
transferred to the schooner. He then attacked another battery, but a
sudden squall drove the _Trinidad_ ashore, and he was forced to haul
down his flag to prevent the massacre of his men by the Spanish
infantry. He himself stripped off his clothes and sprang overboard
intending to swim to the schooner, but seeing that the Spaniards were
commencing to kill their prisoners, he climbed on board again, seized a
lighted match, ran down to the magazine, and threatened to blow up the
ship with all on board unless the laws of war were respected. This
daring action brought the Spaniards to their senses, the slaughter was
stopped, and Brown, with no other clothing than the Argentine flag which
he wrapped round him, was led a prisoner on shore.
Buchardo, with the rest of the squadron, attacked another battery in the
hope of rescuing his comrades, but was beaten off. One of the prisoners
taken on the _Consequencia_ off Callao was Mendiburo, the Governor of
this province, and the commandant of Guayaquil was so eager to get rid
of his enemies that he proposed an exchange of prisoners, which was at
once accepted. The three remaining vessels with the schooner then left
the port.
On the open sea the jealousy latent in the hearts of the two commanders
broke into an open flame. Each of these two adventurers considered that
the other deserved hanging at the yardarm; but in times of danger they
had most nobly supported each other. Now they agreed to separate,
dividing the plunder between them, and Buchardo returned with the
_Consequencia_ to Buenos Ayres. Brown sailed on to Santa Fé in New
Granada, but, finding that city occupied by Royalist troops, he
followed his late comrade to the Atlantic.
The Argentine Government had hoped great things from this expedition,
and had written to San Martin to hold himself ready to take advantage of
any movement it might occasion in Chile; but the astute general replied
that a naval force, to be of any effective aid to an invading general,
must consist of ships of war, not of privateers, and must be under his
orders. The result showed that it was but of slight service to the
cause, and was a waste of material which might have been much more
usefully employed.