338 EVENTS SUCCEEDING THE ELECTION. 



of the Independence who is not, as I am, ready to die for the country freed by his arm after a 

 hundred glorious battles ? 



"National Guards of the republic, you to whom is confided the custody of public security ; 

 you who exercise the noble and honorable charge of citizens armed to defend the institutions, 

 order, and tranquillity of the people, follow the example set by your brothers in Concepcion 

 and Coquimbo ; and this unanimous pronunciamiento will pull down the despotism of an 

 administration which longs to convert you into a blind instrument of tyranny, ridiculing your 

 noble mission. Listen to the voice of the country claiming her sons, and in a brief time the 

 republic will have been saved without a drop of kindred blood having been shed to darken your 

 glorious triumph. 



"Valiants of the Carampangue Battalion and Kegiment of Cazadors : to you I should 

 especially direct myself, that we may recollect a sacred duty at moments so precious to the 

 republic. In your ranks I learned to defend liberty, and I have the honor to have been one of 

 your founders. With you I have shared the glories and dangers of war, my grades have been 

 earned fighting beside you, and I have a claim to hope that now you will listen to the call 

 made to us in the name of our country. 



" Troops of the Line : your cause is that of the republic ; you would be irresistible with the 

 decided support of the people. We mean to destroy tyranny or die honorably fighting it. 

 Wherever I am, I am your old companion and friend, 



" JOSE MAKIA DE LA CRUZ. 



" CONCEPCION, September 23, 1851." 



No one believed at first that Gen. Cruz would lend his name to a revolutionary enterprise ; 

 and even after the pronunciamiento was circulated in Santiago, none were more obstinate in 

 expressing their disbelief than the foreigners domiciliated in Chile. To a man almost they 

 pronounced the document a forgery. Then his intimates claim that the General said openly, 

 he " had neither desire nor intention to become President, but would call a new election by the 

 people at a successful termination of the campaign, taking care that suffrage should be exer- 

 cised in accordance with the spirit and letter of the Constitution." This was what the wire- 

 pulling friends of Errazuriz expected ; and they counted on the election of their candidate with 

 much confidence. As time passed on, through the influence of officers by whom he was sur- 

 rounded, the patriotic singleness of purpose which had influenced the military chief yielded to 

 personal ambition ; and long before the final battle he spoke openly and authoritatively of the 

 regard which the nation bore to him, and of his claims to its gratitude. With the army at 

 his back, and faithful, small as it was, he might have obtained and maintained absolute 

 power. Carrera also was aiming at supremacy; and had the result of the battle of Loncomilla 

 been different, it would probably have been worse for the republic. The manoeuvres about 

 Chilian, the permitting of Bulnes to cross the Nuble unmolested and recross it without being 

 harassed after he had lost a considerable portion of his force, and the mode of following him 

 in his retreat to Loncomilla, are convincing proofs that Cruz had lost all the energy and 

 decision of character, if not all the knowledge of strategy, absolutely requisite for a military 

 leader. His pronunciamiento indicates, and his friends claim for him, that he desired to 

 spare the effusion of blood under a belief that time only was wanted to bring the nation under 

 his banner. Some who proved faithful through everything, more than intimate his feebleness 

 and fickleness, excusing their adherence on the ground that their cause was a righteous one 

 and he their only leader. 



Carrera, at first commanding in the north, although a man of intelligence, courage, deter- 

 mination, and promptness,. had not received military training, and, wanting this, could not be 

 called on to direct a battle. Patriotism, probably, never for a moment entered his mind. He 

 aspired, as did father and brothers before him, to be chief of the nation ; and was so impatient 

 to have the Coquimbanos declare him, that his own party were compelled to displace him from 



