28 INTRODUCTION. 



been chiefly employed in carrying intelligence along the coast, and 

 keeping up a correspondence with the patriots of Peru. 



Osorio's government lasted two years, during which time the 

 Carreras, with their sister, Donna Xaviera, and their wives, had been 

 occasionally residents in Montevideo, Buenos Ayres, &c. Jose 

 Miguel had gone to North America to endeavour to raise supplies 

 and procure ships, O'Higgins served in the patriot army of Buenos 

 Ayres, and Mackenna was killed in a duel by Luis Carrera. 



But it was not the mere possession of the government by a Spanish 

 general that could again reduce Chile under the Spanish yoke. 

 Besides the wish for independence, and for deliverance from their 

 double thraldom, (for such it was, being bound both to the king of 

 Spain and the vice-king at Lima), many individuals had risen to a 

 consequence they had scarcely hoped to attain, and which, having 

 attained, they were not likely to part with. " From shopkeepers 

 and tradesmen, and attornies, they had become statesmen and 

 legislators ;" and as all men desire to possess influence and conse- 

 quence, at least in their own country, this motive once felt, there 

 was no reasonable hope of easily overcoming it. The reign of Osorio, 

 or of Marco, his deputy, in Santiago, therefore, was not very tranquil ; 

 and as the wretched state of Spain prevented her from succouring 

 her generals in the colonies, he was but ill prepared for the events 

 of the early part of 1817, which lost Chile for ever to the crown of 

 Spain. The state of the country itself was deplorable. The effects 

 of civil war are at all times shocking to humanity. This had been 

 both a civil war and a foreign one. Natives of the country had fought 

 on either side, and foreign soldiers and generals were engaged; 

 hence there were the petty and private hatred and malice of the 

 first, and the want of sympathy with the sufferers of the last. Many 

 of the dismissed soldiers had formed bands of thieves and murderers, 

 and infested the thickets every where to be found between Santiago 

 and Conception ^ nor was the road to Valparaiso exempt from the 

 same. The regiments of Chilian and Talavera were employed in 

 detachments which took it in turn to scour the country, and, if pos- 



