INTRODUCTION. go, 



during fifty days at Pisco, re-embarked on the 28th of October *, and 

 directed his course to the northward, but not, as every officer and 

 man in the army hoped, to Lima itself. His first intention was to go 

 to Truxillo, a town not less than four degrees to leeward of Callao, 

 and where the army could have had no advantage, but that of being 

 safe from an attack from Lima, as it was not approachable by land, 

 and the squadron would have protected it by sea : with some difficulty 

 General San Martin was prevailed on to abandon this plan, and to 

 approach a little nearer the principal point of attack. Had he done 

 so at once, the people were all so prepared throughout the country 

 for receiving the liberating forces with open arms, that his success 

 was certain : but he lingered. Some declared too soon for him ; and 

 they were fined or imprisoned, or corporally punished by the viceroy ; 

 others rendered cautious, demurred on the approach of San Martin's 

 people about supplying them, and they were treated by him with 

 military rigour; thus the people were worn out, and harassed till 

 they looked upon both parties alike as oppressors, and lost the taste 

 for national independence introduced by the violation of civil liberty. 

 The General's conduct appears to have been guided by an idea, that 



* The only event that marked the interval was the death of the auditor, General Jonte, 

 on the 22d : the whole army mourned three days for him : this man had been one of the 

 agents for Chile in England. He was one of those who mistake cunning for wisdom, and 

 scrupled not to employ any petty means of obtaining the information he wanted, and of 

 which he made use either for himself or his employers, well knowing how to dole it out. 

 Such men, as they begin by the petty tricks of espionage, are apt to contract a love for 

 the thing itself. Hence, not only public papers, but private letters, are violated ; and 

 I have seen an account of cattle opened, examined, and sealed up again, with wily 

 cautiousness, in order to see if the very cow-keepers wrote politics. As for Jonte, his 

 curiosity had become a passion almost insatiable, and the meannesses which he would 

 have started from on other accounts, were practised daily by him for its gratification. It 

 was believed, that he had been commissioned to offer Peru, Chile, and, I think, the 

 Buenos Ayrian provinces as a sovereignty, first to a prince of the blood-royal of England, 

 and next to a Bourbon prince. If so, it could have been only with a view of inducing 

 those powers to stand by in neutrality, in hopes of a rich possession, while the Spanish 

 American colonies were struggling for their freedom. The petty scheme was worthy of 

 its authors, who certainly never meant to realise such plans, but merely to bribe England 

 and France to abstain from assisting Old Spain : the cunning was childish and useless, and 

 it marks the weakness of the employers of Jonte. 



