98 INTRODUCTION. 



with regard to prisoners of war he well knew ; and they were horribly 

 murdered. When General Prieto wrote to inform him of the fall 

 of Lima, and the hopelessness of his further perseverance in warfare, 

 he answered, that he would " struggle against Chile with his last 

 " soldier, even although it should be acknowledged by the king and 

 " the nation." He fitted out a privateer to cruize against every flag, 

 and so to provide himself with food and ammunition ; and at length, 

 on the 1st of February, 1822, finding he could hold out no longer, 

 he attempted to escape to some of the Spanish ports in a small boat, 

 but being obliged to put into Topocalma for water, he was recognised, 

 seized, and sent to Santiago, where, on the 21st, he was tried and 

 sentenced to death. 



On the 23d he was dragged from prison, tied to the tail of a mule, 

 and then hanged in the palace square : his head and hands were cut 

 off, to be exposed in the towns he had ravaged in the south, and such 

 indignities offered to his remains as appeared more like the revenge 

 of savages than the punishment of a just government in the 

 nineteenth century. 



However, though the director gave way to this execution, he forbid 

 any of the followers of Benevideis to be punished with death, as the 

 continental part of Chile was now free from enemies ; and there only 

 remained the troops under Quintan ilia, who still held out in Chiloe. 



It is difficult to imagine on what grounds a report was spread about 

 this time, that when Lord Cochrane sailed in pursuit of the enemy's 

 frigates towards the northern ports, he would never return to Chile. * 

 Possibly it might arise from the knowledge of the dreadful state of 

 his ships, in which no other commander would probably have ven- 

 tured to sea ; and that some hoped, while many dreaded, that they 

 would never again be heard of. However that may be, San Martin 

 made use of the period of his absence to endeavour to ruin him in 



* Judging by themselves, the propagators of the reports pretended to imagine, that 

 having sent his family home in order that his children might be educated in England, the 

 admiral meant to seize on such Spanish property on the coast as would enrich him, and so 

 render him careless of the country he had engaged to serve. But they little knew him. 



