APPENDIX. 457 



a high degree : he was open and frank, a stranger to dissimulation, true to his 

 friend, and in point of personal bravery was exceeded by none. 



During our stay in San Luis, two revolutions were set on foot against us : 

 the one by four officers of our own division ; the other by Aldao, and some 

 officers of the enemy who had been prisoners with us, and who having re- 

 ceived their liberty from the General, still chose to follow our division and 

 remain under our protection, probably to embrace the first opportunity of 

 betraying us. 



The cause of this division among our own officers may be accounted for 

 by observing, that three of them, who had commanded parties in the country, 

 and acted in a way highly derogatory to the character which they represented 

 (by not only allowing their soldiers to plunder several villages, but actually 

 receiving their proportion of the booty, thereby injuring the general charac- 

 ter of the officers, as well as the cause in which we were engaged), were 

 impeached by the other officers, who requested of the General that they might 

 be brought to trial, and dismissed for their ill conduct. As these officers 

 were much beloved by the men, on account of the many liberties which they 

 allowed them, the General did not at that time think it prudent to bring them 

 to punishment, as it might cause a desertion among the soldiers ; but he 

 named a military tribunal, over which the Colonel was to preside ; and which 

 on our arrival at San Juan was to be invested with full power to take cogni- 

 sance of, and enquire into, the conduct of every officer in the past campaigns ; 

 bring all such as were obnoxious to trial, and subject them (according to the 

 nature of their crimes) to such punishment as a court-martial might think 

 fit to impose. This determination of the General, though it was intended to 

 have been kept unknown to the greater part of the officers, came to the 

 knowledge of some of those whose characters would not bear scrutiny, and 

 therefore they began to exert all their influence with the soldiers to induce 

 them to desert and follow them. At the head of this mutiny was Don Ma- 

 nuel Arias, who has been mentioned before as appointed commandant of the 

 Sierra de Cordova. Arias was aged about forty-five ; and though not a soldier, 

 as he was the richest and most respectable gentleman who resided in the 

 sierra, where his influence with the inhabitants was considerable, Carrera 

 thought him the fittest person to nominate to the command of that district. 

 He had 300 militia left him when we raised the siege of Cordova, and in 

 our absence he was attacked and easily defeated ; from which time he fol- 



3 N 



