INTRODUCTION. 25 
barrack where they were known; and having prepared their party, 
and won over most of the soldiers, they deposed Lastra, and Jose 
Miguel once more became the chief of the state*. The first object 
of the brothers was to seize the treasury, which contained 800,000 
dollars; they then gave way to all the imprudence of their charac- 
ters, and their government became insufferably oppressive. 
While these things were going on in Chile, the terms of the con- 
vention of Lucae had reached Lima, where Abascal was on the point 
of signing them, when the regiment of Talavera, with Marco at its 
head, arrived from Spain, and volunteered to go alone and overrun 
Chile ; on which the viceroy changed his determination, and sent a 
strong body of troops + under General Osorio, who sailed from Callao 
on the 18th of July, landed at Talcahuana on the 12th of August, 
and marched immediately towards Santiago. “ The incapacity of a 
“‘ weak and distracted government,” says Gibbon, “ may often assume 
“ the appearance and produce the effects of a treasonable corres- 
‘“‘ pondence with the public enemy.” And this juncture furnishes 
a fatal proof of the justice of the remark, for while General O’Hig- 
gins, who had been indefatigable in forming new troops and reduc- 
ing the old to order, hung upon and harassed the march of Osorio, 
and was on the point of giving him battle in the neighbourhood of 
San Fernando, he received a deputation from all the authorities of 
Santiago and the neighbouring towns, entreating him to march 
immediately to the capital against a worse foe than the Spaniards 
themselves, in the person of Carrera, whose yoke had become into- 
lerable. He accordingly left the main body of the army, consisting 
of about 2000 men, to observe the enemy, and marched towards the 
city with 900, when he met Carrera at the head of a very superior 
force, on the plain of Maypu, at a place called the Espejo, and sus- 
tained a decided defeat. After which he appealed both to the versatile 
Carrera and to those who had sent to invite him to leave the army, 
* His colleagues were Don M. Munnos Orroa and Don Jose Urive. 
+ The regiment of Talavera alone was 700 strong. 
E 
