INTRODUCTION. oT 
powder mills ; all the public papers and acts of the new government 
were burned ; and, taking with him the remains of the public money, 
he began a disorderly retreat towards Mendoza on the first of October, 
1814, and Osorio entered the city on the fifth of the same month, 
and, re-establishing the chamber of royal audience, appointed himself 
captain-general, and exercised his functions by punishing with se- 
verity the most distinguished patriots, many of whom were exiled to 
Juan Fernandez. 
Mean time, some of those who had been most inimical to the royal 
cause sought safety in flight, and accompanied the 600 troops who 
followed Carrera across the Andes. The season was particularly 
backward ; the snows had not yet melted ; and of the 2000 persons 
who left the city, many, especially among the women and children, 
perished from cold and hunger in the Cumbre. It was too early for 
horses or any beast of burden to travel: so that these wretched 
fugitives performed the long and painful journey on foot, laden with 
the necessary provisions for the passage. 
On their arrival at Mendoza, the Carreras instantly claimed a right 
to the government of the town; a claim evidently inconsistent with 
their fugitive situation, and which San Martin*, who then governed: 
that town under the junta of Buenos Ayres, certainly would not 
attend to, but which had the effect of beginning that rooted dislike 
to them which at length brought about the death of the three brothers. 
Such were the events of the first revolution in Chile, in which 
much was done, because the old systems had been broken up, and 
the people had learned in some measure to know their power: they 
also had learned, that unless they turned their attention to the marine, 
and formed a naval force, they could never be safe from the invasion 
of troops from Lima, or even from Spain. Hitherto they had pos- 
sessed only two or three miserable gun-boats and launches, which had 
* I have never been able to ascertain exactly either the place of his birth or his true 
parentage. He was in Spain attached to the military police, and is a very different person 
from the brave general San Martin, for whom many persons have mistaken him. 
EQ 
