INTRODUCTION. 69 
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 Mattin’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. 
