INTRODUCTION. 85 
ing to the same powers, granting licences to neutrals to trade on the 
blockaded coast, on the same consideration; at others, purchasing 
from his own private funds, and those of the officers of the squadron, 
the articles more immediately necessary ; or seizing and converting 
the enemy’s stores to the use of the patriots; he had thus long kept 
the squadron afloat. But the time for which the greater part of the 
seamen had engaged was now expired, and they began to be cla- 
morous for their pay, more especially as the additional bounty of 
a year’s wages, which was promised to them on the fall of Lima, 
seemed to have been forgotten. Lord Cochrane applied to San 
Martin on this head, on the day on which he became protector ; 
excuses were first made on the score of want of funds, although the 
mint of Lima was in his hands; but at length he declared that he 
would never pay the squadron of Chile, unless that squadron were 
sold to him by the admiral, and then the pay should be considered 
as part of the purchase money. The indignation expressed by Lord 
Cochrane on this occasion violently exasperated the new protector ; 
but as Callao had not yet fallen, his passions remained under some 
constraint, though his determination to possess the squadron was 
probably strengthened. This determination prompted him, in order 
to prevent the ships from withdrawing from the coast, to refuse all 
supplies and provisions, (so that the crew of the Lautaro was abso- 
lutely starved out, and obliged to abandon her,) in hopes of forcing 
the officers and men to go over to him. 
The day following, Lord Cochrane wrote a letter to the protector, 
in which he asks him, “ What will the world say, if the protector of 
* Peru shall violate, by his very first act, the obligations of San 
“ Martin; even although gratitude may be a private and not a 
“ public virtue? What will it say, if the protector refuses to pay the 
“ expenses of the expedition that has placed him in his present 
elevated station ?— and what will be said if he refuses to reward the 
“* seamen, who have so materially contributed to his success ?” Not- 
withstanding this letter, and others still more urgent to the same 
effect, nothing was done. The ships were left so destitute of sails, 
rigging, and stores, that their safety was endangered ; the provisions 
n 
a 
