98 INTRODUCTION. 
with regard to prisoners of war he well knew ; and they were horribly 
murdered. When General Prieto wrote to inform him of the fall 
of Lima, and the hopelessness of his further perseverance in warfare, 
he answered, that he would “ struggle against Chile with his last 
“ soldier, even although it should be acknowledged by the king and 
“ the nation.” He fitted out a privateer to cruize against every flag, 
and so to provide himself with food and ammunition ; and at length, 
on the Ist of February, 1822, finding he could hold out no longer, 
he attempted to escape to some of the Spanish ports in a small boat, 
but being obliged to put into Topocalma for water, he was recognised, 
seized, and sent to Santiago, where, on the 2lst, he was tried and 
sentenced to death. 
On the 23d he was dragged from prison, tied to the tail of a mule, 
and then hanged in the palace square: his head and hands were cut 
off, to be exposed in the towns he had ravaged in the south, and such 
indignities offered to his remains as appeared more like the revenge 
of savages than the punishment of a just government in the 
nineteenth century. 
However, though the director gave way to this execution, he forbid 
any of the followers of Benevideis to be punished with death, as the 
continental part of Chile was now free from enemies; and there only 
remained the troops under Quintanilla, who still held out in Chiloe. 
It is difficult to imagine on what grounds a report was spread about 
this time, that when Lord Cochrane sailed in pursuit of the enemy’s 
frigates towards the northern ports, he would never return to Chile. * 
Possibly it might arise from the knowledge of the dreadful state of 
his ships, in which no other commander would probably have ven- 
tured to sea; and that some hoped, while many dreaded, that they 
would never again be heard of. However that may be, San Martin 
made use of. the period of his absence to endeavour to ruin him in 
* Judging by themselves, the propagators of the reports pretended to imagine, that 
having sent his family home in order that his children might be educated in Buglond the 
admiral meant to seize on such Spanish property on the coast as would enrich him, and so 
render him careless of the country he had engaged to serve. But they little knew him. 
