210 



PERU. 



petition of the inhabitants. San Martin, on the 

 other hand, considered the independence of the 

 country a sine qua non, which must precede any- 

 other arrangement whatsoever. The expedition 

 entrusted to his command, he said, had the inde- 

 pendence of Peru for its express object ; and he 

 could never allow that point to be relinquished or 

 modified in any shape. If this were once admit- 

 ted by the Spaniards, and received throughout 

 the country, San Martin declared himself ready 

 to enter into any terms, and even offered to go in 

 person to Spain, as one of the deputies, to treat 

 with the Cortes. The Viceroy also, to prove an 

 equal anxiety that some terms of accommodation 

 should be arranged, offered to give up the Castle 

 of Callao as a guarantee for his sincerity, in the 

 event of his proposal for a truce being agreed to. 



All these different propositions, however, led to 

 nothing, and the armistice was dissolved about the 

 time of our arrival. The first news we heard was, 

 that the Royalist army meant to abandon the ca- 

 pital, and to retire to the interior, where they were 

 more certain of supplies. The truth probably was, 



that the revolutionary principles disseminated by 

 ] 



