Cochrane (46 page)

When Kitty arrived off Callao, Lima h
ad still not fallen, though the
Spanish troops had deposed the Viceroy of Peru, Pezuela, and replaced him with one of their own generals. Pezuela asked San Martin for a passport, so that he might return to Europe. He was refused. But Kitty took up the cause of the Vicereine, Donna Angela, and arranged a passage for her on board H.M.S.
Andromache.
Captain Sheriff of the
Andromache,
founder of the Valparaiso Cricket Club, invited Cochrane on board to meet the wife of his late adversary. Donna Angela was won over by him, announcing that, "His lordship was a polite
rational
being, and not the
ferocious
brute
she had been taught to consider him." This forthright judgement, as Cochrane observed, "caused no small merriment" among the other guests of the
Andromache.

William Miller, now promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, was impressed by the reaction of the Chilean troops to Kitty's beauty and spirited behaviour. He was inspecting his men in the town square of Huacho when Kitty arrived, having come ashore from the
O'Higgins.

The sudden appearance of youth and beauty, on a fiery horse, managed with skill and elegance, absolutely electrified the men, who had never before seen an English lady:
que hermosa! que graciosa! que lindal que guapal que airosal es un angel del ciel
o!
were exclamations that escaped from one end of the line to the other.

Miller, with a happy inspiration, turned to his men and said grandly, "This is our
generala."

Her ladyship turned her sparkling eyes towards the line, and bowed graciously. The troops could no longer confine their expressions of admiration to half-suppressed interjections; loud
vivas
burst from officers as well as men. Lady Cochrane smiled her acknowledgements and cantered off the ground with the grace of a fairy
²⁹

While Cochrane was blockading Callao, Kitty had taken her son on an excursion into the interior, choosing an area which was supposedly clear of the Spanish. During a visit to the Marchioness de la Pracer at Quilca, she was warned that the Spaniards were making for the town with the object of seizing her and the child as hostages. The party left at once, Kitty on horseback and the child in a Utter. By the following day they had come to a swollen river whose only bridge was a cane rope construction, four strips of hide with sticks fastened across forming the footway and two more strips of hide acting as handrails. There was no question of taking horses across, indeed even an inexpert foot passenger would start the bridge vibrating so alarmingly that it was impossible to remain upright. But then the bugles of the pursuers were heard. Kitty snatched up the child and tried to cross the bridge. By the time that she reached the centre, the ramshackle structure was swaying too violently for her to keep a footing. She lay down, clutching the child to her, while the decking rippled and swung above the swirling water. It was the same Pedro Flores, to whom she owed her safety at the Ponte del Inca, who urged her to lie quite still and, when the bridge was motionless once more, came forward on his hands and knees, distributing his weight as widely as possible because the ropes were only intended to bear the weight of one person at a time, and helped Kitty and the child across.
³⁰

Having learnt the lesson of cane-rope bridges, Kitty came safely down to the coast and joined the
O'Higgins
once more. Cochrane had just received intelligence that a ship loaded with the contents of the treasury at Callao was about to attempt an escape. The fastest boat of the Spanish squadron had been chosen and Cochrane knew that, if once she got clear, there would be no chance of overtaking her. Even with Kitty on board he had no alternative but to sail under the guns of Callao and cripple the proposed "treasure vessel".

As the drums beat to quarters and the
O'Higgins
sailed in, Kitty remained on deck. She was standing close to one of the ship's guns, which evidently made the gunner hesitate as to whether he ought to fire the piece so close to a delicate looking young lady. Conversation was impossible in the din of battle, but Kitty decided the matter by seizing the man's arm and directing the burning match to fire the gun. As the explosion deafened her and the iron cannon recoiled, rolling back on its wooden truck, the emo
tional effort took its toll and
she fainted with becoming femininity. But the gesture of firing the gun grew into a legend. When she appeared at the end of the action, the men in the rigging as well as those on the deck sang their national anthem in her honour.
³¹

It was Kitty's last experience of the Chilean war. She returned to England, to the society of other young women for whom the limits of emotional excitement were generally represented by the quadrille or the vicarious ordeals of Amy Robsart in the newly published
Kenilworth.

For Cochrane and Kitty, the triumph of Valdiva and the cutting out of the
Esmeralda
were seen in the perspective of the news which reached them at Lima as it surrendered to the Chilean force. Ever since the failure of Colonel Charles's mission, they had been prepared for it, but its announcement put an end forever to their brave dream of a grand, renascent South America. On
5
May
1821,
in his island exile at St Helena, the scourge of Europe whose conquests extended from Biscay to Moscow, from the Baltic to the Nile, had died at the age of fifty-two.

With Napoleon, much of Cochrane's remaining enthusiasm for the Chilean war died too. Victory over Spain was virtually achieved. Victory over San Martin and the men of political ambition was another struggle in which there could hardly be any part for him. After Callao and Lima, little remained but the duty of seeing his squadron properly paid for its services.

He entered Lima on
17
July, and was received as a hero by the citizens. Yet he was about to make the discovery, which he could well have predicted by this time, that men who lead "wars of liberation" frequently harbour schemes no less tyrannical than those whom they propose to overthrow. So it was with San Martin. His army seized Lima, ignoring the Spanish forts at Callao and the fugitive Spanish army which fled inland, looting and murdering as it went. Instead of continuing the fight, San Martin announced that, with his troops to enforce the claim, he had now assumed power as supreme ruler of an independent Peru.

Cochrane regarded this as an act of treachery to Chile and to O'Higgins, as well as a betrayal of the Peruvian struggle for true independence. San Martin responded by ordering him to hand over the Chilean squadron to the new "government". Cochrane refused. On
4
August, there was a fierce argument in the royal palace at Lima, San Martin insisting that he would "buy" the squadron for the amount of pay owing to the officers and men. If this offer was refused, they would remain unpaid. The argument continued until San Martin turned to Cochrane and his secretary, rubbing his hands agitatedly, and said, "I am Protector of Peru."

"Then," said Cochrane, "it now becomes me as the senior officer of Chile, and consequently the representative of the nation, to request the fulfilment of all the promises made to Chile, and the squadron, but first, and principally, the squadron."

San Martin came forward and snapped his fingers in Cochrane's face.

"Chile! Chile! I will never pay a single real to Chile! And as to the squadron you may take it where you please, and go when you choose: a couple of schooners are quite enough for me."

Then, more agitated still, San Martin paced up and down the room, turned and caught Cochrane's hand, saying, "Forget, my lord, what is past!"

"I will when I can," Cochrane replied coldly. He turned to go but San Martin caught him at the top of the staircase, eagerly suggesting that Cochrane had everything to gain from renouncing Chile and that he would be given a supreme command under the new "government" of Peru. Cochrane noted that "a proposition so dishonourable was declined". He left the palace with San Martin's voice ringing petulantly down the staircase.

"I will neither give the seamen their arrears of pay nor the gratuity I have promised."
³²

If San Martin mistook Cochrane's allegiance to honour as a weakness of character in the hard world of practical politics, he was soon to discover the extent of his error. Hostile but ineffective letters passed between the royal palace ashore and the
O'Higgins,
anchored off Callao. Cochrane still regarded himself as responsible to the Chilean government for his squadron but San Martin's refusal to pay its wages had brought most of the ships' companies to the point of mutiny or desertion. Happily, Cochrane discovered that San Martin's yacht, the
Sacramento,
accompanied by a merchant vessel, had prepared to sail from Callao to Ancon. On board was the fortune, or rather loot, which the "liberator" had acquired in the course of his campaign. The seas were now safe for such official cargoes, thanks to Cochrane's presence.

The men of the squadron watched angrily as the two ships sailed north to Ancon, well clear of the war zone and of any marauding parties of Spaniards. A suggestion was murmured among the crews. "My own views coincided with theirs," Cochrane wrote as the
O'Higgins
and her consorts set sail and left Callao in the wake of San Martin's treasure.

To a commander who had survived the
Gamo
and the Basque Roads, not to mention Valdivia and the
Esmeralda,
it was an absurdly simple exercise to overtake the
Sacramento
and her companion, board them at Ancon, and remove everything that could not be proved to belong to individual owners. The
Sacramento
represented a "yacht-load of silver", as well as seven sacks of uncoined gold. Cochrane issued a proclamation, inviting the owners of looted property to retrieve it. Of the rest, he gave
40,000
dollars to the commissary of the army and retained
285,000
dollars as one year's pay for the squadron. There was one exception, however, since he refused to take any of the money for himself.

San Martin was both furious and powerless to do anything about the outrage. Trying to turn the event to his own advantage, he first authorised Cochrane to "employ the money" as he thought proper, since he could hardly prevent this, and then sent "Peruvian" officers to take over the ships, on the grounds that Peru had paid the wages. Unable to enforce this change of command, though supported by Captain Spry, and growing nervous over the repercussions of his Peruvian independence, San Martin ordered Cochrane to return to Valparaiso. Cochrane ignored the command and instead sailed north to Mexico, in search of the two remaining Spanish frigates, the
Venganza
and the
Prueba,
which were reported to have escaped to a Spanish-held port there. On
29
January
1822,
he anchored off Acapulco without sighting them, but three days later an incoming merchant vessel reported the two frigates as being far to the south. Having not the least doubt that his ship would be more than a match for them, Cochrane put about and went in search of them. His discovery of the two frigates was an anti-climax. They were both sheltering in the Guayaquil river, to avoid being attacked by the
O'Higgins
or her consorts. But shortly before Cochrane's arrival, the Spanish commander had recognised the hopelessness of trying to carry on the fight and had negotiated a surrender with the representatives of San Martin.
³³

Personally, Cochrane was angry that San Martin should have forestalled his capture of the
Venganza
and the
Prueba
in this manner. As a commander, he was bitter over the way in which his squadron had been cheated by San Martin and his cronies. But he was, more than anything, alarmed by the sight of Spanish tyranny being replaced by an equally abhorrent form of oppression, masquerading as an army of "liberation". If San Martin could consolidate his position in Lima, he would be well placed to strike against Chile itself and to overthrow the young republic of O'Higgins in the cause of his own dictatorial ambitions.

Accordingly, Cochrane returned to Valparaiso, anchoring off the port on
3
June
1822.
He was granted the inevitable hero's welcome and medals were struck in his honour. In exchange, he brought only dire warnings of San Martin's betr
ayal of the cause. Happily, San
Martin was now opposed by the remaining Spanish troops in Peru and by growing popular opposition in Lima. His army proved inadequate to deal with both and, though Simon Bolivar assisted him in a campaign against the Spanish, San Martin was obliged to abdicate and withdraw to Chile as a matter of personal security. On his arrival in Santiago, Cochrane demanded that he should be court-martialled and offered to give evidence at any such trial. The offer was refused and he was forbidden to publish any correspondence he had entered into on the subject of San Martin, for fear of the bad impression it might make on the British cabinet, with whom Chilean representatives were then in negotiation.