the country was divided, the empire has ever since been preserved from those revolutions which invariably characterise states based at the outset upon virulent contentions.  In Peru, the liberty which had been promised was trodden under foot by the myrmidons of San Martin, so that a portion of the people, and that the most influential, would gladly have exchanged the degradation of their country for a return to Spanish rule, and this was afterwards very nearly achieved.  Another portion, dreading the Spaniards, invited Bolivar to free them from the despotism to which, in the name of liberty, they had been subjected.  A third party sighed for independence, as they originally hoped it would have been established.  The community became thus divided in object, and, as a consequence, in strength; being in constant danger of the oppressor, and in even more danger from its own intestine dissensions; which have continued to this day, not in Peru only, but in the majority of the South American States, which, having commenced their career in the midst of private feud and public dissension, have never been able to shake off either the one or the other monuments of their own incipient weakness.

The intelligence of Monteagudo’s forced exile was received at Valparaiso on the 21st of September; and if this excited the surprise of the Chilians, still greater must have been their astonishment when, on the 12th of October, General San Martin himself arrived at Valparaiso, a fugitive from his short-lived splendour, amidst the desolation of despotism.

The story of this event is brief, but instructive.  Having met Bolivar, as previously agreed upon, the Liberator, in place of entering upon any mutual arrangement, bitterly taunted San Martin with the folly and cruelty of his conduct towards the Limenos; to such an extent, indeed, that the latter, fearing designs upon his person, precipitately left Guayaquil, and returned to Callao shortly after the expulsion of Monteagudo.  Finding what had taken place, he remained on board his vessel, issuing vain threats against all who had been concerned in exiling his minister, and insisting on his immediate recal and reinstatement.  A congress had however, by this time been appointed, with Xavier de Luna Pizarro as its head, so the remonstrances of the Protector were unheeded.  After some time spent in useless recrimination, he made a virtue of necessity, and sent in his abdication of the Protectorate, returning, as has been said, to Chili.

One of the first acts of the Peruvian Congress, after his abdication, was to address to me the following vote of thanks, not only marking my services in the liberation of their country, but denouncing San Martin as a military despot:—­

   Resolution of thanks to Lord Cochrane by the Sovereign Congress
   of Peru.

The Sovereign Constituent Congress of Peru, in consideration of the services rendered to Peruvian liberty by Lord Cochrane, by whose talent, worth, and bravery, the Pacific Ocean has been liberated from the insults of enemies, and the standard of liberty has been planted on the shores of the South,

   Has Resolved,—­