Thus a partisan of the Carreras would have been a strange being, according to the lights of these times, had he been able to discern a spot of goodness in the personality of San Martin, and the admirer of the heroic Cochrane would have had no higher opinion of the Argentine Liberator.  The reverse of the medal was, of course, shown by San Martin’s adherents, who might safely have been trusted to miss no defect in Cochrane, or in any other of his party.  This condition of affairs prevailed throughout, and extended for the length and breadth of the Continent.  Bolivar, Sucre, and everyone of note, was a hero to his own followers, and more or less a villain to the rest of the allied, yet rival, parties.  As a rule these prominent leaders suffered rather than gained from the situation, since the calumnies of the period are more abundant than the laudations.  It is only now that the history of the early nineteenth century is beginning to be written calmly and dispassionately, and as a result the participants in the great deeds of that epoch appear, with justice, greater to the modern world than they did in the eyes of their contemporaries.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE—­II

It was at Mendoza that the famous Argentine General, San Martin, recruited the army destined for the campaign of Chile.  In 1817 everything was prepared, and with an army of 4,000 men San Martin set out on one of the most extraordinary military marches that history has known.  Indeed, his passage of the Andes is considered as unique by numerous military experts.

The advance of San Martin was not altogether unexpected by the Royalist forces, whose spies kept the Spanish commander informed of this latest move on the part of the patriot army.  General San Martin, becoming aware of this, repaid these spies in their own coin.  Taking them, as it seemed, into his confidence, he informed them of the route he was about to take, and when the time came chose another and a parallel pass.  Hastening down the tremendous rocky walls of the western side of the Andes, San Martin engaged the Spanish forces and won an important victory at Chacabuco.  The Royalists, under General Osorio, rallied and made a last desperate stand; but their forces were decisively and finally defeated on April 5, 1818, at Maipu, and this action resulted in the definite liberation of Chile.

San Martin was now the hero of Chile, and was begged to accept the protectorship of the new Republic.  His deeds on land were rivalled by those of Admiral Cochrane on sea.  The gallant Irish sailor was at the time busily occupied in sweeping the Pacific Ocean clear of the Spanish vessels, and in performing those extraordinary feats of valour for which his memory is famed.  Unfortunately, misunderstandings between the pair eventually resulted in open enmity between Cochrane and San Martin.  This became accentuated when the campaign was undertaken in Peru, when San Martin, not content with his victories in Chile, led his armies for the liberation of the north into Peru itself, and into the head-quarters of the remaining Spanish power.