On board the Esmeralda, the fight was going in his favour, but its outcome might well be decided by the powerful batteries ashore, or even by the Spanish gun-boats. As the Spaniards in the forecastle were pressed harder, the first signs of a rout appeared, several of their sailors diving into the harbour and swimming for safety. The sound of pistol and musket fire dwindled and died, as Captain Coig the Spanish commander surrendered to Cochrane. But almost at once, one of the gun-boats sailed in astern of the Esmeralda and sent a shot up through the quarter-deck, wounding Coig himself.
With his customary foresight, Cochrane had ordered several men of his party to make for the rigging of the Esmeralda as soon as they boarded her, and to prepare for sailing. He now hailed the foretop and the maintop, and discovered that all was in order. "No British man-of-war's crew could have excelled this minute attention to orders," he wrote of his Chilean seamen.
Having seized the Esmeralda, for the loss of eleven men killed and thirty wounded, Cochrane now faced the hazardous business of sailing her out of Callao under the three hundred guns of the shore-batteries and the assorted artillery of the block-ships. Varying estimates of the time taken to capture the frigate from the moment of boarding put it at between fifteen and seventeen minutes. None the less, it was ample time for the guns of Callao to open up in a general bombardment of the darkened harbour. Rather oddly, Cochrane was paying little attention to the guns. He was studying the outline of the British and American frigates, which were now prudently making for the safety of San Lorenzo and the open sea.
In all the confusion, Cochrane knew there was one certainty. The Spanish would not want to provoke an international incident by sinking an American or British frigate. There must be some prearranged signal which the Macedonian and the Hyperion were to give in the event of a night attack. He gave orders that lights identical to those of the other two ships were to be hoisted by the Esmeralda. As soon as this was done, the shells from the shore-batteries, which had been pitching about the captured frigate, ceased. There was a puzzled but welcome silence.
When hostilities recommenced they were between Cochrane and Captain Guise, who had taken over as commander of the Chileans because of Cochrane's immobility. It had been Cochrane's intention to set the sails of the Esmeralda but not to cut the anchor cables until an attempt had been made to capture the Spanish brig Maypu and to attack and cut adrift every other ship within reach. At the best, he hoped that every vessel in the harbour of Callao "might either have been captured or burned". But Guise had ordered the cables to be cut at once, obliging the Esmeralda to put to sea forthwith, followed by two captured gun-boats. Cochrane confronted him angrily, but Guise replied that the frigate could not have remained because, "the English had broken into her spirit-room and were getting drunk, whilst the Chilenos were disorganized by plundering".
Impartial observers recognised only the superb audacity with which Cochrane had seized the Esmeralda under the guns of Callao and sailed her safely to join his squadron. Captain Basil Hall of H.M.S. Conway, serving in the Pacific, made amends for the hostility of the Hyperion by announcing the extent of Cochrane's victory. The Esmeralda had been lying "under the guns of the castle, within a semi-circle of fourteen gun-boats, and a boom of spars chained together". But, more important, the events of that night deprived the Spanish of their last advantage on the Pacific coast.
The loss was a death-blow to the Spanish naval force in that quarter of the world; for, although there were still two Spanish frigates and some smaller vessels in the Pacific, they never afterwards ventured to shew themselves, but left Lord Cochrane undisputed master of the coast.
The cutting out of the Esmeralda, remote though it was from English preoccupations, became one of the legends of Cochrane's life. Only H.M.S. Hyperion maintained a studied neutrality, tinged with a certain personal hostility towards Cochrane. When one of the Hyperion's midshipmen so far forgot himself as to cheer on the attacking force during the fight on the Esmeralda's deck, Captain Searle of the English frigate threatened to have him put under arrest if there was any further unseemly enthusiasm of this kind. As a matter of prudence, Searle's threat may have been well-judged. The defenders of Callao could not believe that the Esmeralda had been captured without the connivance of one or both of the neutral frigates. On the morning after the incident, the market-boat of the Macedonian went ashore as usual for provisions. As soon as it landed, a furious mob fell upon the boat crew and lynched them forthwith.20
San Martin wrote to Cochrane himself and to the Minister of Marine, praising the capture of the Esmeralda. But San Martin was careful not to allow credit for the liberation of Peru to be given to anyone but himself. "This glory was reserved for the Liberating Army," he insisted. While San Martin remained idle, Cochrane intensified his blockade, until the Spaniards at Callao sensed that their stronghold had become their prison. Within a month of the Esmeralda incident, 650 Spanish troops followed by forty of their officers, deserted to the Chilean cause. Three months later, San Martin had still done nothing to effect the capture of Lima. Cochrane volunteered to make the attack himself, in March 1821, with half of the troops at San Martin's disposal. The offer was rejected by San Martin, whose purpose in avoiding battle now seemed to Cochrane to suggest a careful preservation of his army for the internal power struggle which must follow independence.21
It now became evident to me that the army had been kept inert for the purpose of preserving it entire to further the ambitious views of the General, and that, with the whole force now at Lima, the inhabitants were completely at the mercy of their pretended liberator, but in reality their conqueror.22
Having persuaded San Martin to give him 600 troops, out of 4200, Cochrane embarked on coastal raids between Callao and Arica. Isolated by land and sea, Lima surrendered after three months of this harassment, on 6 July. Peruvian independence was declared on 28 July.
In addition to his other preoccupations, Cochrane also had to contend with a bitter dispute over the captured Esmeralda which had been put under the command of the troublesome Captain Guise. When the ship was incorporated into the Chilean fleet, her name was changed to the Valdivia, to commemorate the victory of the previous year. Unfortunately, Valdivia itself was the name of one of the Spanish conquerors of Chile, which led the officers to protest to Captain Guise in a strongly worded petition over the renaming of their ship. San Martin had been principally responsible for the choice of name but Cochrane was the target of their criticism. They had had no part in the victory at Valdivia and saw no reason why their ship should commemorate Cochrane's glory.
Cochrane ordered a court-martial on the rebellious officers of the new Valdivia, who were convicted and dismissed the service. As he was preparing to attack Callao, Cochrane sent orders to Guise to take part in the assault. Guise, indignant at the dismissal of his officers, replied by resigning his command. He was followed by Captain Spry, who resigned the captaincy of the Galvarino in sympathy. Cochrane court-martialled Spry, who was convicted and dismissed from his command. Both Guise and Spry went indignantly to San Martin and complained of Cochrane. San Martin consoled Spry by making him his naval adjutant. He sent Guise to the O'Higgins to patch up an agreement with Cochrane, but after several argumentative interviews nothing was accomplished. Guise sat out the rest of the campaign at San Martin's headquarters. The lesson drawn from the incident, by all but Cochrane's most determined admirers, was that he showed himself less adept as a general commander than as the piratical captain of a single vessel. Guise and Spry were not the easiest of men to deal with but nor, in many respects, was Cochrane himself.23
During the aftermath of the courts-martial, before the fall of Lima, the British frigate H.M.S. Andromache dropped anchor off Callao. On board her was Kitty, who had come to see Cochrane before leaving South America for England. In its own way, her life had been quite eventful during their separation. She had been busy at Valparaiso "where she diligently employed herself in promoting objects essential to the welfare of the
squadron". Later she had gone to live in a country house at Quillota. She also survived two attempts at assassination.24
The first of these occurred at Quillota, where a Spanish agent, assuming that Kitty would know of any secret plans made by her husband, broke into the house and made his way to her room. He confronted her with "instant death if she would not divulge the secret orders". Apparently, the only document of the least significance was a paper lying on the table in the room. She snatched this up at once and there followed a determined struggle with the intruder for possession of it. The man was armed with a stiletto but though he managed to use it once, she suffered only a single superficial cut before the noise attracted the servants and the man was overpowered. The republican regime condemned him to death "without the last offices of the Catholic religion".25
On the night preceding the execution, she was woken by a loud wailing outside her window. This dirge had been set up by the wife of the condemned man who sought "her Ladyship's intercession" to allow her husband confession and absolution before his death. Kitty, personally, was prepared to forgive the man entirely and on the next morning she found herself in the bizarre situation of pleading for the life of her would-be murderer, while the Chilean authorities remained in favour of despatching him. After some argument they agreed reluctantly that the death sentence should be commuted to one of perpetual banishment.26
The seriousness of the second attempt on her life might be doubted, certainly so far as any political motive was concerned. In October 1820, after Cochrane and San Martin had left for the campaign in Peru, she undertook a journey across the Andes to Mendoza, carrying confidential despatches with her. Even in October, some of the passes were already blocked by snow. On 12 October, she and her attendants arrived at the Ponte del Inca, 15,000 feet up, to find that further progress was impossible until the snow was cleared. She remained at a casucha, built as an emergency shelter, where the only bed was a length of dried bullock's hide. Cochrane spoke proudly of her as having endured "a degree of suffering which few ladies would be willing to encounter". It was while riding up a narrow path with a vertiginous drop on one side, just beyond the casucha, that Kitty was confronted by a soldier of the Spanish force who "disputed the path with her" in such a manner as to suggest that he was about to throw her over the edge. Happily, there was a Chilean soldier with the party, Pedro Flores, who galloped forward and struck the attacker "a violent blow across the face", which drove him into headlong retreat. Cochrane swore it had been "another premeditated attempt on Lady Cochrane's life", but there is at least some doubt of that.27
When Kitty arrived off Callao, Lima had 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 cielo! 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 emotional 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 ci
tizens. 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."
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