"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 betrayal 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.
By this time, even the reputation of O'Higgins had suffered as a consequence of the corruption among his subordinates. In November, Cochrane managed to secure payment of the arrears due to the men of his squadron, while in the same month the town of Valparaiso was almost destroyed by an earthquake. Most of the ship's companies had no wish to serve longer, the major port had gone, and there seemed little more left for the Chilean navy to do. Indeed, Cochrane judged that from the financial neglect of the navy, only the newest ship, the Independencia was still seaworthy.
In December 1822, he received a private despatch from Ramon Freire, the governor of Concepcion, for whose integrity he had a great admiration. Freire denounced the "corrupted administration" which ruled the country, and which had brought Chile to "a state of greater degradation" than it had known under the power of Spain. He invited Cochrane to assist him in staging a coup d'etat against the O'Higgins regime. Though Cochrane sympathised with Freire's attitude, notably in his disgust at the power enjoyed by San Martin, he felt it wrong that a foreigner should take a leading part in a domestic struggle of this kind. Early in 1823, the coup d'etat was successful, O'Higgins was sent into exile, in the wake of San Martin who had already fled across the Andes on his way to find asylum in Europe. But Cochrane played no part in the affairs of the new regime. At the end of 1822, he had received the first invitation from the Imperial Court at Rio de Janeiro to assume the command of the Brazilian navy in the struggle for independence from Portugal. He found it infinitely preferable to the weeks and months of haggling which now characterised his command of the Chilean fleet.34
On 18 January 1823, having resigned his command in Chile, Cochrane set sail with some of his officers who were to accompany him in the new adventure, setting out for the return journey round
Cape Horn in a chartered brig. Now that it was no longer needed against the Spanish, the steamer Rising Star had arrived safely in Valparaiso from London. Cochrane greatly regretted that he was not allowed to take it with him in lieu of the money he was owed by the Chilean government.
His Chilean debts were to sour his relationship with the new republic for the rest of his life. Whatever the accurate figures may have been, Cochrane's mood was not improved when he discovered that San Martin had been awarded 500,000 dollars and a pension of 20,000 dollars. 120,000 dollars was awarded to Cochrane for the capture of the Esmeralda but he swore that the bill for this, on the Peruvian government, was dishonoured at once. He wa
s awarded 67,000 dollars after the capture of Valdivia, but the sum was never paid. He claimed that his situation was even worse than that, since he was later sued by owners of neutral vessels which he had seized during the blockade. He was obliged to sell his house in Regent's Park, which he had bought after the war, and the "cost" of his service to Chile was, by his own reckoning, £25,000. In 1845, the Chilean government awarded him £6000 in settlement of such sums as might still be outstanding. They had first deducted from his claim the costs and damages cited by neutral victims of his blockade. It was useless for Cochrane to protest that these "victims" had been trading under false papers and were thus liable to seizure. Nor were the Chileans impressed by his allegations that they were cheating him in order to appease the British business community at Valparaiso. So, as he complained to the world, he had lost £25,000 and gained £6000. His service to the cause of Chilean independence had been absolutely unrewarded. Indeed, it had "cost me £19,000 out of my own pocket !"35
But whatever his quarrels with the governments of the newly independent states, Cochrane's sympathy with their people was never in doubt. Before he left the Pacific for the last time, he addressed the people in terms which warned them against tyrants of every description, and he called them "Chilenos - My Fellow Countrymen!"
You know that independence is purchased at the point of the bayonet. Know also that liberty is founded on good faith, and on the laws of honour, and that those who infringe upon these, are your only enemies, amongst whom you will never find
8
Under Two Flags
BY the beginning of 1823, the extent of Brazil's independence from Portugal was questionable. The origin of separate government lay in Napoleon's invasion of Portugal in 1808, when the future John VI had decided to take refuge in his great South American colony. In consequence, Brazil began to enjoy a degree of political freedom which was more commonly associated with a European imperial state than with any of its colonial possessions. By the removal of restrictions on trade and by the participation of Brazilians in government, the ties with Portugal were gradually loosened.
At the time of his departure for South America, Dom John had been regent of Portugal and had left behind a council of regency to govern the country in his absence. In 1816, while still in Rio de Janeiro, he succeeded to the throne of Portugal in his own right. Despite this, he remained in South America for a further five years, creating his son Dom Pedro regent of Brazil when he returned at length to Lisbon.
In both countries, the political future seemed unpromising. Portugal had been the scene of insurrection by reformers, whose movement was put down by the council of regency with British military assistance. Brazil was no less divided between supporters of independence and the adherents of the "Portuguese faction" who opposed it. As in Lisbon, so in Rio de Janeiro there were men who feared the loss of economic and political power which independence would bring. More to the point, the northern provinces of Brazil, including the major territories of Bahia, Maranham, and Para, remained firmly in the hands of Portuguese troops supported by a Portuguese fleet.
So long as John VI ruled in Rio de Janeiro he could, in theory, command the allegiance of all factions and all forces. But with his return to Lisbon, there was every sign that the Cortes of Portugal would attempt to reduce Brazil to her former colonial status. On 1 December 1822, while Cochrane waited in idleness and with increasing frustration off Valparaiso, Dom Pedro had yielded to popular pressure. Discarding his allegiance to his father, he put himself at the head of the independence movement and was proclaimed Emperor of Brazil.
In Brazil, as in Chile, it was easy enough to establish an autonomous region, in this case in the south and round Rio de Janeiro. But the same problem of a hostile imperial army, supported and supplied by its European fleet, stood between the new state and its final freedom. In the north of Brazil it was not merely a few fortified points, like Valdivia or Callao, which held out against the new rulers. The greater part of these provinces remained subject to colonial government so long as the Portuguese fleet controlled the sea routes. And so long as that remained the case, Dom Pedro's southern empire and his court at Rio de Janeiro would remain under the shadow of a Portuguese invasion.
If the struggle were to be decided in favour of the new Brazilian empire, victory at sea was imperative. The Brazilian charge d'affaires in London was instructed to recruit officers and seamen to serve as mercenaries in the new imperial navy. As admiral, there could only be one choice. As early as November 1822, Cochrane received his first invitation from Antonio Correa, Brazilian consul at Buenos Aires, who was deputed to make the* approach. While he hesitated and balanced the claims of Brazil against certain other calls on his allegiance, he received a more urgent appeal from Correa.
Venez, milord, l'honneur vous invite - la gloire vous appelle. Venez - dormer a nos armes navales cet ordre merveilleux et discipline incomparable de puissante Albion.1
Antonio Correa was a confidant of Dom Pedro and evidently wrote at his master's dictation. Cochrane, however, replied coolly at first, since his immediate plans had been directed to serving a cause which appealed more strongly to him than that of Brazil.
The war in the Pacific having been happily terminated by the total destruction of the Spanish naval force, I am, of course, free for the crusade of liberty in any other quarter of the globe.
I confess, however, that I had not hitherto directed my attention to the Brazils; considering that the struggle for the liberties of Greece - the most oppressed of modern states - afforded the fairest opportunity for enterprise and exertion.2
The freedom of Greece, the vision of democracy and the glory of the Hellenic dream, appealed to the imagination of liberal England. With the outbreak of open rebellion against Turkish rule in 1821, Burdett, Hobhouse, and Byron were among the most famous who warmed to the crusade for liberating from Turkish slavery the land of Plato and Demosthenes. To Cochrane, the challenge was simple and irresistible. None the less, he promised Antonio Correa that, since he would be rounding the Horn anyway, he would meet him on neutral ground, in Buenos Aires. Geographically, at least, Brazil was on the way from Valparaiso to Athens. But his promise was coupled with a warning. He knew little about the new government of Dom Pedro, and he had no intention of supporting it unconditionally. He would hold himself free to decline the command, "should the Government . . . differ so widely in its nature from those which I have been in the habit of supporting, as to render the proposed situation repugnant to my principles".3
No such difference appeared. The Brazilian government not only resembled others in its democratic aspirations but also in its reluctance to pay Cochrane and his men for services rendered, at least on the scale which the mercenary admiral judged proper. Undeterred by his experience of this in Chile, he arrived in Rio de Janeiro on 13 March 1823 and accepted the command of the Imperial fleet. He had been promised the same pay as in the service of Chile, 8000 dollars a year. When there was some doubt raised over this, he informed the Minister of Marine that "without condescending to chaffer on such a subject", he would seek redress from the Prime Minister and the Emperor himself. The Minister of Marine begged him to do no such thing, and the difficulty vanished, for the time being.4
Dom Pedro himself escorted his new admiral on a tour of inspection of the fleet. There were eight ships, though two of them were not in a state to put to sea for the time being and two others were only suitable as fire-ships. Of the remaining four, the Maria de Gloria was a smart looking clipper which on closer inspection proved to have been built of unseasoned timber and was "little calculated to do substantial service". But two ships, the 74-gun Pedro Primiero and the frigate Piranga, were well-built and quite sufficient for Cochrane's purposes. Ships like the Maria de Gloria were manned by "the refuse of the merchant service", even the Piranga and the Pedro Primiero, his flagship, had too many untrained recruits. Against him, the Portuguese had a battleship, five frigates, five corvettes, a brig, and a schooner with some 2000 m
iles of friendly coastline on which they might depend. But much of Cochrane's naval-life had been spent in showing just how much he could do with a pair of reliable ships in a situation of this kind.5
Some 600 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, the first of the areas under Portuguese control was the sea port and province of Bahia. Cochrane put to sea on 3 April, the Pedro Primiero having 160 English and American seamen in her crew. He was less than enthusiastic about some of the other members who now appeared to be the "vagabondage" of Rio de Janeiro, nor was there any way of predicting the behaviour in battle of his 130 black marines, "just emancipated from slavery".6
The first encounter with the Portuguese battle squadron was a humiliation which might have become a disaster for him. The Pedro Primiero sailed into action, breaking through the Portuguese line and cutting off the four rearmost ships from' the rest. Cochrane signalled the three ships of his squadron, the Piranga, the Maria de Gloria, and the Liberal, to join him in attacking and capturing the four separated ships. To his great anger, not one of them obeyed the order, keeping carefully clear of the skirmish. By now, the Pedro Primiero was engaging the enemy alone but Cochrane soon realised that something was badly amiss. The salvoes from his gun-deck were ill-directed and far fewer than they should have been. One of his English officers, Captain Grenfell, went below and discovered two Portuguese members of the crew withholding powder from the gunners and warning off the powder-boys from running their errands. Grenfell dragged the two miscreants on deck but by then the situation was hopeless. The Pedro Primiero might have fought alone against the enemy fleet with the sort of crew Cochrane had commanded on the Speedy or the Imperieuse but under the present circumstances he was compelled to break off the action.7
Cochrane Page 35