THE RE VOL UTIONAR Y PER lOD 1 8 1 ship, proving unseaworthy, had been compelled to put back to Spain. The other vessels were scattered by a gale off Cape Horn ; two of the transports with mutin- ous crews, were taken to Buenos Ayres, one of the frigates, the "Maria Isabel," as we have seen, with one of the transports, put into the harbor of Concepcion. If the Chilean government could capture these vessels it would greatly augment their navy, as the frigate ^carried forty-four guns. On the 28th of October, 1818, the "San Martin" ran alongside the "Maria Isabel" and gave her a broadside. The Spaniards aboard sought safety in flight and aban- doned the ship to its fate. The frigate went aground, but was floated and taken out of the port by the cap- tors. Four Spanish transports were in the bay and three others came in afterward ; these were all captured. The "Maria Isabel" was taken to Valparaiso where she was mounted with forty-eight guns and christened "O'Higgins. " About this time the "Galvarino, " mounting eighteen guns, was brought from England by Captain Guise and purchased ; two North American vessels, the "Araucano" and "Intrepid" were also added to the navy, and later, an American built corvette mounting twenty-six guns, the "Independencia, ' was purchased,so that the Chilean navy had become quite formidable. In November, 1818, Lord Thomas Cochrane, who had been invited by the government sometime before to take charge of the Chilean navy, arrived, and, his ap- pointment being confirmed, he began to equip and man the fleet so actively that by the following January it was ready to sail for Peru. For it was to prepare the way for San Martin's contemplated expedition, that all these active naval preparations had been made. On the 15th of January, iS-ig, Lord Cochrane directed
