The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX.
AFTER MAIPO.
1818.
The same day on which the despatch announcing the victory of Maipó reached Mendoza, Don Luis and Don Juan José Carrera were shot in that city. The suit against them had been carried on in a most irregular manner, both in Mendoza and in Santiago. Don Luis was accused and convicted of having violated a mail bag; Don Juan José was accused of the murder of a boy, of which there was no proof. Both were indicted for conspiracy against Chile in Argentine territory, and in Chile for high treason. It was at once an international, criminal, and political case, and was tried by two courts of different nationalities, and totally independent of one another. The Argentine Government was by accident, and San Martin indirectly mixed up in it. Questions of jurisdiction arose, and the case was still pending when, in February, 1818, Don Luis was discovered to be engaged in a conspiracy against the Government of Cuyo.
After the disaster of Cancha-Rayada fugitives from Chile spread panic through the province, and Luzuriaga, the Governor, asked permission to send the accused to Buenos Ayres; he was apprehensive of what might happen should another defeat bring upon him a flood of Chilian emigrants, but the municipality called upon him in the name of the people to finish the case at once. He then appointed three judges to try the case, of whom one was Dr. Monteagudo, who was one of the fugitives from Chile. On the 8th April at 3 p.m. both the accused were sentenced to death; at 5 P.M. they were shot. They fell not so much in expiation of crimes committed as in sacrifice to the necessities of the Argentine-Chileno Alliance.
San Martin, writing of this affair, says:—
"After the action of Maipó, I used all my influence with the Government of Chile in favour of the Carreras, and I procured a pardon for them, but it was then too late." O'Higgins had acceded to his request when they were no longer dangerous.
Now that the victory of Maipó had secured the independence of Chile, the latent spirit of opposition to the dictatorial government of O'Higgins again broke out. The most moderate desired the establishment of a constitutional regime; the more extreme deemed that the time had come for a radical reform. Among these were the old adherents of the Carreras, who from local patriotism were inimical to the Argentine-Chileno Alliance, and to the influence of San Martin. Dr. Rodriguez was one of them, and aspired to be their leader. During the forty-eight hours of his rule, in the confusion which followed the disaster of Cancha-Rayada, he had raised a squadron of horse, which he styled the Hussars of Death, entirely composed of men disaffected to the Government. He now declared that they would bring the rulers of the people to order.
O'Higgins saw in this corps a focus of sedition, and ordered it to be disbanded. Rodriguez protested but was compelled to submit. Rodriguez was at once a guerilla chief and a demagogue; he was a lawyer who wore the epaulets of a colonel. He was a true patriot, but had neither judgment nor foresight, and infused his own disorderly spirit into the agitation.
The municipality of the capital called upon the Director to convene an open Cabildo. It met on the 17th April. Rodriguez called upon the Assembly to declare itself a representative body until the convocation of a Congress, and as such superior in authority to the actual rulers of the State. The motion was carried. O'Higgins ordered the arrest of Rodriguez, and the ferment subsided. O'Higgins then decreed the appointment of seven principal citizens as a committee to draw up a plan of a provisional constitution, which "should define the powers of each authority and should establish on a solid basis the rights of citizens." A constitution was accordingly drawn up and promulgated.
Rodriguez was sent under arrest to the barracks of Alvarado's battalion under charge of a Spanish officer named Navarro, who was told by Alvarado and Monteagudo that Government desired "the extermination of Rodriguez," for the sake of public tranquillity and the existence of the army. On the 23rd May the battalion left Santiago for Quillota, where Rodriguez was to be tried by court-martial as a disturber of public order. On the march an officer presented Rodriguez with a cigarette on which was written, "It would be well for you to fly."[1] On the evening of the 24th the party encamped on the banks of a stream. As night fell Navarro, with a corporal and two men carrying carbines, walked with Rodriguez into a gorge near by. Soon after a shot was fired. "Rodriguez is dead," said some officers in the encampment. Next morning his body was found covered with stones and twigs; his escort said he had tried to escape, and the affair was hushed up.
Of all the trophies of the victory of Maipó, San Martin had reserved only one for himself; this was the portfolio containing the secret correspondence of Osorio, which was found in his carriage when it was captured by O'Brien. On the morning of Sunday, the 12th April, San Martin, attended only by O'Brien, and taking the portfolio with him, rode out from Santiago some seven miles to a secluded spot called "El Salto." Procuring a chair from a house close by he seated himself under the shade of a tree, opened the portfolio and read the contents carefully. They were letters written by several of the leading citizens of Santiago to Osorio after the affair of Cancha-Rayada, declarations of their loyalty. Then asking for a small fire of sticks to be lighted in front of him, he burned them one by one, the wind carrying away their ashes; proofs of treachery which arose only from panic, were buried in oblivion. No one but himself ever knew who were the writers of these letters.
The next day he left for Buenos Ayres, on the same errand which had caused his sudden journey after Chacabuco, to concert measures for an expedition to Peru. On the 11th May, again avoiding a triumphal entry, he quietly took up his residence in his own house in the Argentine capital. Again the Argentine Government decreed him a commission as Brigadier-General; again he declined all promotion, but Congress insisted upon giving him a public vote of thanks, and a crowd of Argentine poets celebrated his victory in verse.
San Martin spent the whole of June in consultation with the members of the Lautaro Lodge, upon the means of fitting out a squadron for the Pacific. In July it was resolved that 500,000 dollars should be raised by a loan for that object, and soon afterwards Don Miguel Zañartu was officially received in Buenos Ayres as the representative of Chile.
San Martin then returned to Mendoza and made two attempts to cross the Cordillera, but was driven back by snowstorms, and remained there all the winter, nothing loth, for he found himself much more at home among the simple, bluff-spoken Cuyanos than in the more polished society of Santiago.
About the end of July he received a letter from Pueyrredon telling him not to draw upon the treasury as he had been authorized to do, for it was found impossible to raise the projected loan. San Martin at once sent in his resignation, which caused such consternation in official circles that he was again authorized to draw for the full amount specified. At that time there arrived in Mendoza various remittances of coin from Chile to merchants in Buenos Ayres. San Martin seized this money on the pretext that transit was not safe, which was quite true, and gave the owners drafts on the national treasury in exchange. Pueyrredon, with great difficulty managed to pay these drafts on presentation, but he wrote to San Martin:—
"If you do that again, I am bankrupt, and we are lost."
With these resources and other remittances which followed, San Martin replenished the empty chest of the Army of the Andes with 200,000 dollars, and the situation was saved.
His spare time in Mendoza he filled up by making elaborate calculations concerning the men, arms, and equipment necessary for his projected expedition to Peru, while Pueyrredon and the diplomatic corps were as fully occupied in the construction of a scheme which was to render the expedition unnecessary. It was proposed that a conference of European powers should nominate a sovereign who should unite all the Spanish colonies south of the Equator under his sway. Of this monarchy San Martin and his army was to be the right arm. Of all this San Martin was fully informed, and to the scheme he made no opposition, but went on all the same with his calculations, till he crossed the Andes in October, and on the 29th of that month dismounted at the gate of his palace in Santiago full of hope, for his last letter from Pueyrredon announced the despatch of two vessels of war for service on the Pacific.
Bolívar, victorious in Venezuela and encouraged by the victory of Maipó, was at this time preparing for another passage of the Andes.
Spain in eight years of warfare had sent sixteen expeditions to America, with more than 40,000 veteran troops, had expended seventy-five millions of dollars, and seemed in no way as yet inclined to relinquish the attempt to subdue her rebellious colonies. She had yet 100,000 soldiers and militia in America, and was preparing a fresh expedition of 20,000 men for despatch to the River Plate.
Thus while diplomatists amused themselves and the world with visionary schemes for securing the independence of America, those more nearly interested in the question thought only of settling it by fire and sword.
- ↑ Huya que le conviene.