The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CONVENTION OF RANCAGUA.
1820
The army of Cadiz, decimated by yellow fever, was for sanitary reasons dispersed. On the 1st January, 1820, Don Rafael del Riego, Colonel of the regiment of Asturias, then in quarters at the village Cabezas de San Juan, proclaimed in front of his regiment the constitution of the year XII., opening an era of liberty for his own country, and putting an end to an era of war in America. The revolution triumphed, the King was forced to swear the constitution, and, by common accord between the people and the government, a new policy was inaugurated in regard to the insurgent colonies, one that sought to solve peacefully the question which the appeal to arms had only made more complicated.
It was at this juncture that San Martin by his disobedience saved from destruction in the vortex of civil war the one army which could secure the emancipation of America. San Martin crossed the Andes carried in a litter, but it was not in mineral baths that he sought the cure for his rheumatism and neuralgia; that cure he sought and found in the active prosecution of the plan which lay at his heart.
Immediately on his arrival in Chile, he proceeded to concert measures with O'Higgins for the despatch of the expedition. He offered to bring over from Mendoza 2,000 men and ten guns, but terrible news soon reached him. The mutiny of the Army of the North had been followed two days after by a similar mutiny in the 1st battalion light infantry of his own army, then in quarters at San Juan.
San Martin thought he had secured Cuyo from the anarchy that prevailed by the presence of his disciplined troops, but when distinguished officers of his own army and of that of Belgrano headed mutineers and joined hands with Gaucho chieftains, he saw that the elements of order were dissolved. The Army of the North, under command of General Cruz, was on the march to join Rondeau, when in the Province of Santa Fé it made a truce with the Gaucho levies, styled "montoneras," and retreated to Cordoba, and there established a new system of military rule, withdrawing itself both from the civil war and from the war of emancipation.
The battalion quartered at San Juan was in reality a small corps d'armée, having both artillery and cavalry attached to it. It numbered 900 men and was under the command of Colonel Sequeira, a gallant officer, but a martinet who was greatly disliked by his men. At daybreak on the 9th January the men, headed by their sergeants, silently left their barracks, occupied the Plaza, and made a party of the civic guard prisoners, killing the officer; while the Colonel and some of his officers were left in the barracks under guard of a company. Some disaffected officers then took command, shouting, "Viva la Federacion!" and "Down with the tyrant!" but they had no plan of action, and soon quarrelled amongst themselves, and the Colonel and the officers who were with him were murdered. Alvarado marched against them from Mendoza, but fearing to trust his own men went back again. San Martin sent offers of pardon, which were rejected; the spirit of anarchy prevailed everywhere. The Governor of Cuyo and his deputy both resigned. The mutinous battalion soon after dispersed, and the Province of San Juan declared itself an independent state. Alvarado then, in obedience to orders from San Martin, joined him in Chile with 1,000 cavalry and two guns, leaving Godoy Cruz as Governor of Mendoza.
On the 1st February, 1820, the Army of Buenos Ayres was totally defeated at Cepeda by the Montonera horsemen. Congress was soon after dissolved, and the nation split up into fragments, of which each one was a small republic, and most of them fell under the rule of petty chieftains. From this chaos was presently to rise up a new people, with well-defined divisions and with one national spirit. For a time the Army of the Andes obeyed no superior authority, but it still upheld the Argentine flag on foreign soil, and followed the lead of its own General.
Such being the state of affairs, San Martin, on the 28th January, wrote officially to O'Higgins, asking him if he could still dispose of 6,000 men for the expedition, but stating that 4,000 were absolutely necessary. O'Higgins replied that he could promise 4,000 only, fully equipped. San Martin agreed that they should march under the Chilian flag, but stipulated that the Army of the Andes should carry its own, as representing the United Provinces.
Thus San Martin took upon himself the "terrible responsibility" of disposing of Argentine troops and military stores, without any authority so to do from his own government. In order to relieve himself in some measure of this responsibility, he convened a meeting of the officers of the Army of the Andes, then in cantonments at Rancagua, under the Presidency of Las Heras. He himself was not present, but a letter from him was read, which showed that as the Government from which he derived his commission no longer existed, the army was de facto without a General, and called upon them to appoint one, to whom he offered his services in any capacity.
San Martin had requested them to vote without discusSion, but Colonel Martinez and several officers opposed this, on the ground that the commission of General-in-Chief was granted for a specific purpose which was not yet accomplished, and was therefore not cancelled by the fall of the Government by which it had been conferred. In these terms a document was drawn up and signed by all the officers.
Las Heras, in writing to San Martin an account of the result of the meeting, expressed his great surprise that he should have given him such a task, and said that many of his best friends felt themselves greatly aggrieved at the proposition, as the commissions of all of them were derived from the same authority as that of the General-in-Chief. Thus the army endorsed the disobedience of their General, an act which under any other leader would have had a most evil effect upon its discipline.
While the preparations of the Chilian Government went slowly forward a new difficulty arose. Cochrane, proud of his recent triumph in Valdivia, aspired to the command-in-chief of the expedition to Peru. Devoid as he was of all political talent, a more unfit leader for such an enterprise it would have been difficult to find. Peru was not to be conquered, it was to be liberated; he thought only of conquest. He might have won a battle, but he would never have founded a nation. His dream seems to have been inspired by the examples of Drake and Anson, who made great profit by gallant feats of arms; he purposed to enrich himself and his sailors by plundering the coasts of Peru. San Martin was an American, and thought only of his great purpose, nothing of its results to himself. On the 6th May, 1820, San Martin was appointed by the Senate and by the popular vote, Generalissimo of the expedition.
Still Cochrane insisted, and several times sent in his resignation. Government was about to appoint Guise to the command of the fleet, as Spry and many others of the English officers preferred him to Cochrane, but this was prevented by the intervention of San Martin, and the proud sailor at last submitted, though with a bad grace, after another fruitless attempt to supplant San Martin by Freyre. The Chilian Government was not to be led astray by national susceptibility, and knew that no Chilian officer could compare with San Martin in military capacity.
San Martin knew the importance of a thorough understanding between himself and the Admiral, and went to visit him at Valparaiso, but in spite of his friendly overtures there was never much cordiality between them.
The presence of San Martin and his army was not only a great burden to the Chilian treasury, but it was also a political peril, of which Government was well aware. Party spirit was only kept in check by the danger which menaced the country from Peru, and personal ambition would impel party leaders to seek the aid of so powerful an auxiliary so long as it was at hand. The Government of Chile in sending off the expedition, thus performed a deed of heroism which was not only conducive to their own security as a nation, and was worthy of the gratitude of America, but was also one that saved the political situation in their own country.