Page:A history of Chile.djvu/193

THE RE VOL UTIONAR Y PERIOD 1 77 tier towns of the south, where he began a policy of conciliation and clemency. General Freire went against Vicente Benavides and surprised him at a place called Cural6, near Santa Juana, May ist, 1819. Benavides, however, made his escape into the Araucanian country with twenty of his followers. The career of this inhuman pirate was as romantic as it was despicable. He was a sergeant of grenadiers in the royal army at the time of the first Chilean revolu- tion, was taken prisoner at Membrillar but made his escape. Afterward he served the royalists until he was taken prisoner at the battle of Maypo. He was recog- nized, tried, and condemned to be shot. But he was only wounded, and, feigning death, madfe his escape. When San Martin arrived in Santiago preparatory to entering upon his Peruvian campaign, Benavides presented himself and offered his services for dissuad- ing the Indians and other designing persons south of the Biobio from joining the royalists. Receiving pass- ports, he soon after joined the Indians, was appointed their chief, and began a series of skirmishes and raids along the Biobio. At first he pretended to act under the sanction of Spanish authority, but upon the fall of the viceroy at Lima, he threw off the mask and declared to General Prieto' that he would continue the war against Chile to the last man, even though Spain her- self acknowledged its independence. He disregarded flags of truce, put his prisoners to death most barbarously, murdered unoffending settlers, burned and sacked cities, intrigued with the Carreras, captured British and American vessels, shot the cap- tains and imprisoned the crews, equipped a pirate ves- sel and sent it along the coast with instructions to spare no flag and to put insurgent crews to death. He was