The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 33
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE PROTECTORATE OF PERU.
1821—1822.
Peru was independent, but she had not achieved independence for herself; neither did she know how to organize a Government when she had one of her own; for everything she was indebted to outside help—principally to San Martin, who was now Protector of Peru, but whose power depended upon the help of Peru, and upon the support of the two armies he had brought with him. But in Peru the national spirit which he had awakened had a latent tendency to turn against him as a stranger, and in the armies the spirit of discipline was relaxed in direct consequence of that act of disobedience of his own which had placed him at their head. The bond of union which still gave strength to these discordant elements was the Lautaro Lodge, over which his influence was still supreme.
As Arenales had foreseen, Lima became the Capua of the liberating army; everything appeared to be left to the slow action of time. The military officers murmured and conspired, while Cochrane strove in every way he could to preserve the fleet from the enervation which was Peruvianising the army.
Far otherwise passed their time the Royalist leaders in the Highlands. Masters of a healthy country abounding in resources, a reaction had set in in their favour, when the people found themselves deserted and bethought them of the sacrifices they had made. In fifty days La Serna was ready to assume the offensive. At Callao there was great provision of arms much needed in the Highlands; the garrison, if left alone, must soon succumb to hunger. A carefully selected division of 2,500 infantry and 900 horse, with seven guns, was put under command of Canterac, with Valdés as chief of the staff, and sent to the relief of the beleaguered stronghold, while La Serna remained with the rest of the army at Jauja.
Canterac marched on the 25th August, crossed the Cordillera, and descended by the pass of San Mateo towards Lima without meeting a single foe. At Santiago de Tuna, fifty miles from the capital, he divided his force into two columns, with orders to concentrate at Cienaguilla, eighteen miles to the south of Lima. Loriga, with the left column and nearly all the cavalry, went by the defile of Espiritu Santo, cutting to pieces a small Patriot force on his way.
The main column, under Canterac himself, kept straight on for the valley of Rimac, to give the Patriots the idea that he was marching straight on the capital; but during the following night he turned off to the left, seeking the other road by Espiritu Santo. The way was across the slopes of the mountains, over an unknown country where there was no water, and which was so cut up by abrupt descents that horsemen and infantry alike lost their footing and fell over precipices. The unpopularity of the Spaniards was so great that they could not find one guide in all the transit. On the 4th September they reached a barren stretch of sand over which, dying of thirst under a tropical sun, they plodded wearily along; two companies could have destroyed them all. The soldiers threw themselves on the ground utterly prostrate; immediate promotion was offered to the first who should find water; not a man stirred. Yet they were little more than a mile from the river Lurin. At last Canterac himself found water; and those who were strong enough to move filled flasks and carried the precious liquid to their dying comrades, only just in time to save the life of Valdés, who commanded the rear-guard. On the 5th they rejoined Loriga's column at Cienaguilla.
San Martin was in the theatre when news of this invasion reached him on the 4th September. From his box he called the people to arms; the new national hymn was sung by the officers present, the audience joining in the chorus, and the greatest enthusiasm prevailed.
San Martin was ill-prepared to meet such an emergency, and was equally ill-informed. On the 5th he knew nothing of the concentration of the enemy in the valley of Lurin, and announced that 200 or 300 men were descending by the pass of San Mateo; but he calmly made such arrangements as he could. The unarmed militia flocked to their barracks, the walls were manned by volunteers, the gates were entrusted to the civic guard. These precautions sufficed to keep Canterac from attacking the city; his chief object was Callao.
The united army was superior in number to the invaders, but was of very inferior quality. It consisted of 5,830 men, of whom 2,095 paraded under the Argentine standard, 1,595 under the Chilian, the rest were Peruvians. San Martin drew up his forces a mile and a half to the south of the city, on the banks of the river Surco an affluent of the Rimac, which was crossed by three bridges. The position was a very strong one, and commanded the roads to the south and east of Lima. The cavalry was stationed on the right flank, and skirmishers were thrown out on the roads in front.
Canterac did not dare to attack him, but drew up his army on the 9th in three parallel columns—cavalry, infantry, and baggage—with a squadron of cavalry in the rear, and marched by his left flank to the plain of San Borja, flanking the position occupied by the Patriots. San Martin drew back his right wing and took up a fresh position; then, as the enemy remained quiet, he moved further to the right, in his turn outflanking the enemy. Canterac then took up a fresh position, at right angles to the former and facing towards the city. During the night San Martin again moved forward his right wing. The next day Canterac retired under the guns of Callao, and San Martin, rubbing his hands, exclaimed to Las Heras:—
"They are lost! They have not food for fifteen days!"
Soon after this Cochrane rode up. Las Heras asked him to persuade the General to attack at once, which Cochrane attempted. San Martin answered him curtly:—
"My measures are taken."
By-and-by, as San Martin was listening to the report of a countryman, Cochrane ordered the man away, saying:—
"The General has no time to listen to follies."
San Martin frowned, and, turning rein, rode off to his quarters. Cochrane followed him and again urged him to attack, offering to lead the cavalry himself. The answer of the Protector was:—
"I only am responsible for the welfare of Peru."
San Martin and Cochrane never met again.
The Patriot army then advanced half way on the main road from Lima to Callao, and a field battery was thrown up at La Legua, mounting six guns and two howitzers.
The only way for the Royalists to save Callao was to supply the garrison with provisions, which were only to be obtained by taking Lima, or by occupying the suburbs, neither of which was possible. Canterac could only retreat, leaving Callao to its fate. The joy of the garrison on welcoming the reinforcement was short-lived, they were only so many more mouths to feed. Canterac had instructions from the Viceroy in this case to destroy the fortifications and bring away the garrison, with as much of the armament as he could carry off, but La Mar refused to abandon the Spanish families which had taken refuge with him. Some English merchants offered to supply provisions by water for 100,000 dols. in cash, and an order for 400,000 dols. on the Treasury of Arequipa. The Treasury was almost empty, but the amount was made up by the private resources of the refugees, and by the officers and men of Canterac's division, who contributed the pay they had received.
Instead of being able to bring away arms, Canterac found it necessary to leave behind five out of the seven light guns he had brought with him. The situation of the Royalists was very critical; in two days eight officers and 200 men had deserted, the rest were eating their horses. Three days more of this, and even retreat would be impossible.
On the 16th, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the division marched from Callao on the main road to Lima. Canterac, with some light troops and his two guns, made a feint against the battery of La Legua to hide his real intention, while the bulk of his force moved to the left, crossed the Rimac, and turned north, Canterac, with his detachment, covering the retreat under the fire of a Chilian brig-of-war, which caused some loss.
Protected by the darkness, Canterac marched all night along the coast, and next day occupied the valley of Carabaillo, nine miles to the north of Lima, from which a road passes through the Cordillera to Jauja. Here he halted to rest and feed his weary troops.
San Martin, in spite of the eagerness of his army, had watched the retreat in silence, and only on the 17th despatched Las Heras with a strong force in pursuit. But the inactivity of San Martin seems to have been communicated to Las Heras; he showed little of his wonted energy, and on the 19th gave up the pursuit to Miller, with a detachment of 700 infantry, 125 horse, and 500 guerillas.
Meantime the Royalist division was falling to pieces — hundreds of the men and even some officers deserted. Miller was not dilatory in his movements, but erred on the side of rashness; he outmarched the enemy, trying to cut off his retreat, and was on two occasions dislodged with heavy loss from positions he had taken up. After that he contented himself with attacks on the rear-guard, and followed right through the Cordillera, where, on the 27th, he found in a hut, abandoned by his comrades, the body of Colonel Sanchez, the hero of San Carlos and Chillán.
On the 1st March Canterac reached Jauja; he had lost one-third of his force, but had sustained his reputation as a gallant soldier and an able tactician.
San Martin, after the retreat of Canterac, summoned La Mar to surrender, offering honourable terms of capitulation, to which, after some delay, La Mar acceded. The troops were permitted to march out with their arms and standards, the Spaniards being allowed to retire to Arequipa, while the militia dispersed to their homes. Three months were given to the officers and the civil employes in which to find the means of leaving the country if they did not choose to remain.
On the 21st September the Peruvian flag was hoisted on the castles of Callao. La Mar, who as a Peruvian sympathised with the Patriot cause, resigned his rank and honours into the hands of the Viceroy and retired into private life.
San Martin thus won another victory without risking his army. As a Peruvian historian says:—"He overcame a powerful army by the simple force of public opinion and by skilful tactics." The strongest fortress in South America was now in his power, with several hundred guns of all calibres, thousands of muskets, and great stores of ammunition. He was now free to turn his arms to the north for the liberation of Quito in answer to a request from Bolívar, and could then return with reinforcements to put an end to the war. But the rôle of Fabius is one not generally appreciated; prudence is often mistaken for timidity; the general who prefers the shield to the sword offends the pride of his soldiers. San Martin gained by his policy great fame as a tactician, but he lowered his renown as a resolute soldier.
In the first six months of the Protectorate of San Martin the foundations were laid of the administrative organization and the political constitution of Peru. One of his first measures was to create a national army. Under the name of the "Peruvian Legion" he organized a division, recruited among the natives, composed of a regiment of infantry under Miller, one of cavalry under Brandzen, and a company of artillery with four guns. He reorganized the finances and reformed the commercial system. He abolished the personal service of the indigenous races, the poll-tax, and other oppressive customs. He manumitted all slaves who would join the army, and declared free all who might in future be born of slave parents. Corporal punishment was forbidden in the public schools; a national library was founded; the press was set free from all unnecessary restrictions; torture and excessive punishments were abolished. All which reforms and many others were carried out in pursuance of ideas brought by Monteagudo from the River Plate.
San Martin also issued a decree defining his own powers, and recognised such debts of the late authorities as had not been contracted for war purposes; but he did not draw up any plan for the political organization of the country, leaving that question for future solution.
The Peruvian nobility were left with their titles and escutcheons; San Martin looked upon them as a social influence of which good use might be made. He also instituted a new order, the "Order of the Sun," in imitation of the "Legion of Honour," instituted by Napoleon, as had previously been done in Chile by the institution of "The Legion of Merit"; and also a special decoration for women who distinguished themselves by services in the Patriot cause, a gold medal with a suitable inscription, which, however, was distributed with more gallantry than discretion, and gave rise to much scandal, some of which has not even yet died out. All this was in preparation for the establishment of that monarchy, the idea of which was still in the air.
San Martin also decreed to himself an annual salary oF 30,000 dols., of which he spent the greater part in presents and in public displays; but even so, this brought much adverse criticism upon him, and contributed to give currency to a report then commonly circulated about him, that he entertained the inane project of crowning himself King. The people in their ballads sang of him as their future Emperor, and it became a habit among the officers of the army to speak of him as "King Joseph."
Up to that time the American spirit of independence and the love of glory had sufficed to bind together the units of the army; the alloy of gold had not yet destroyed the temper of their swords. Badly fed, badly dressed, with only half their pay when they had any, suffering from all sorts of privation and disease, they had never received any pecuniary reward for their services. The Government of Chile had promised to give the victors of Maipó the land on which they had achieved that crowning triumph, but the promise was never fulfilled. The municipality of Lima now gave to San Martin 500,000 dols., arising from the sale of the properties of Spanish residents which had been confiscated, for distribution among his principal officers, and offered to the rest who should continue in the service grants of land in the provinces yet to be conquered. San Martin distributed the half million dollars among twenty officers—25,000 dols. to each one—which was in those days a fortune; but this, instead of binding them to his cause, produced resentments and jealousies, as is ever the case when self-interest enters into the relations between man and man, of which he was soon to have sad proof.
In October he received information that a conspiracy to depose him existed among the higher officers of the army. He summoned them to a secret council and disclosed the matter to them, but received very unsatisfactory replies.
That such a conspiracy existed appears certain, but it was not yet mature, and the inquiry was sufficient to dissipate it. Colonel Heres, of the Numancia battalion, was removed from his command, with many thanks for his distinguished services, and retired to Columbia, his native land. Las Heras and several other officers resigned their commands, and Alvarado, who appears to have been also one of the conspirators, was named General-in-Chief. San Martin had thus the sad certainty that although the disaffection had not spread among the junior officers, nor among the rank and file, the sympathies of the army were no longer with him as they had been at Rancagua.
The chief cause of the general discontent was his advocacy of monarchical principles; he sacrificed his own principles in favour of what he considered the most practicable system. In his own words:—
"The evils which afflict the new States of America arise not from the people, but from the Constitutions under which they live. These Constitutions should harmonise with their instruction, education, and habits of life. They should not have the best laws, but those most suited to their character, maintaining the barriers which separate the different classes of society, so that the most intelligent class may preserve its natural preponderance."
His ideal of legislation was based upon the precepts of Solon, an oligarchy of intelligence counterbalanced by a Conservative plutocracy. He forgot that in his own country he had seen safety only in the establishment of a sovereign Congress, and that the advocacy of monarchical ideas had there only fanned the flames of anarchy; that he himself had been forced to disobey when he was called upon to support a monarch elected by a secret committee; he forgot that he himself had founded a republic in Chile, and had sketched out a republican constitution for Peru, and that, with the exception of Mexico, every one of these new States had adopted the Democratic Republican system as a necessity of the age.
San Martin also failed to see that he must work in harmony with Bolívar, who had just established the Republic of Columbia, and with the great Democratic Republic of the United States. He also failed to see that it was in sympathy with these views that England had withdrawn from the Holy Alliance, and looked upon the republican form of government as the sine quâ non of independence in America. He was led astray by his Minister, Monteagudo, who was just as blind as himself to the inevitable tendency of the age.
In order to educate public opinion Monteagudo had established in Lima a literary society, styled "The Patriotic Society of Lima," for the discussion of political questions, in which he openly advocated the establishment of a monarchy.
The Protectorate of San Martin was based upon the express condition "that he should give place to the government which the Peruvian people should select"; but before he had held office five months he and his Council decided to send a mission to Europe to negotiate an alliance with Great Britain, and to accept a prince of the reigning family as a Constitutional monarch. In case this proposition was rejected, they were then to make a similar proposal to the Government of Russia; and that failing, then to any European prince; last of all, to the Prince of Luca, the imaginary sovereign of the River Plate.
This mission was confided to Garcia del Rio, who proceeded to Europe accompanied by Dr. Paroissiens; but, better instructed by subsequent events, Garcia took no step in prosecution of the ostensible object of his journey, contenting himself with a general advocacy in the European press of the cause of the Patriots in America.