afterwards the Independencia was decoyed on the rocks by a Chilian gun-boat, and lost. From this time the Peruvian fleet acted chiefly on the defensive, as the preponderance of the Chilian navy was overwhelming. On the 8th October the Huascar was captured by the Chilian fleet off Mejillones, after a gallant fight of 6 hours. As this was the first battle ever fought on the open ocean between iron-clads of the modern type, it may be worth our while to digress briefly in order to study the peculiarities of the combat.
Miguel Grau, the commander of the Huascar, was a Colombian by birth, and his father was a captain under Bolivar at the battle of Ayacucho. At the time the war broke out he had been 29 years in the Peruvian navy, and reached the rank of rear-admiral. After the loss of the Independencia, the Huascar and the corvette Union cruised in company for the purpose of capturing Chilian transports, or any other vessels that came in their way and were not too strong to cope with. On the 1st October a Chilian fleet of 2 iron-clads and several other vessels, all carefully cleaned and refitted, left Valparaiso for the purpose of capturing the Huascar. Arriving off Arica, the Chilian admiral learned that the Huascar and Union were cruising to the southward; the Huascar had not been cleaned for some time, and her speed was inferior to that of the Chilian iron-clads, who would thus be able to choose their distance in case they could catch her in the open sea.
On the morning of the 8th, when a fog lifted, Admiral Grau found himself caught between the two divisions of the Chilian fleet, one consisting of the iron-clad Blanco and the gun-boat Covadonga, with a transport, and the other of the iron-clad Cochrane, the corvette O'Higgins, and the gun-boat Loa. Either of the Chilian iron-clads was superior to the Huascar, and now that he was between both, and they had the gun-boats and corvette to aid them, the Peruvian admiral's chance of escape was hopeless. Finding
