Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/139

Rh fighters. Without knowledge of the character of this people it is impossible to comprehend how San Martin could in this one Province raise an invincible army which, sustained by it alone for three years, liberated two republics and spread the principles of the Argentine revolution over an entire continent.

Determined to keep free from all personal obligations to the instruments of his policy, San Martin refused to occupy the house allotted to him by the Cabildo of Mendoza, gave up half his salary as Governor, and, in 1815, sent his wife back to Buenos Ayres in pursuance of the system of rigid economy which he imposed upon himself and carried out ruthlessly in every department of his administration. In January, 1815, he was promoted by Government to the rank of General of Brigade, which appointment he accepted only on the understanding that he should resign it as soon as the State was secured from Spanish domination, and steadily refused any further promotion. Some historians have seen in this systematic self-abnegation, an imitation of the Cardinal who hobbled on crutches to seize the keys of Saint Peter. Doubtless he had his ambitions, but no such design appears in the course of his life, which was consecrated to his own people to the complete sacrifice of all personal interest.

According to him Chile was the citadel of America, and must be reconquered at any cost. In Mendoza he met many of the fugitives who crossed the Andes after the disaster of Rancagua, and speedily learned from them that the collapse of the revolution was due to the incapacity of Carrera, and to see in O'Higgins the man of the future. He and the Mendocinos received these fugitives with open arms and with generous hospitality; but Carrera, though an exile on foreign soil, arrogated to himself a position as chief of an independent nation, and as such issued decrees from the barracks where he and his suite were quartered.

San Martin asserted his authority with firmness and