Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/230

 CHAPTER XXII.

COCHRANE—CALLAO—VALDIVIA.

1819—1820.

new Admiral when hoisting his pennant on the O'Higgins might, after the manner of the old Dutch admirals, have nailed a broom to his masthead; his commission was to sweep the Spanish fleet from the Pacific.

This ideal hero was one of the first sailors of the first navy of the world, and became indisputably the first in the naval annals of three Nations of South America, yet he never was master of his own destiny, he founded no school which should endue posterity with his spirit. With great faculties, both moral and intellectual, he had no political talent, there was no method in what he did. His exploits were performed under many flags, and in both the Old and in the New World, but he made no country his own. He left his native land with curses, he parted from Chile, from Peru, from Brazil, and from Greece in anger, stigmatizing them as ungrateful. He valued his deeds in gold as though they had been merchandize. Yet, in the abstract he was a lover of liberty; he placed his sword and his genius only at the service of some noble cause.

On the 14th January, 1819, he sailed from Valparaiso with four ships, the San Martin, O'Higgins, Lautaro, and Chacabuco, leaving Rear-Admiral Blanco Encalada to follow him. On the 10th February he was off Callao.

The bay of Callao is one of the largest on the South