Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/249

Rh this, on the ground that the commission of General-in-Chief was granted for a specific purpose which was not yet accomplished, and was therefore not cancelled by the fall of the Government by which it had been conferred. In these terms a document was drawn up and signed by all the officers.

Las Heras, in writing to San Martin an account of the result of the meeting, expressed his great surprise that he should have given him such a task, and said that many of his best friends felt themselves greatly aggrieved at the proposition, as the commissions of all of them were derived from the same authority as that of the General-in-Chief. Thus the army endorsed the disobedience of their General, an act which under any other leader would have had a most evil effect upon its discipline.

While the preparations of the Chilian Government went slowly forward a new difficulty arose. Cochrane, proud of his recent triumph in Valdivia, aspired to the command-in-chief of the expedition to Peru. Devoid as he was of all political talent, a more unfit leader for such an enterprise it would have been difficult to find. Peru was not to be conquered, it was to be liberated; he thought only of conquest. He might have won a battle, but he would never have founded a nation. His dream seems to have been inspired by the examples of Drake and Anson, who made great profit by gallant feats of arms; he purposed to enrich himself and his sailors by plundering the coasts of Peru. San Martin was an American, and thought only of his great purpose, nothing of its results to himself. On the 6th May, 1820, San Martin was appointed by the Senate and by the popular vote, Generalissimo of the expedition.

Still Cochrane insisted, and several times sent in his resignation. Government was about to appoint Guise to the command of the fleet, as Spry and many others of the English officers preferred him to Cochrane, but this was prevented by the intervention of San Martin, and the