Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/317

 CHAPTER XXXIV.

SAN MARTIN AND COCHRANE.

1821—1822.

seeks in vain to blot from her pages the invectives hurled at each other by the two heroes of the liberating expedition to Peru. They themselves have perpetuated them in documents, in which each appeals to the judgment of the world.

Cochrane has insulted and calumniated San Martin by calling him a sanguinary tyrant, an incompetent general, a hypocrite, a thief, a drunkard, &c, &c.

San Martin, through his ministers, accused Cochrane of depredations akin to piracy, and of being an embezzler of public property, who made traffic with the naval force placed under his command.

The Admiral, who thought nothing great but his own deeds and his own hatred, extreme in everything, who had spoken of his own country as a degraded nation, ruled by a parliament of scoundrels, looked upon the South American revolution as a commercial transaction, carried on by a set of intriguing, cowardly rascals.

San Martin, more prudent, returned him insult for insult by other hands, but he did not descend to calumny, and when the angry moment had passed, troubled himself no more about him.

The antecedents of this quarrel we have already sketched. Though seeking to make common cause with