ometimes converts a ruler into a monster, as
the Limenos very appropriately designate him. San Martin was not
innately cruel, though, as in the execution of the Carreras, he did not
hesitate to sacrifice men of far greater patriotism and ability than
himself, regarding them as rivals; but he would not, as Monteagudo did,
have endeavoured to tempt me ashore to the house of Torre Tagle, for the
purpose of assassinating me; nor, failing in this, would he as
Monteagudo also did, have liberated a convict for the express purpose of
murdering me on board my own ship. At this distance of time these things
may be mentioned, as there can be no delicacy in thus alluding to
Monteagudo, who, having lived the life of a tyrant, died the death of a
dog; for having sometime afterwards imprudently returned to the Peruvian
capital, he was set upon and killed in the streets by the enraged
Limenos.

This bad commencement of the Peruvian Government subsequently entailed
on the country years of misery and civil war, from intestine feuds and
party strife--the natural results of the early abuse which unhappily
inaugurated its liberation. No such features have been exhibited in
Chili, where the maritime force under my command at once and for ever
annihilated the power of Spain, leaving to the mother country neither
adherents nor defenders, so that all men agreed to consolidate the
liberty which had been achieved. The same good results followed my
expulsion of the Portuguese fleets and army from Brazil, where, whatever
may have been the contentions of the parties into which the country was
divided, the empire has ever since been preserved from those revolutions
which invariably characterise states based at the outset upon virulent
contentions. In Peru, the liberty which had been promised was trodden
under foot by the myrmidons of San Martin, so that a portion of the
people, and that the most influential, would gladly have exchanged the
degradation of their country for a return to Spanish rule, and this was
afterwards very nearly achieved. Another portion, dreading the
Spaniards, invited Bolivar to free them from the despotism to which, in
the name of liberty, they had been subjected. A third party sighed for
independence, as they originally hoped it would have been established.
The community became thus divided in object, and, as a consequence, in
strength; being in constant danger of the oppressor, and in even more
danger from its own intestine