repay the sums which my brother had advanced on the
guarantee of its London envoy Alvarez--the Brazilian Government would
have eagerly availed itself of an advantage to which the Chilian
ministry was insensible: though recently by the exertions of Admiral
Simpson, and the more enlightened views of the present Government, Chili
is now beginning to appreciate the advantage of a steam marine, which,
at the period of her liberation, she so perversely rejected by refusing
to honour the comparatively trifling pecuniary engagements of her
minister in London. The probable reason why the Chilian Government
refused to acknowledge these obligations was--that the war being now
ended by the annihilation of the Spanish naval power in the Pacific
through the instrumentality of sailing ships alone, there was no
necessity for a steam ship of war--the narrow-minded policy of the
ministers who have figured in these pages never conceiving that to
maintain maritime preponderance is scarcely less difficult than to
achieve it. Hence, to get rid of the paltry sum of L13,000 due--and
still due--to my brother for his advances on the ship, she was rejected;
the consequence was, that after my departure, the independence of Chili
was again placed in jeopardy, whilst Peru was only saved from a Spanish
reconquest by the intervention of the Colombian liberator, Bolivar.

Shortly after my departure, the partisans of General Freire, and the
enemies of General O'Higgins, having entered into a combination--the
former marched on Valparaiso, where the people ardently espoused his
cause; so that abandoned by his evil genius, San Martin, and equally so
by others who had caused his downfall, the Supreme Director found
himself a prisoner in the hands of the very man who had most conduced to
his overthrow, viz., Zenteno, in whose charge he was placed on pretence
of being made accountable for the expenditure of those who now held him
in durance!

The end of this was, a five months' examination of O'Higgins, which
resulted in his being permitted to leave the country; General Freire
having, meanwhile, been elected to the Supreme Directorate, in the midst
of internal dissensions in Chili, and disasters in Peru, where the
Spaniards, under Cantarac--emboldened by the pusillanimity of the
Protector in permitting them to relieve Callao unmolested, and elated
with their decisive victory over a division of his army, as narrated in
a previous chapter--had availed themsel