of the city
by the army of liberation, Lord Dundonald, the English Admiral in
command of the Chilian fleet assisting the revolutionists, offered to
let the Spanish governor depart with two-thirds of this treasure if he
would surrender the remainder and give up the fortifications without a
fight. The Peruvian liberator, San Martin, set these terms aside,
however, and allowed the Spanish garrison to evacuate the place,
carrying away the six million sterling. This immense treasure was soon
scattered far and wide, by sea and land. It was only part of the
riches dispersed by the conquest of San Martin and his patriots. The
people of Lima, hoping to send their fortunes safe home to Spain before
the plundering invaders should make a clean sweep, put their valuables
on board all manner of sailing vessels which happened to be in harbor,
and a fugitive fleet of merchantmen steered out from the hostile coast
of Peru, the holds piled with gold and silver, the cabins crammed with
officials of the state and church and other residents of rank and
station. At the same time there was sent to sea the treasure of the
great cathedral of Lima, all its jeweled chalices, monstrances, and
vestments, the solid gold candle-sticks and shrines, the vast store of
precious furniture and ornaments, which had made this one of the
richest religious edifices of the world.

There had not been so much dazzling booty afloat at one time since the
galleon plate fleets were in their heyday during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. In 1820 there were no more of those great
buccaneers and gentlemen adventurers who had singed the beard of the
King of Spain in the wake of Francis Drake. They had sailed and fought
and plundered for glory as well as gain, or for revenge as much as for
doubloons. Their successors as sea rovers were pirates of low degree,
base wretches of a sordid commercialism who preyed on honest merchant
skippers of all flags, and had little taste for fighting at close
quarters. The older race of sea rogues had been wolves; the pirates of
the early nineteenth century were jackals.

Many a one of these gentry got wind of the fabulous treasure that had
been sent afloat from Lima, and there is no doubt that much of it
failed to reach Spain. While in some instances, these fleeing ships
were boarded and scuttled by pirate craft, in others the lust of gold
was too strong for the seamen to whom the rare cargoes had been
entrusted, and