sh captain-general,
Carrasco, was deposed, and a native government set up under Count de
la Conquista. By this government the sovereignty of Spain was still
recognised, although various reforms were adopted which Spain could
not be expected to endorse. Accordingly, in April, 1811, an attempt
was made by the Spanish soldiers to overturn the new order of
things. The result was that, after brief fighting, the revolutionists
triumphed, and the yoke of Spain was thrown off.

But the independence of Chili, thus easily begun, was not easily
continued. Three brothers, Jose Miguel, Juan Jose, and Luis Carreras,
and their sister, styled the Anne Boleyn of Chili, determined to
pervert the public weal to their own aggrandisement. Winning their way
into popularity, they overturned the national congress that had been
established in June, and in December set up a new junta, with Jose
Miguel Carrera at its head. A dismal period of misrule ensued, which
encouraged the Spanish generals, Pareja and Sanchez, to attempt the
reconquest of Chili in 1813. Pareja and Sanchez were successfully
resisted, and a better man, General Bernardo O'Higgins, the republican
son of an Irishman who had been Viceroy of Peru, was put at the
head of affairs. He succeeded to the command of the Chilian army in
November, 1813, when a fresh attack from the Spaniards was expected.
At first his good soldiership was successful. The enemy, having come
almost to the gates of Santiago, was forced to retire in May, 1814;
and the Chilian cause might have continued to prosper under O'Higgins,
had not the Carreras contrived, in hopes of reinstating themselves in
power, to divide the republican interests, and so, while encouraging
renewed invasion by the Spaniards from Lima, make their resistance
more difficult. Wisely deeming it right to set aside every other
consideration than the necessity of saving Chili from the danger
pressing upon it from without, O'Higgins effected a junction with the
Carreras, hoping thus to bring the whole force of the republic against
the royalist army, larger than its predecessors, which was marching
towards Santiago and Valparaiso. Had his magnanimous proposals been
properly acted upon, the issue might have been very different. But
the Carreras, even in the most urgent hour of danger, could not forget
their private ambitions. Holding aloof with their part of the army,
they allowed O'Higgins and his force of nine hundred to be defeated
by four th