thousand, had been stationed on the heights of Chacabuco, whence
Santiago, Valparaiso, and the other leading towns of Chili were
overawed. On the 12th of February, 1817, San Martin and O'Higgins,
with a force nearly as large, surprised this garrison, and, with
excellent strategy and very little loss of life, to the patriots at
any rate, it was entirely subdued. Santiago was entered in triumph on
the 14th of February, and a few weeks served for the entire dispersion
of the royalist forces. The supreme directorship of the renovated
republic was offered to San Martin. On his declining the honour, it
was assigned, to the satisfaction of all parties, to O'Higgins.

The new dictator and the wisest of his counsellors, however, were not
satisfied with the temporary advantage that they had achieved. They
knew that armies would continue to come down from Peru, the defeat
of which, even if that could be relied upon, would waste all the
resources of the republic. They knew, too, that the Spanish war-ships
which supplied Peru with troops and ammunition from home, passing the
Chilian coast on their way, would seriously hinder the commerce on
which the young state had to depend for its development, even if
they did not destroy that commerce at its starting-point by seizing
Valparaiso and the other ports. Therefore they resolved to seek
for efficient help from Europe. With that end Don Jose Alvarez,
a high-minded patriot, who had done much good service to Chili in
previous years, was immediately sent to Europe, commissioned to borrow
money, to build or buy warships, and in all the ways in his power to
enlist the sympathies of the English people in the republican cause.
In the last of these projects, at any rate, he succeeded beyond all
reasonable expectation.

Beaching London in April, 1817, Alvarez was welcomed by many friends
of South American freedom--Sir Francis Burdett, Sir James Mackintosh,
Mr. Henry Brougham, and Mr. Edward Ellice among the number. Lord
Cochrane was just then out of London, fighting his amusing battle with
the sheriffs and bailiffs of Hampshire; but as soon as that business
was over he took foremost place among the friends of Don Alvarez and
the Chilian cause which he represented. With a message to him, indeed,
Alvarez was specially commissioned. He was invited by the Chilian
Government to undertake the organization and command of an improved
naval force, and so, by exercise of the prowess which he had displaye