e sprang up, we
weighed anchor, standing to and fro in front of the batteries,
and returning their fire, until Captain Guise, who commanded the
_Lautaro_, being severely wounded, that ship sheered off and never
again came within range. As, from want of wind, or doubt of the
result, neither the _San Martin_ nor the _Chacabuco_ had ever got
within fire, the flag-ship was thus left alone, and I was reluctantly
compelled to relinquish the attack. I withdrew to the island of San
Lorenzo, about three miles distant from the forts; the Spaniards,
though nearly quadruple our numbers, exclusive of their gunboats, not
venturing to follow us.

"The action having been commenced in a fog, the Spaniards imagined
that all the Chilian vessels were engaged. They were not a little
surprised, as it again cleared, to find that their own frigate, the
quondam _Maria Isabella_, was almost their only opponent. So much were
they dispirited by this discovery that, as soon as possible after the
close of the contest, their ships-of-war were dismantled, the topmasts
and spars being formed into a double boom across the anchorage, so as
to prevent approach. The Spaniards were also previously unaware of my
being in command of the Chilian squadron. On becoming acquainted with
this fact, they bestowed upon me the not very complimentary title of
'El Diablo,' by which I was afterwards known amongst them."

Two hundred and forty years before, almost to a day, Sir Francis
Drake--whom, of all English seamen, Lord Cochrane most resembled in
chivalrous daring and in chivalrous hatred of oppression--had secretly
led his little _Golden Hind_ into the harbour of Callao, and there
despoiled a Spanish fleet of seventeen vessels; for which and for his
other brave achievements he won the nickname of El Dracone. Drake the
Dragon and Cochrane the Devil were kinsmen in noble hatred, and noble
punishment, of Spanish wrong-doing.

Retiring to San Lorenzo, after the fight in Callao Bay on the 28th
of February, Lord Cochrane occupied the island, and from it blockaded
Callao for five weeks. On the island he found thirty-seven Chilian
soldiers, whom the Spaniards had made prisoners eight years before.
"The unhappy men," he said, "had ever since been forced to work in
chains under the supervision of a military guard--now prisoners in
turn; their sleeping-place during the whole of this period being a
filthy shed, in which they were every night chained by one leg to an
iron b