t was impossible for me to have done otherwise.
Years of reflection have only produced the conviction that, were I
again placed in similar circumstances, I should adopt precisely the
same course."

In spite of his treachery to the Chilian Government, General San
Martin professed to retain his functions as Commander-in-Chief of the
Chilian liberating expedition to Peru; and, accordingly, when he found
it useless to make further efforts, by bribes or threats, to seduce
Lord Cochrane from his allegiance, he ordered him to return at once to
Valparaiso. This order Lord Cochrane refused to obey, seeing that the
work entrusted to him--the entire destruction of the Spanish squadron
in the Pacific--had not yet been completed.

He determined to complete that work, first going to Guayaquil to
repair and refit his ships, which San Martin would not allow him to do
in any Peruvian port. He was thus employed during six weeks following
the 18th of October, 1821.

On his departure, a complimentary address from the townsmen afforded
him an opportunity of offering some good advice on a matter in which
his long and intelligent political experience showed him that they
were especially at fault. The inhabitants of Guayaquil, like many
other young communities, sought to increase their revenues and
strengthen their independence by violent restrictions upon foreign
commerce and arbitrary support of native monopolists. Lord Cochrane
eloquently propounded to them the doctrine of free trade. "Let your
public press," he said, "declare the consequences of monopoly, and
affix your names to the defence of your enlightened system. Let it
show, if your province contains eighty thousand inhabitants, and if
eighty of these are privileged merchants according to the old system,
that nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of a thousand must
suffer because their cotton, coffee, tobacco, timber, and other
productions, must come into the hands of the monopolist, as the only
purchaser of what they have to sell, and the only seller of what they
must necessarily buy; the effect being that he will buy at the lowest
possible rate and sell at the dearest, so that not only are the nine
hundred and ninety-nine injured, but the lands will remain waste, the
manufactories without workmen, and the people will be lazy and poor
for want of a stimulus, it being a law of nature that no man will
labour solely for the gain of another. Tell the monopolist that the
true meth