in fitful words and in sentiments that prompted to no action.

Shortly after his return to Chili, Lord Cochrane went to live upon the
estates that had been conferred upon him. Soon, however, he was forced
to go back to Valparaiso, there to look after the interests of the
officers and crews who had served him and Chili during the previous
fighting time. His earnest arguments on their behalf were not heeded.
The poor fellows were left to starve and be perished by the cold of
a South American winter, against which the pitiful rags in which they
were clothed afforded no protection. And before long fresh incidents
arose which made it impossible for him to persevere in fighting their
battle.

General San Martin, having run his course of petty tyranny in Peru,
was soon forced to resign his protectorate and seek safety in Chili.
He reached Valparaiso on the 12th of October, and then Lord Cochrane,
who had long before seen good reasons for suspecting it, was convinced
that Zenteno and many other influential men in Chili were in league
with him. He claimed that San Martin should be tried by court-martial
for his treasons, known to all the world. Instead of that San Martin
was loaded with honours, and fresh indignities were heaped upon
his chief accuser. This monstrous action of the ministers led to a
revolution, which, if Lord Cochrane had stayed to the end, might have
proved much to his advantage. But the revolution, headed by General
Freire, an honest man, had for its object the overthrow of O'Higgins,
also an honest man, though too weak to withstand the influences
brought to bear upon him by the bad men by whom he was surrounded.
Lord Cochrane refused Freire's offers to join in opposition to
O'Higgins, always, as far as his small powers permitted, his good
friend. He preferred to abandon Chili, or rather to allow it to
abandon one who had done for it so much and had received so little in
return. "The difficulties," he said, in a dignified letter addressed
to General O'Higgins, still nominally the Supreme Director, in which
he virtually resigned his appointment as Vice-Admiral of the Republic,
"the difficulties which I have experienced in accomplishing the naval
enterprises successfully achieved during the period of my command as
Admiral of Chili have not been mastered without responsibility such as
I would scarcely again undertake, not because I would hesitate to make
any personal sacrifice in a cause of so much interest, b