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On the 5th of May, I proceeded with the flag-ship alone to reconnoitre Callao, having learned that the Chacabuco and Puyrredon had been chased off the port by the Spanish frigates.
General San Martin, through whom chiefly La Plata had achieved its freedom, gave assistance to O'Higgins and the Chilian patriots. The main body of the Spanish army, numbering about five thousand, had been stationed on the heights of Chacabuco, whence Santiago, Valparaiso, and the other leading towns of Chili were overawed.
Amid the commiseration of his friends, among whom was, of course, Terence O'Meara, Jim, together with other sick men from the flagship's crew, was put into a steam-launch and conveyed to the gunboat, from the deck of which he watched, half an hour later, while comfortably seated in a deck-chair, the departure of the Chilian squadron, consisting of the Blanco Encalada, Almirante Cochrane, O'Higgins, Chacabuco, Magellanes, and Abtao, the last-named being filled with combustibles so that she might serve, if necessary, as a fire-ship.
Both men and animals suffered greatly from soroche, the illness caused by rarefied atmosphere. At the foot of the mountain, at Chacabuco, the vanguard of San Martin's army defeated a body of 4,000 Royalists, and thus opened the road to Santiago, which San Martin entered February 14, 1817.
On the 12th of February the hosts of San Martin hurled themselves upon the royalists entrenched on the slopes of Chacabuco and routed them utterly. The battle proved decisive not of the fortunes of Chile alone but of those of all Spanish South America. As a viceroy of Peru later confessed, "it marked the moment when the cause of Spain in the Indies began to recede."
This consisted, in addition to the O’Higgins, of the San Martin and Lautaro—both of which had been East Indiamen: the former carried 56 guns, the latter 44—the Hecate, now called the Galvarino, of 18 guns; the Chacabuco, of 20; the Aracano, of 16; the Puyrredon, of 14.
After waiting at Valparaiso as long as he deemed prudent, Lord Cochrane left the three smaller vessels to complete their equipment under Admiral Blanco's direction, and passed out of port on the 16th of January, with the O'Higgins, the San Martin, the Lautaro, and the Chacabuco.
Douglas was back in less than a minute, carrying the telescope, by the aid of which it was presently seen that the approaching steamers were undoubtedly warships; one of them having very much the appearance of the Magellanes, while the other, a corvette, might be either the O'Higgins or the Chacabuco. Condell looked long at the approaching ships, and then turned to look at the Union.
As soon as the anchors were let go the admiral’s gig was lowered, and he went on board the Chacabuco. “What is all this about?” he asked the captain, who received him at the gangway. “The men say that they are overworked, your excellency; that they are kept hard at it all day making and taking off sail, and that they want to leave the ship.” “Muster the crew, sir,” Lord Cochrane said briefly.
Taking them, as it seemed, into his confidence, he informed them of the route he was about to take, and when the time came chose another and a parallel pass. Hastening down the tremendous rocky walls of the western side of the Andes, San Martin engaged the Spanish forces and won an important victory at Chacabuco.
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