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Updated: June 26, 2025
The Chileans chose him Supreme Director of their government, but he declined the office, and O'Higgins was chosen. San Martin's great object was to crush the colonial power of Spain in its stronghold, Peru. Having by the successful passage of the Andes and the victory of Chacabuco in a measure justified his plan of campaign, he returned to Buenos Aires for reinforcements.
The man-of-war's boat had no chance of overhauling the quicker and lighter Peruvian gig and when the Chileans reached the sloop, they abandoned the chase. On discovering the prize they had taken, cheer after cheer rang over the sea. The sloop was loaded down with baskets of fruit, crates of chickens, vegetables, in fact the very things the Chileans mostly needed.
They would not approach anything seen floating on the water; but turned their guns on whatever they saw at long range. They were known to fire at a seal that had wandered away from its usual haunts. Paul and his crew were compelled to keep close under cover. The Chileans were daily drawing their lines closer to the doomed city of Lima.
They made sorties every night; but the Chileans were on the watch for them, besides the sloop was so slow as to be almost useless, and Paul's Peruvians had a wholesome dread of the enemies' guns which could be turned with great rapidity in any direction. Daily they sailed to some barren, desolate island, hoping for a chance to blow one of the Chilean's vessels out of the water.
It was said at the time that a Peruvian soldier fired at a cow. At any rate, the Chileans began the attack at once. The crack of their guns along the line sounded like the running of a finger over the key board of a piano. The bullets began to shatter the house in which the diplomats were conferring. They suddenly became aware of their danger and fled in all directions.
She sank like a stone, and with her went a number of Chileans; their despairing yells, coming up from the churning froth, seemed to be a signal for the demoniac passions latent in the crew to burst forth again, this time in a consuming blaze that would not be stayed. Each man fought blindly for himself, heedless now of all restrictions.
Bolivia, who had been associated with her as her ally in the struggle, was now reduced to the position of an inland State, her strip of coast-line having been taken away by the victorious Chileans.
A few years later in 1837 Peru fell into a dispute with Chile on account of the Guano provinces of Atacama and Tarapaca. Peru was again invaded, but eventually the Chileans abandoned the country and returned to their own. After this, no little confusion prevailed in the internal affairs of Peru.
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