Your affectionate friend, JOSE DE SAN MARTIN. To Lord Cochrane, Vice-Admiral of Chili.
In this letter, San Martin attributes his usurpation to a "singular current of success;" omitting to state that he neither achieved one blow, nor devised one plan which led to it, whilst he had all along offered it every obstruction in his power. He declares that the arrogation of the fall of the Spaniards, attributed by the inscription on the medal to the army and himself, was a mistake, brought about by "his not being able, in the hurry of business, to give attention to the model presented to him;" whereas the inscription was his own writing, after days of deliberation and consultation with others, who advised him not to mention the squadron in the inscription.
In this letter he repudiates all connection with Chili, though he had sworn fidelity to the republic as its Captain General. He denies ever having engaged to pay the squadron their wages, though on no other condition had it put to sea from Valparaiso, and his own handwriting to this specific promise was accepted as the inducement. Though himself an officer of Chili, he treats Chili as a state with which he had nothing to do, whose debts he declares that he will not pay, as he had previously told me on the 4th of August; finally, he says that he will propose to Chili to pay its own seamen! As to his promises to give the men a twelvemonths' pay in acknowledgment of their services, this was neither intended nor given; whilst, as to the 50,000 dollars promised to the captors of the _Esmeralda_, which he is "endeavouring to collect," he had long before "collected" many times the amount from the old Spaniards--who had offered a similar reward for the capture of any vessels of the Chilian squadron--and kept it. Fortunately, his own letters prove these matters, which otherwise I should have hesitated to mention, unsupported by testimony so irrefutable.
General San Martin afterwards denied to the Chilian Government that he refused, on the 4th of August, to pay the squadron. Here is the same assertion, in his own handwriting, on the 9th! During the whole of this time the squadron was in a state of literal destitution; even the provisions necessary for its subsistence being withheld from it, though the Protector had abundant means of supplying them; but his object was to starve both officers and men into desertion--so as to accelerate the dismemberment of the squadron which I would not give up to his ambitious views.