‘Santiago is a large and populous city, and by far the handsomest that I have seen in South America.
‘It is situated in a very extensive plain, and surrounded by immense mountains on every side, which are eternally covered with snow.
‘The climate is so exceptionally mild that of the immense quantity of trees which grow in the country there are only about six species that lose their foliage in winter and the soil so fruitful and abundant that you have the finest fruits the greatest part of the year…
‘The girls are very pretty and partial to Englishmen, although they may happen to be rather pyebald.
‘I visit very few families, and those I do visit are houses where my countrymen don’t frequent, and then I have all the fun to myself.
‘My favorite is a very nice girl, the daughter of a Spaniard; she wishes very much to make a Christian of me, and has given me a relic of her saint, which I am obliged to wear continually about my neck in order that I may be preserved from the Devil and his works.
‘I have got a very comfortable situation and live like a young rabit [sic] in a Clover field; if I had one or two of my old friends from England, I could easily make up my mind to take up my abode here for life — now for politics!
‘The famous Chile Squadron commanded by Lord Cochran sailed from Valparaiso [the seaport of Santiago, some ninety miles away] the 11th of last month in a very efficient state to make its second attack upon the shipping in Callao [the port of Lima].
‘Upwards of 1,000 foreign seamen form a part of the crews & his Lordship took 450 Congreve Rockets with him by means of which it is fully expected he will succeed; a few weeks will decide the contest, and then I may have a chance of seeing the famous capital of Peru.’
Hartnell’s expectations of an early visit to Lima were not fulfilled.
Lord Cochran’s rockets and other explosives proved to be worthless in the attack on Callao; one of his two fireships was useslessly expended, and his “secret war plan” adjudged by the Chilean government as too terrible and inhuman to be used against the Spaniards.
He was forced to stand by inactively for the time being.
Thomas Cochrane, tenth earl of Dundonald, was the brilliant naval strategist who already had tilted disastrously with the British admiralty.
Now, after court-martial in England, he was retained as chief in command of the Chilean fleet.
THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL
Susanna Bryant Dakin
Stanford University Press
ADVENTURER: Page 12
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