The revolutionary movements already detailed, also compelled me to quit the Pacific without any compensation from Peru, either to myself or the officers who remained faithful to Chili—­though my absence ought not to have operated as a bar to such compensation as the Sovereign Congress awarded to the generals and field officers of the army, who, though restrained by General San Martin from effecting anything of importance towards the liberation of the country, nevertheless received 500,000 dollars as a reward, whilst nothing was bestowed on myself or the squadron, except thanks for “hazardous exploits on behalf of Peru, hitherto,” as the Congress expressed it, “under the tyranny of military despotism, but now the arbiter of its own fate.”  To the “military despot” himself, a pension of 20,000 dollars was granted, no doubt, as has been said, in order to be rid of him; but it was I who gave the death-blow to his usurped power, by seizing the treasure at Ancon to pay the squadron, and by my constant refusal of his insidious overtures to aid him in further treading under foot the liberties of Peru.  It is scarcely possible that the Government of Peru, even at this day, can contrast with any degree of satisfaction, the empty thanks which were alone given to one—­to use the words of the Sovereign Congress in its laudatory vote to myself—­“by whose talent, worth, and bravery, the Pacific Ocean has been liberated from the insults of enemies, and the standard of liberty has been planted on the shores of the South”—­and its lavish reward to the enemy of that liberty, and even to those officers who deserted from Chili to aid the specious views of the Protector, of which rewards all who remained faithful to their duty were wholly deprived.

Still more inconsistent has been the neglect of succeeding Peruvian Governments in not fulfilling existing obligations.  The Supreme Director of Chili, recognising—­as must also the Peruvians—­the justice of their paying, at least, the value of the Esmeralda, the capture of which inflicted the death-blow on Spanish power, sent me a bill on the Peruvian Government for 120,000 dollars, which was dishonoured, and never since paid by any succeeding Government.  Even the 40,000 dollars stipulated by the authorities at Guayaquil as the penalty of giving up the Venganza was never liquidated, though the frigate was delivered to Peru contrary to written stipulations previously adduced—­and was thus added to the Peruvian navy without cost to the State, but in reality at the expense of the Chilian squadron, which ran it down into Guayaquil.  How the successive Governments of Peru can have reconciled this appropriation to the injury of one whom their first independent Government so warmly eulogised, it is difficult to conceive.