rebel troops were defeated, but Prieto gained that by treachery, which he could not effect by the sword; and when Colonel Tupper resigned in disgust, the earnest entreaties of his old commander, General Freire unfortunately induced him to accept the government of Coquimbo, which step soon after compelled him to resume the command of his regiment.  Freire was deceived by some of Prieto’s chiefs, who, probably at the instigation of that faithless general, had promised to pass over to him with their troops at the first convenient opportunity; and he allowed himself to be forced into a battle on a vast plain at Lircay, near Talca, on the 17th April, 1830.  Nothing could be more ill-judged or imprudent, as his army, which consisted of about 1,700 men, had only two weak squadrons of regular cavalry and four pieces of artillery, while that of Prieto, amounting to fully 2,200 men, had 800 veteran cavalry, and eleven or twelve pieces of artillery.  The Chile cavalry is very formidable, the men being most expert riders, mounted on active and powerful horses, and generally armed with long lances, which they use with great dexterity.  After a long engagement, Freire’s cavalry, consisting of about 600 men, including militia and Indians, fled completely discomfited, and abandoned the infantry, composed of three weak battalions, to its fate.  Their situation was now indeed desperate, as the ground was so favorable to cavalry, and the neighbourhood offered them no accessible place of defence or refuge.  When they formed into squares to resist the hostile cavalry, they were mowed down by artillery; and, when they deployed into line, the cavalry was upon them.  In this dreadful emergency they maintained the conflict for nearly an hour, with all the obstinacy of despair; and at length, in attempting to charge in column, they were completely broken.  The loss in Freire’s army fell chiefly on the devoted infantry, and included eighteen officers among the killed.  The only officers mentioned as slain, in Prieto’s hurried dispatch of the 17th of April, are Colonel Elizalde, chief of the staff; Colonel Tupper, and his gallant Major Varela, a young man of five or six and twenty.  Colonel Tupper is said to have exhibited the most reckless valour during the day, and to have rallied his battalion several times.  Having dismounted to encourage his men, he was unable, in the melee when all was lost, to find his horse; and the accounts of the manner of his death are so contradictory, that it is impossible to reconcile them.  All agree, however, in stating that he was particularly sought after, and that orders were given to shew him no quarter.  Certain it is that he was overtaken, and “sacrificed to the fears of Prieto, who justly considered him the sword and buckler of the irresolute and vacillating Freire.”  He was pronounced by an English traveller, as “the handsomest man he had ever seen in either hemisphere,” and undoubtedly his tall, athletic, and beautifully proportioned person,