176 COLONEL TUPPER.
No. 4. [See Translation, page 91.]
" Los Gefes y Officiales del Batallon Pudeto, tl sus Compatriotas.
" El Batallon Pudeto siempre fiel a sus juramentos, protesta sostener la Constitucion. Conciudadanos, confiad en este honor que jamas fue tachado. Enemigos del orden, temblad : ya cono- ceis a Pudeto.
" S. E. el Capitan General Freire nos lleva a la victoria. Su nombre electriza el corazon de los valientes, y garantiza el empleo de la fuerza ante el pacifico ciudadano.
" Quedara escarmentado para siempre el infame Prieto, ese militar sin honor, que burlando en repetidas ocasiones los mas sagrados compromisos, aspira al despotismo por los medios mas inicuos.
" Valparaiso, Enero 27 dc 1830."
No. 5. Cancharayada and Lircai. — See page 97.
General Miller, in his memoirs, after stating that the Spanish general, Osorio, advanced from Talcahuana towards Santiago, with about six thousand effective men, and that to meet him General San Martin formed a junction with the Director O'Higgins and Colonel Las Heras, at San Fernando, the united patriot forces amounting to seven thousand infantry, fifteen hundred cavalry, thirty-three field pieces, and two howitzers ; thus continues : —
" Ignorant of the numbers and movements of his opponents, the royalist general crossed the river Maule, and was proceeding on to Santiago, when, on the 18th of March, (1818,) the van guard of each army came in contact at Quechereguas. In the affair which took place, the royalist advance was worsted. Osorio having ascertained the superiority of the patriots, countermarched with evident precipitation. General San Martin obliqued to his own left, for the purpose of interposing between the royalists and the ford of the Maule. The two armies crossed the river Lircay at the same time, at the distance of four miles from each other, on the morning of the 19th, and continued to march in almost parallel but gradually approximating columns over five leagues of open country. The patriots advanced in the finest order, and with the utmost regularity. The Spaniards quickened their march in some slight confusion, and were the first to reach the town of Talca, in
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