Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/190

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THE EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA.

the third is the author of this history.[1] The amount cannot have exceeded 29,500 dollars, a sum which San Martin had most certainly earned, while the rigid exactness of all his dealings with public money placed in his hands is unquestioned. He steadily refused all recompense for his services; he did accept the hospitality of the city of Santiago when there, but the yearly expenses of his establishment did not exceed 3,000 dollars.

In pursuance of the Alliance, the Government of Chile remitted 40,000 dollars to Buenos Ayres for the army of Upper Peru, and the Argentine Government sent a thousand new muskets for the use of the Chilian army. The maintenance of the Army of the Andes, and the filling up of death vacancies, was assumed by Chile, and there was no further question on either side of pecuniary responsibility.

When O'Higgins in April went to take command of the Army of the South, he left Colonel Don Hilarion de la Quintana as his deputy at Santiago. Quintana was an Argentine, a family connection and an aide-de-camp of San Martin. Thus the supreme power in the State was made subject to Argentine influence under the direction of the Lautaro Lodge. This appointment wounded the national susceptibilities of the people, was contrary to the policy adopted by the Argentine government, and provoked open declarations that "Chile owed nothing to the Army of the Andes."

To destroy this impression, government, on establishing a military school, reserved twelve nominations of cadets for natives of the Province of Cuyo, professing "eternal

  1. It appears that Condarco, when in London, purchased the ship Cumberland, mounting sixty guns, for 160,000 dols., giving an order for that amount on the Government of Chile, and paying as a deposit 25,000 dols., which sum, being returned to him on payment of his draft, he placed in the hands of someone in whom he had confidence, on account of O'Higgins and San Martin. His confidence was misplaced, his English friend lost the money in gambling on the Stock Exchange, and San Martin found himself penniless when he landed in England in 1824.—Tr.