96 MEMOIR OF COLONEL TUPPER.
lowed to cross over with a column of four or five hundred infantry, for the purpose of making a night attack on the enemy's camp, which, in the desperate state of affairs, was the best expedient that could be devised ; but unfortunately General Freire would not sanction the attempt, as, in the fatal persuasion that his popularity would carry him through the contest, he had allowed himself to be deceived by some of Prieto's chiefs, who, probably at the instigation of their general, had promised to join him with their troops at the first convenient opportunity. In conse- quence, Colonel Tupper is said, by one of his officers, to have been completely disgusted at Freire's evident infatuation or incapacity, and to have anticipated the fate which awaited him with gloomy resolution. He well knew that his enemies were too anxious for his death to show him any quarter, and as a husband and a father he could not but feel deeply the forlorn and desolate condition in which his death would leave his wife and children.* He had, however, gone too far to recede, and in any extremity his high sense of honor would have prevented his withdrawing himself on the eve of a battle from the cause he had espoused. On the 15th of April, 1830, General Freire crossed the river, and marched three leagues without obstruc- tion to Talca, the principal town of the province, beautifully situated midway on the high road from Santiago to Conception, and about two hundred miles from either city. Here his army was received with the greatest enthusiasm, and a council of war being called, it was resolved that, as the enemy was so much superior in cavalry and artillery, the consti-
- Unhappily for him and for them, a letter from the editor, containing the
offer of a very desirable situation in Rio de Janeiro, did not reach Chile till shortly after his death.
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