INSURRECTION OF TUPAC AMARU. 213 Although Reseguin possessed a robust constitution, his health had sunk beneath the hardships of the active service, and he now labored under severe illness; nevertheless, having set out for the districts which still maintained a show of war, he persisted in marching thither, and entered the villages on the shoulders of the Indians, who, as basely humble in adversity as they were fiercely proud in prosperity, greeted his entry with their acclamations. While these Indians were prostrating themselves at the feet of Reseguin, Tupa Catari was exciting others to continue the war. Reseguin, considering the machinations of this chief the only obstacle to peace, resorted to artifice to obtain possession of his person. He corrupted Tupa Catari's most intimate friend, and by this means succeeded in making him prisoner. He was tried, condemned, and sentenced to the same punishment which Tupac Amaru had suffered. After being torn asunder by horses, his head was sent to La Paz, and his limbs were distributed in various places as a terror to the Indians. The auditor of Chili, Don Francisco de Medina, was attached to Reseguin, in quality of judicial adviser. He began by the premature imprisonment of Andres and his chiefs, who had surrendered under a solemn pledge of free pardon. This act was regarded by Diego Cristobal as a violation of the public faith, and he lost no time in stirring up the Indians anew. Had he improved this opportunity for attacking Reseguin, the attack must have been fatal to the Spanish general, for he was extremely sick, and his army, reduced to three hundred and ninety-four men by the desertion of the militia, was in no condition to withstand the Indians. But Diego let slip the propitious moment, and it never again recurred. The Indians were grown weary of the contest, and in almost all the provinces about La Paz, claimed the benefit of the indulgence and delivered up their chiefs. Diego soon followed their example. Persuaded that the cause of his nation was hopeless, he sent a memorial to Don Jose del Valle, in the beginning of the year 1782, praying for the royal pardon. The flame of the revolution was nearly extinct, but it still sent forth a few broken flashes in the remote provinces. The Indians of Los Yungas, especially, and those of a valley called the Quebrada of the river Abaxo, in Sicasica and Chulumani, held out with great obstinacy. Arrogant with their many victories over the small detachments sent against them, they maintained a fierce and savage independence. At length, Flores assembled a powerful force and commissioned Reseguin to finish the war. This expedition was memorable for the many bloody victories gained over the Indians, who were entirely ignorant of military discipline, had but few fire-arms, and were principally armed with slings. The royal army from Tucuman, Buenos Ayres and Cochabamba, consisted of regular troops. The Buenos Ayreans were armed and equipped like European soldiers; the Tucumans composed the cavalry, and were armed with butcher-knives, and ropes twentyfive or thirty yards long, which they used in catching wild cattle. The arms of the Cochabambians were short clubs, loaded with lead, to which a rope of two or three yards in length was fastened, and which were used like slings, and were very deadly weapons. The Indians were scattered all over the plains, in no regular order or rank, and were nothing more than an undisciplined rabble. The Tucuman horsemen first rode among the Indians, and threw them down with their ropes, and the Cochabambians followed and despatched them with their clubs. The battle of Hucumarimi, being the most obstinately disputed of all that were fought during the revolution, and the most successful for the Spaniards, acquired the name of the decisive. The country here was broken into precipices and irregular acclivities, among which, on the side of a mountain, the Indians had encamped. The impediments which they threw in the way of an attack, were enough to appal the stoutest hearts. Scarcely had the Spaniards begun the ascent, when showers of stones, mingled with great masses of rock broken off by levers, and rolled down the sides of the mountain, filled the assailants with consternation. In spite of all this, by great exertion, climbing from cliff to cliff, they succeeded in driving the Indians from their seemingly impregnable post. The Indians were struck with superstitious dread. They thought the Spaniards fought by enchantment. No longer making any systematic resistance, they were hunted like wild beasts from mountain to mountain. Everything now conspired to put an end to the insurrection. Leaders were no more, except Diego Cristobal, who, although he submitted under the formal guarantee of an amnesty, and continued to live tranquilly in his family, was afterwards arrested, under the pretext of a new conspiracy, and executed in the same cruel way with his brother and Tupa Catari. The great body of the Indian population quietly returned to vassalage, and resumed the yoke of slavery. Such was the issue of an insurrection, which filled Peru with bloodshed and misery for the space of two years, and of a war in which, if we may believe the authority of Don Vincente Pazos, himself a native of La Paz, one third of the population of Peru perished by the hand of violence. Twenty years after these events, this writer saw the plains of Sicasica and Calamaca, for INSURRECTION OF TUPAC AMARU. 215 an extent of fourteen leagues, covered with heaps of unburied human bones, lying in the places where the wretched Indians fell, to bleach in the tropical sun. Their unfortunate attempt produced no permanent or important change in their condition; none of their grievances were abolished except the repartos. They were rigidly prohibited the use of arms. The tribute pressed more heavily afterwards, and was more strictly levied; and the unfortunate Peruvians were treated more contemptuously, in revenge of their unsuccessful and disastrous rebellion. CHAPTER XXII. PERU CONTINUED.-Conspiracy of Ubalde.-State of public feeling in Peru.Neglect of the government of Madrid.-Invasion of Spain by Napoleon.-Intrigues of the French emissaries.-Character of the South American viceroys.— Temper of the people.-Revolutionary movements in 1809.-Interference of the neighboring provinces.-Chilian affairs.-Blockade of the Peruvian ports by Lord Cochrane.—Invasion of Peru by San Martin.—Pusillanimous behavior of the viceroy.-Capture of a Spanish frigate at Callao.-San Martin advances upon Lima.-Flight of the viceroy.-The liberating army enters Lima.Independence of Peru proclaimed.-Movements of the royalists.-Surrender of Callao.-Arrival of the Colombian troops.-Departure of San Martin from Peru.-Disasters of the country.-The congress dissolved.-Lima retaken by the Spaniards.-Arrival of Bolivar in Peru.—He is appointed dictator.—Imbecility of the Peruvians.—Lima revisited by the royalists.—Second campaign of Bolivar in Peru.-Battles of Junin and Ayacucho.-Final defeat of the Spaniards, and liberation of Peru.-Factions and disturbances in the country.—Establishment of the republic of BOLIVIA.-The Bolivian constitution introduced into Peru.-Discontent of the people.-Insurrection of 1827.-Distracted state of the country.-Conspiracies and revolutions.-Transactions of Gamarra and Salaverry-General character of this portion of South American history. THE suppression of Tupac Amaru's insurrection completed the subjugation of the Peruvian Indians, who, from that period to the present day, have remained quiet. Ideas of national independence, however, appear to have taken root in the country, and it was not long before they began to manifest themselves openly. As early as 1805, Ubalde, an eminent jurist of Cuzco, excited the alarm of the government by his revolutionary designs. He gained a large party of adherents, but before their schemes could be put in operation, they were betrayed. Ubalde and eight others were put to death at Cuzco, and more than a hundred of his party were exiled. The particulars of this plot are not distinctly known, but independence was the main object. Ubalde, on the scaffold, predicted that the Spanish dominion in South America would soon be overthrown. It was impossible that he could, at this early period, have foreseen the occurrences in Spain, which shortly after paved the way for the emancipation of the Spanish American colonies; and his dying declaration affords us reason to believe that the project of throwing off the yoke of the mother country had been cherished in Peru to a greater extent than has generally been imagined. INTRIGUES OF FRENCH EMISSARIES. 217 The revolt of Peru took place at a later period than that of most of the other Spanish American states. Yet in order not to interrupt the continuity of our narrative, we shall pursue the thread of Peruvian history unbroken to the end. The dominion of Spain was maintained in America by a very small number of Spanish troops. From the year 1805, nothing material happened to lead the way to a revolution for some years. Not that the people were well satisfied with their condition; on the contrary they were highly discontented, and every year petitions and details of their grievances were sent to Spain. These the court of Madrid knew perfectly well how to evade, and no redress ever was granted. How long this state of things would have continued without producing a new Tupac or Ubalde, more fortunate than the first, we can only conjecture. But the desire for a new state of things was quickened in a wonderful manner by unforeseen events in Europe. The seizure of the Spanish crown by Napoleon, in 1808, loosened at once those ties which united the Spanish Americans to the mother country, roused them from the apathy in which they had languished for three centuries, and produced a revolution which utterly overthrew the empire of Spain in the west. Napoleon, having placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, designed to transfer the American colonies in the same manner. Such was his contempt for the sluggish temper and want of national spirit which appeared in all the Spanish race, that no serious obstacle seemed to present itself in the way of this design. He despatched emissaries to all parts of Spanish America. These were men of powerful talents, and well skilled in the business of intrigue. Under assumed characters, and by all sorts of artful practices, they used their influence to widen the breach between Spain and the colonies, in the expectation that by dividing the Spanish empire into fragments, it would be more easily transferred piecemeal to a new master. The Spanish Americans, instigated by such advisers, and finding themselves cut off from all communication with Spain, as that kingdom was now solely intent on its own preservation, were in great doubt how to act. At first the mass of the population appeared to reject all idea of throwing off their allegiance, and would not listen to any proposal for transferring their country to French control. The Spanish American rulers, however, showed a different spirit; ail of them, with the exception of the viceroy of Mexico, were willing to acknowledge Napoleon and declare their allegiance to him. But they were borne down by the popular will. The colonies never acknowledged the French authority. Napoleon, for several years, waged a sanguinary war with the Spanish people, in vain attempts |