haughtily descended the mountains, filled with the calculations they
had formed in their ignorant meditations. They fancied that to
appear before our camp was enough to conquer us; but they found
_valour armed with prudence_! They acknowledged their inferiority.
_They trembled at the idea of the hour of battle, and profited by the
hour of darkness_!! and they sought an asylum in Callao. My army
began its march, and at the end of eight days the enemy has had to
fly precipitately--convinced of their impotency to try the fortune of
war, or to remain in the position they held.

The desertion which they experience ensures us that, before they
reach the mountains, there will only exist a handful of men, terrified
and confounded with the remembrance of the colossal power which
they had a year ago, and which has now disappeared like the fury of
the waves of the sea at the dawn of a serene morning. _The liberating
army pursues the fugitives. They shall he dissolved or beaten_.
At all events, the capital of Peru shall never be profaned with the
footsteps of the enemies of America--_this truth is peremptory_. The
Spanish empire is at an end for ever. Peruvians! your destiny is
irrevocable; consolidate it by the constant exercise of those virtues
which you have shown in the epoch of conflicts. _You are independent_,
and nothing can prevent your being happy, if you will it
to be so,

SAN MARTIN.

To these monstrous assertions I only know one parallel, viz:--Falstaff's
version of his victory over the robbers at Gadshill. The Protector
asserts that "the shadow of the Spanish flag should never again darken
Lima." It nevertheless passed completely round the city within