Chorocomayo. The Corral was stormed with equal rapidity, a number of the
enemy escaping in boats to Valdivia, others plunging into the forest;
whilst upwards of a hundred, besides officers, fell into our hands, the
like number being found bayoneted on the following morning. Our loss was
seven men killed, and nineteen wounded.

The Spaniards had, no doubt, regarded their position as impregnable,
which, considering its difficulty of access and almost natural
impenetrability, it ought to have been, if properly defended. They had
only found out their error when too late, thus justifying my former
remark to the military officers, that an attack where least expected is
almost invariably crowned with success. Much less had the Spaniards
calculated on a night attack, the most favourable of all to the
attacking party, as necessitating unity of action--and the least
favourable of all to the party attacked, as inspiring doubt and panic,
almost certain to end in irresolution and defeat. The garrison consisted
of the Cantabria regiment of the line, numbering about eight hundred,
with whom was associated a militia of upwards of a thousand.

On the 5th, the _Intrepido_ and _Montezuma_, which had been left at the
Aguada Inglesa, entered the harbour, being fired at in their passage by
Fort Niebla on the eastern shore. On their coming to an anchor at the
Corral, two hundred men were again embarked to attack Forts Niebla,
Carbonero, and Piojo. The _O'Higgins_ now appearing in sight off the
mouth of the harbour, the Spaniards abandoned the forts on the eastern
side, no doubt judging that as the western forts had been captured
without the aid of the frigate, they had--now that she had arrived--no
chance of successfully defending them; the patriot troops were therefore
disembarked at Fort Niebla till the tide served to take them to the town
of Valdivia.