orderly state could exist an
hour, if the military were once allowed to throw the sword into the
scale, and decide points of legislation by the force of arms." In a
battle fought near the capital, Santiago, the rebel troops were
defeated, but Prieto gained that by treachery, which he could not effect
by the sword; and when Colonel Tupper resigned in disgust, the earnest
entreaties of his old commander, General Freire unfortunately induced
him to accept the government of Coquimbo, which step soon after
compelled him to resume the command of his regiment. Freire was deceived
by some of Prieto's chiefs, who, probably at the instigation of that
faithless general, had promised to pass over to him with their troops at
the first convenient opportunity; and he allowed himself to be forced
into a battle on a vast plain at Lircay, near Talca, on the 17th April,
1830. Nothing could be more ill-judged or imprudent, as his army, which
consisted of about 1,700 men, had only two weak squadrons of regular
cavalry and four pieces of artillery, while that of Prieto, amounting to
fully 2,200 men, had 800 veteran cavalry, and eleven or twelve pieces of
artillery. The Chile cavalry is very formidable, the men being most
expert riders, mounted on active and powerful horses, and generally
armed with long lances, which they use with great dexterity. After a
long engagement, Freire's cavalry, consisting of about 600 men,
including militia and Indians, fled completely discomfited, and
abandoned the infantry, composed of three weak battalions, to its fate.
Their situation was now indeed desperate, as the ground was so favorable
to cavalry, and the neighbourhood offered them no accessible place of
defence or refuge. When they formed into squares to resist the hostile
cavalry, they were mowed down by artillery; and, when they deployed into
line, the cavalry was upon them. In this dreadful emergency they
maintained the conflict for nearly an hour, with all the obstinacy of
despair; and at length, in attempting to charge in column, they were
completely broken. The loss in Freire's army fell chiefly on the
devoted infantry, and included eighteen officers among the killed. The
only officers mentioned as slain, in Prieto's hurried dispatch of the
17th of April, are Colonel Elizalde, chief of the staff; Colonel Tupper,
and his gallant Major Varela, a young man of five or six and twenty.
Colonel Tupper is said to have exhibited the most reckless valour duri