This study not only defends Lord Cochrane from his critics, but it accuses the admiral’s opponents of destroying Chilean naval supremacy in the Pacific. Alamiro de Avila argues that during the years 1819-1822 with Cochrane commanding the squadron, Chile replaced Spanish naval power from Cape Horn to Acapulco. The author even claims that Chile could have eliminated Spain from the Philippines and thus extend its influence to Asian waters. The zenith of Chilean maritime strength was short-lived, however. Its cohesive, dynamic power was largely based on Lord Cochrane who continually suffered poor support and frequent opposition from his superiors. Eventually the admiral found his position intolerable, resigned, sailed off to Brazil, and thus left Chilean naval supremacy scuttled behind him.
Cochrane y la independencia del Pacífico clearly demonstrates that the greatest battles the Scottish expatriate waged in the Pacific were political ones, most of which he lost. Although the admiral captured the Esmeralda, numerous other ships, and the highly fortified town of Valdivia, his goal of leading the capitulation of Peru eluded him. De Avila shares Cochrane’s impatience to accelerate the Peruvian campaign and laments the absence of the admiral when victory finally came. The author is confident that Cochrane’s partisanship for his adopted land would have favored Chilean interests in the final peace settlement. This study equates politics with personalities, not surprisingly overlooks Cochrane’s well-known irascibility, and prefers to dwell on the foibles of Bernardo O’Higgins and José de San Martín. Although the author’s character assessments miss their mark, he is probably right that Cochrane’s strategy was better suited to victory than that of San Martín.
Is de Avila also correct in concluding that Chile could have established itself as a major Pacific seapower? Notably absent from this well-documented volume is a discussion of British diplomacy and seapower. By contrast in an earlier study, Sea Power and Chilean Independence, Donald E. Worcester emphasized that the Chilean destruction of Spanish shipping enjoyed British collaboration. De Avila also misjudges the relationship between a navy and merchant marine, suggesting that the former can produce the latter, whereas usually the process is the reverse. Since Chile had a meager merchant marine from which to build a navy, a large percentage of naval officers and crews were ex-Napoleonic war veterans who sailed only as long as there were prizes to capture or salaries to receive. The question of finances represents the weakest part of de Avila’s argument. O’Higgins and his successors allowed the navy to languish because the nation’s resources were exhausted. The government mortgaged customs revenues, cut salaries, and demanded loans, but still it defaulted on obligations. Had Cochrane remained in the country, the Chilean navy would just as surely have succumbed to the financial crisis. The admiral was a great maritime leader, but he had neither the political nor the economic skills to overcome Chilean domestic problems of the 1820s and their repercussions on the armed forces.