He had a fancy for the frigate, _Esmeralda_, which lay in Callao--thought she would suit him for a cruiser. She happened to be protected by a Spanish fleet, and batteries mounting three hundred guns, but Cochrane did not mind. El Diablo first eased the minds of the Spaniards by sending away two out of his three small vessels, but kept the bulk of their men, and all their boats, a detail not observed by the weary enemy. His boarding party, two hundred and forty strong, stole into the anchorage at midnight, and sorely surprised the _Esmeralda_. Cochrane, first on board, was felled with the butt end of a musket, and thrown back into his boat grievously hurt, in addition to which he had a bullet through his thigh before he took possession of the frigate. The fleet and batteries had opened fire, but El Diablo noticed that two neutral ships protected themselves with a display of lanterns arranged as a signal, “Please don’t hit me.” “That’s good enough for me,” said Cochrane and copied those lights which protected the neutrals. When the bewildered Spaniards saw his lanterns also, they promptly attacked the neutrals. So Cochrane stole away with his prize. Although the great sailor delivered Chili and Peru from the Spaniards, the patriots ungratefully despoiled him of all his pay and rewards. Cochrane has been described as “a destroying angel with a limited income and a turn for politics.” Anyway he was misunderstood, and left Chili disgusted, to attend to the liberation of Brazil from the Portuguese. But if the Chilians were thieves, the Brazilians proved to be both thieves and cowards. Reporting to the Brazilian government that all their cartridges, fuses, guns, powder, spars and sails, were alike rotten, and all their men an encumbrance, he dismantled a squadron to find equipment for a single ship, the _Pedro Primeiro_. This he manned with British and Yankee adventurers. He had two other small but fairly effective ships when he commenced to threaten Bahia. There lay thirteen Portuguese war-ships, mounting four hundred and eighteen guns, seventy merchant ships, and a garrison of several thousand men. El Diablo’s blockade reduced the whole to starvation, the threat of his fireworks sent them into convulsions, and their leaders resolved on flight to Portugal. So the troops were embarked, the rich people took ship with their treasure, and the squadron escorted them to sea, where Cochrane grinned in the offing. For fifteen days he hung in the rear of that fleet, cutting off ships as they straggled. He had not a man to spare for charge of his prizes, but when he caught a ship he staved her water casks, disabled her rigging so that she could only run before the wind back to Bahia, and threw every weapon overboard. He captured seventy odd ships, half the troops, all the treasure, fought and out-maneuvered the war fleet so that he could not be caught, and only let thirteen wretched vessels escape to Lisbon. Such a deed of war has never been