There is no shadow of doubt that a number of these patriot leaders may be ranked among the host of great men, sometimes on account of their qualities as leaders, sometimes for their statesmanship, but in almost every instance for their genuine patriotism. Nevertheless, there have been very few historical characters or temperaments which have been more difficult to estimate from contemporary accounts of their actions and motives. Jealousy entered very freely into the patriot ranks, and the various chroniclers, however honestly they may have written, and however deep their convictions may have been, were inevitably swayed to a very great extent by this. Thus a partisan of the Carreras would have been a strange being, according to the lights of these times, had he been able to discern a spot of goodness in the personality of San Martin, and the admirer of the heroic Cochrane would have had no higher opinion of the Argentine Liberator. The reverse of the medal was, of course, shown by San Martin's adherents, who might safely have been trusted to miss no defect in Cochrane, or in any other of his party. This condition of affairs prevailed throughout, and extended for the length and breadth of the Continent. Bolivar, Sucre, and everyone of note, was a hero to his own followers, and more or less a villain to the rest of the allied, yet rival, parties. As a rule these prominent leaders suffered rather than gained from the situation, since the calumnies of the period are more abundant than the laudations. It is only now that the history of the early nineteenth century is beginning to be written calmly and dispassionately, and as a result the participants in the great deeds of that epoch appear, with justice, greater to the modern world than they did in the eyes of their contemporaries. CHAPTER XVII THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE--II It was at Mendoza that the famous Argentine General, San Martin, recruited the army destined for the campaign of Chile. In 1817 everything was prepared, and with an army of 4,000 men San Martin set out on one of the most extraordinary military marches that history has known. Indeed, his passage of the Andes is considered as unique by numerous military experts.