The royalists lost twelve hundred of their best men at Chacabuco; only a thousand escaped from the field to fly in disorder toward Santiago. On the way they met the Spanish cavalry riding to join them, but Captain-General Marco, instead of rallying the three thousand men who remained under his orders, hurried out of town toward Valparaiso, anxious for his personal safety. San Martin had expected to be obliged to fight another battle and kept his army together, instead of pursuing and annihilating the dismayed Spaniards. More than half the latter managed to escape to Valparaiso, where they embarked for Peru. Santiago received the conqueror with no great enthusiasm. The moneyed classes feared another prolonged civil war with its attendant confiscations, forced contributions, and general disorder; the common people cared little whether a Spaniard or an Argentine occupied the governmental palace. However, no one dreamed of resistance; the partisans of the proscribed patriots and the votaries of independence and liberalism were delighted; San Martin with his host of hardy gauchos and Chilean exiles assumed full control of the capital. He summoned an assembly of notables who promptly and unanimously elected him "Governor of Chile with plenary powers." But this was not what the far-sighted and patriotic soldier wanted. He realised that Chile could never give that unquestioning support so vital to the success of his cherished campaign against Peru so long as any stranger, even himself, governed by force. San Martin peremptorily declined the honour, but intimated that he would be glad to see his staunch friend, O'Higgins, selected dictator, and accordingly the enemy of the Carreras was placed at the head of the new Chilean government.