Capture of the Esmeralda

5–6 November 1820, Callao, Peru

Chilean victory; the Spanish flagship cut out

With San Martín's army ashore in Peru, the Spanish squadron lay inside Callao behind a floating boom, guarded by gunboats and covered by the batteries of the Real Felipe and the other forts. Cochrane picked 240 volunteers, 160 seamen and 80 marines, from O'Higgins, Lautaro and Independencia, and led them in 14 boats in two divisions under Captains Thomas Crosbie and Martin Guise. They passed the boom soon after midnight and boarded the frigate Esmeralda, the Spanish flagship, from both sides. After a short, hard fight on her decks she was theirs, and Cochrane, wounded in the thigh, had her cables cut and sailed her out under fire from the forts. Two neutral frigates, the American Macedonian and the British Hyperion, lay near the entrance; Cochrane had his prize show the same signal lights as them, which confused the gunners ashore. The loss of their best ship left the royalists in Peru with little to fight with at sea.