[1] The Chilean revolutionary government organized the squadron in order to carry the war to the Viceroyalty of Perú, then the center of Spanish power in South America, and thus secure the independence of Chile and Argentina.

Argentine historian Bartolomé Mitre gives the following list[2] of armed Spanish ships in the west coast of South America, but it was never done simultaneously: frigates Venganza (44 guns) and Esmeralda (44), merchant corvettes Milagro (18), San Juan Bautista (18) and Begoña (18), second class frigates Governadora (16), Comercio (12), Presidente (12), Castilla (12) and Bigarrera (12), corvettes Resolución (34), Sebastiana (34) and Veloz (22), brigantine Pezuela (18), plus other 3 unnamed ships with 37 guns.

The Chilean patriots decided that they needed their own navy with trustworthy crews if they were to protect the long coasts of the state and to mobilize troops against the enemy.

Consequently, the Chilean government, led by O'Higgins, on 20 November 1817 authorized privateers to engage as commerce raiders, interrupting the Spanish trade off the west coast of South America.

José Ignacio Zenteno was nominated as Minister of Marine and promulgated in November 1817 the Reglamento General de Marina, a legal framework for the new institution.

The end of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe encouraged the Fernando VII's restored (in 1814) autocracy to make every effort to retain their American colonies.

According to Antonio García Reyes in Memoria sobre la Primera Escuadra Nacional[25] the transporter were: Rosalía (Escorpión), Trinidad, Especulación, Dolores, Javiera (Jerezana), Magdalena, Carlota, San Fernando, Mocha (Atocha) and Elena (in brackets the names given by Diego Barros Arana in his Historia General de Chile).

The eleven transport carried food supplies, ammunition, guns and, more importantly, two infantry battalions of the Cantabria Regiment, three cavalry squadrons, two artillery and combat engineer companies, for a total of 2,080 men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Fausto del Hoyo,[6]: 13  actually a member of the constitutionalist party in Spain.

During the voyage the crew of one transport was severely weakened by sickness and at 5°N latitude the soldiers disembarked in Trinidad where they mutinied, executed their officers, deserted the fleet and sailed to Buenos Aires where they surrendered to the revolutionary authorities on 16 August 1818 and handed over orders, signals and rendezvous points of the expedition.

The crew of the Reina María Isabel ran their vessel aground to render her useless to the Chileans, but they were able to take the frigate in a brisk action and to repair the damage.

[note 1] In the middle of 1818, Bernardo O'Higgins, through his agent in London, had recruited Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, a daring and successful captain of the Napoleonic Wars with well-known radical views to take command of the recently created Chilean Navy.

Cochrane arrived in Valparaiso in December 1818, became a Chilean citizen of unrecognized state, was appointed vice admiral, and took command with pay and allowances of £1200[6]: 38  a year.

In this way, in practice, the first Chilean squadron officially governed by the English language, to the point that an officer of the British Royal Navy said that "even the uniform is very similar to ours.

On 11 May 1819 the King of Spain had dispatched a new expedition to the West Coast of America under the command of Rosendo Porlier, who was to replace the naval chief of Callao Antonio Vacaro.

The Alejandro I had to turn back to Spain because of its leaky condition and the San Telmo was lost in a severe storm rounding Cape Horn with 644 men.

After failing to capture the Spanish fortress of Real Felipe in Callao, in defiance of his orders and without even telling the Chilean authorities what he intended to do, Thomas Cochrane decided to assault the city of Valdivia, the most fortified place in southern Chile at the time.

[30] Valdivia was a threat to Chilean independence as it was a stronghold and supply base for Spanish troops and was the first landing site for ships coming from Spain after the voyage round Cape Horn.

Valdivia provided a safe landing site for sending reinforcements to the loyalist guerrilla fighting the Guerra a muerte in the area of La Frontera.

The forts of Valdivia were captured on 3 and 4 February 1820, and their fall effectively ended the last vestiges of Spanish power in mainland Chile and put large amounts of military materiel in the Chilean hands: 50 tons gunpowder, 10,000 cannon shot, 170,000 musket balls, small arms, 128 pieces of artillery, and the Dolores.

San Martín choose to disobey (see Acta de Rancagua) and O'Higgins decided that Chile would assume the costs of the Freedom Expedition of Perú.

[22]: 144 On the night of 5 November Cochrane and 240 volunteers wearing white with blue armbands captured the Spanish frigate Esmeralda (1791) within the port of Callao.

The commander of the expeditionary troops José de San Martín understand that the task was to neutralise the Spanish army so that the population could liberate themselves and he followed a slow and relentless course.

Although San Martín set about raising the bonuses he had promised the fleet after the fall of Lima, he refused to pay its routine expenses or prize money for the Esmeralda which he regarded as the responsibility of the Chilean government.

[34] Now in violent conflict with San Martin, on 6 October 1821 Cochrane sailed with the Araucano, O'Higgins, Valdivia, Independencia and the schooner Mercedes in order to scour the Pacific for the last remnants of the Spanish Navy, the frigates Venganza and Prueba.

After a month in Guayaquil to refit and to reprovision the ships, the squadron searched the West Coast of the Americas as far north as Loreto, Baja California Sur, where the Araucano was lost to mutineers.