Last Years
On 11 September 1846, he left for the Americas again with his daughter Margarita. He first attempted to disembark in Peru, but President Ramón Castilla, whose brother had been a Carlist officer in Spain, barred him from entering the country. He then headed for Chile, where he still owned an hacienda that he had inherited from his deceased wife. He landed in Valparaíso on 22 December and took over the aforementioned property, located near the town of Concón.
He passed away in Valparaíso, on 25 August 1853, after moving there to receive better medical care for his illness. On his gravestone is mentioned that he was a Lieutenant Colonel of the Spanish Army and his nobiliary titles of "Viscount of Elgueta" and "Count of Casa Maroto". Later on his remains were moved to an Army Memorial mausoleum in the anniversary of the Battle of Chacabuco, on 2 June 1918, to be buried in wall tomb number 77 with a new epitaph: "The Army of Chile to the Spanish Army Brigadier Don Rafael Maroto"
Rafael Maroto is a controversial figure. Some historians labelled him a traitor to the Carlist cause because his intervention in the Convention of Vergara, while others believe it was an intelligent and reasonable action, considering the hopeless state of the almost defeated Carlist army.
Read more about this topic: Rafael Maroto
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Almost everybody in the neighborhood had “troubles,” frankly localized and specified; but only the chosen had “complications.” To have them was in itself a distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a death warrant. People struggled on for years with “troubles,” but they almost always succumbed to “complications.””
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“Thirty years ago I said, “But how can one be sick?” But now I say, “If only one could find the secret of not being sick, I would not exchange it for all the secrets in the world.””
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)