As has already been explained, it was inevitable that the struggle which was taking place in Peru, the Viceroyalty, where was now centred all the remaining Spanish power of the Continent, should have been more prolonged than that in Chile, and far more so than had proved the contest in the provinces of the River Plate.  So far as Lima was concerned, the result was not so long in doubt.  Finding his hold on the capital no longer tenable in the face of the advance from the south of the victorious army, the Viceroy evacuated the town on July 26, 1821, and the patriot forces, entering the city, proclaimed from that place the freedom of Peru.

General Bolivar, in the meanwhile, having now cleared the northern countries of the Spanish troops, was marching down into Peru, and thus the stream of liberators from the south came into contact with those of the north.  An historical interview was held at Guayaquil on July 26, 1822, between the two greatest men of the Continent of that time, San Martin and Bolivar.  The details of this interview have never been made public, but what occurred may be surmised more or less accurately from the knowledge of the characters of the two men.

In one sense Bolivar’s horizon was wider than that of San Martin.  For practical purposes, indeed, there is no doubt that this horizon of the northern liberator had extended itself to a somewhat dangerous and impracticable degree.  His dream was a federated South America—­a single nation, in fact, which, save for the great Portuguese possession of Brazil, should extend from Panama to Cape Horn.

Bolivar’s enthusiasm on this point refused to be curbed at any cost—­at all events, at this period.  It must be admitted that he did not take into full consideration the differences which climatic influences and the varying degrees of racial intermarriage had worked in the populations of the several provinces.  Thus the ethics of the northern and equatorial countries had become widely different from those in the southern and temperate zones.  Nevertheless, such was Bolivar’s faith in the destiny of South America as a whole that he would have flung the entire mass together, and left it to work out its complicated will.

San Martin, as the representative of what might be termed, in one sense, the European States of the River Plate and Chile, was keenly alive to the defects of this plan.  It is certain that the two theories were discussed in the course of the momentous interview between San Martin and Bolivar, and it is equally certain that San Martin realized that, holding such divergent views from those of his colleague as he did, friction between the leaders would in the circumstances become inevitable.  He determined, therefore, on a piece of self-sacrifice which has few rivals in history.  At the moment when he had achieved his triumph, and when the inhabitants of three powerful new countries were waiting to salute him with a thunder of acclamation, he laid down his office, unbuckled his sword, travelled quietly to Chile, and from there he crossed the Andes to Mendoza in a very different fashion to the one in which he had come on the occasion when he had commanded the army of liberation.  From Mendoza he crossed the plains of Buenos Aires, and from there he took ship to Europe.