effective understanding. The Protector, it would seem, thought
the Liberator actuated by a boundless ambition that would not
endure resistance. Bolivar fancied San Martin a crafty schemer
plotting for his own advancement. They failed to agree on the
three fundamental points essential to their further cooperation.
Bolivar declined to give up the province of Quito. He refused
also to send an army into Peru unless he could command it in
person, and then he declined to undertake the expedition on the
ground that as President of Colombia he ought not to leave the
territory of the republic. Divining this pretext, San Martin
offered to serve under his orders--a feint that Bolivar parried
by protesting that he would not hear of any such self-denial on
the part of a brother officer.

Above all, the two men differed about the political form to be
adopted for the new independent states. Both of them realized
that anything like genuine democracies was quite impossible of
attainment for many years to come, and that strong
administrations would be needful to tide the Spanish Americans
over from the political inexperience of colonial days and the
disorders of revolution to intelligent self-government, which
could come only after a practical acquaintance with public
concerns on a large scale. San Martin believed that a limited
monarchy was the best form of government under the circumstances.
Bolivar held fast to the idea of a centralized or unitary
republic, in which actual power should be exercised by a life
president and an hereditary senate until the people, represented
in a lower house, should have gained a sufficient amount of
political experience.