doubt of the vision would come true, only the future could tell.
In 1822, at all events, optimism was the watchword and the total
exclusion of Spain from South America the goal of Bolivar and his
lieutenants, as they started southward to complete the work of
emancipation which had been begun by San Martin.

The patriots of Peru, indeed, had fallen into straits so
desperate that an appeal to the Liberator offered the only hope
of salvation. While the royalists under their able and vigilant
leader, Jose Canterac, continued to strengthen their grasp upon
the interior of the country and to uphold the power of the
viceroy, the President chosen by the Congress had been driven by
the enemy from Lima. A number of the legislators in wrath
thereupon declared the President deposed. Not to be outdone, that
functionary on his part declared the Congress dissolved. The
malcontents immediately proceeded to elect a new chief
magistrate, thus bringing two Presidents into the field and
inaugurating a spectacle destined to become all too common in the
subsequent annals of Spanish America.

When Bolivar arrived at Callao, the seaport of Lima, in
September, 1823, he acted with prompt vigor. He expelled one
President, converted the other into a passive instrument of his
will, declined to promulgate a constitution that the Congress had
prepared, and, after obtaining from that body an appointment to
supreme command, dissolved the Congress without further ado.
Unfortunately none of these radical measures had any perceptible
effect upon the military situation. Though Bolivar gathered
together an army made up of Colombians, Peruvians, and remnants
of San Martin's force, many months elapsed before he could