2023-09-04 22:23:37
When the large and lucid procession entered Lima at three in the afternoon, all the temple bells rang joyfully and the cheers of the crowd were incessant. Thus culminated the repeated and anguishing negotiations begun months before asking Bolívar to “save Peru.” The President of the Republic, José de la Riva Agüero, had sent General Mariano Portocarrero as an emissary. The result of that interview was the dispatch of General Antonio José de Sucre invested with the rank of Plenipotentiary Minister. He came in command of a short Colombian contingent. There was a second commissioner from Riva Agüero and the Constituent Congress sent two embassies for the same purpose. The second was made up of José Joaquín de Olmedo and José Faustino Sánchez Carrión. The latter contracted tertian fever upon reaching Guayaquil and they decided that Olmedo would continue to Quito in pursuit of the winner of Carabobo. Sánchez Carrión sent him a letter, dated July 3, 1823, where he said: “My Liberator: Without Your Excellency, Peru is lost even when Canterac was defeated. Without VE there is no center in the Peruvian machine; heterogeneous elements make it up and only a power like that of General Bolívar can reconcile them”.
Venezuelan protesters carry a portrait of the liberator Simón Bolívar.
/ RONALDO SCHEMIDT
Bolívar was aware of the existing chaos in Peru, where Riva Agüero and Torre Tagle were facing each other “governing” one in Trujillo and the other in Lima. He also knew that the two patriot expeditions to intermediate ports had been a failure, with great loss of men, weapons, and horses. On the other hand, the permission that he had requested from the Colombian Congress to travel to Peru was delayed. Finally, the license arrived and Bolívar, putting aside his precautions, immediately embarked. With him came important officials from Gran Colombia and also Europeans who had accompanied him in his previous triumphant campaigns.
After numerous gifts, on September 10 the Constituent Congress deposited in Bolívar the supreme military authority “under the name of liberator.” On the 11th, in a letter to Francisco de Paula Santander, Vice President of Colombia, he informed him of what was happening and in one of the paragraphs he commented: “Lima is a big, pleasant city that was once rich; seems very patriotic; men are very attached to me, and say they want to make sacrifices. The ladies are very nice and good girls. Today we have a dance where I will see all of you.” To the same addressee, on the 16th, he urgently requested the shipment of men, weapons and all kinds of supplies. He added that the Peruvian capital was without money and that he had asked the Government of Chile for a loan of two million pesos and ordered a loan for a million more to be arranged in London. In the letter of September 20, he confided to Santander: “I am happier every day in Lima because up to now I am doing well with everyone; men esteem me and ladies love me; this is very nice; they have many pleasures for those who can afford them. All our Colombians have complained a lot about Lima, while I am delighted… The table is excellent, the theater regular, very adorned with pretty eyes and a bewitching demeanor; cars, horses, rides, bulls, te deums, nothing is missing…”.
Bolívar was aware of the existing chaos in Peru, where Riva Agüero and Torre Tagle were facing each other “governing” one in Trujillo and the other in Lima. He also knew that the two patriot expeditions to intermediate ports had been a failure.
Fleeting were the pleasant moments. Riva Agüero ended up in exile and Torre Tagle went over to the royalists. Bolívar had before him a formidable enemy. Viceroy La Serna had been in Cusco since the end of 1821 with an army of 14,000 veteran men, seasoned and, above all, long accustomed to fighting on the Andean peaks.
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