Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/502

472 wife, nor home, was left to him, there was not even a place in the Argentine Army for the man who had led the armies of three Republics to victory. At the close of the year 1823 he took his orphan daughter in his arms and retired into exile. In Europe he found himself penniless. Five years later he returned to Buenos Ayres, seeking to end his days in his native country; the war with Brazil had just concluded.

On the 12th February, 1829, the anniversary of his triumphs at San Lorenzo and at Chacabuco, the ship which carried him anchored in the roadstead, and he was greeted with this contemptuous denunciation in the city press:—

"General San Martin has returned to his native country after five years' absence, but after knowing that peace was concluded with the Emperor of Brazil."

His answer had been given two thousand years before, by the mouth of Scipio, when he was insulted by his fellow countrymen on the anniversary of one of his great battles:—

"On such a day as this I saved Rome."

San Martin did not repeat this answer, he returned in silence into exile. His reply was given from the tomb many years later:—

"I desire that my heart may rest in Buenos Ayres."

Bolívar, after his last resignation was accepted, retired to the neighbourhood of Cartagena, and there heard of the death of Sucre, who had written to him two years previously, that unless they withdrew in time they would lose their heads. He was dying, but still indulged ambitious designs. He had prophesied anarchy and it came. He looked on complacently, and even encouraged it, but was greatly mortified by a notification from his friend Mosquera, that Venezuela demanded his banishment as a condition of peace.

"No, no, I will not go dishonoured," he exclaimed.

His partisans said that he alone could restore quietude, and they seemed right. Part of Venezuela and New Granada rose in arms to demand the re-establishment of his dictatorship. Quito and Guayaquil separated from