Another anecdote will suffice to show the various situations with which the Liberator had to contend.  At a public dinner given to Bolivar at Bogota a fervent admirer of his uttered an incautious toast:  “Should at any time a Monarchical Government be established in Colombia, may the Liberator, Simon Bolivar, be the Emperor!” A stern patriot, Senor Paris, then filled his glass and exclaimed:  “Should Bolivar at any future period allow himself to be declared Emperor, may his blood flow from his heart in the same manner as the wine now does from my glass!” With these words he poured the wine from his glass upon the floor.

Bolivar, far from being offended, sprang up and, approaching Senor Paris, embraced him, exclaiming:  “If such feelings as those declared by this honourable man shall always animate the breasts of the sons of Colombia, her liberty and independence can never be in danger.”

The story is pretty enough, and doubtless it occurred much in the way related at the moment; but it must not be forgotten that convictions on the part of public men must frequently wait on policy, since it is well known that Bolivar’s own views for the independence of South America ran rather in the direction of Empires than Republics.

Simon Bolivar, indeed, worked on large and Imperialistic lines.  As has been said, he dreamed of a single State of Spanish South America, of a great community with a single heart.  It is not surprising that he found opponents to this scheme, the chief of these being Chile and Buenos Aires.  Even in his own country these stupendous plans of his, though they were conceived in a disinterested and loyal spirit, led to troubled and harassing times.  Thus revolutions against his authority broke out in Venezuela, and even in parts of Colombia itself.  International complications followed.  In 1827, Peru declared war against Colombia, alleging that Bolivar was attempting to place her in a state of vassalage to Colombia.

Discord was now arising on every side.  Bolivar saw the majestic turrets of his castle of state fall with a crash to the ground almost ere they had had time to rear themselves against the darkening horizon.  The tragedy was too much even for his enthusiastic spirit.  Broken and spent, he retired to Santa Marta in New Granada, where his grief brought him to a death in solitude in 1830.  Thus his fate supplied yet another link between his career and that of San Martin, whose death in Boulogne on the French coast, when it occurred, scarcely occasioned a passing notice.

In Chile, as has been said, the career of the famous Bernardo O’Higgins, although shorn of so many of the tragic elements that attended that of Bolivar, had ended with almost equal abruptness.  It is true that the great Chilean for his part had the satisfaction of performing one of the greatest acts of his life at the close of his official existence.  When, faced by the deputation of those who were in revolt