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 against his
authority, he stepped forward to confront them, and, with deliberation
and calmness, tore from his person his insignia of office, he knew that
his deed had been echoed through the whole length of Chile, and that it
had caused a shock of astonishment and sympathy in the breasts of even
those most strenuously opposed to his policy.
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