, and it was
obvious that Spain was at her last gasp. Bolivar came down with his
armies from Quito to Peru to complete the task of the destruction of the
Spanish garrisons. In 1824 the Battle of Junin was fought, which
resulted in a striking victory for the South Americans. The patriot
forces on this occasion made a particularly gallant fight, and the
brilliant cavalry charge made by Suarez is said to have been largely
responsible for the victory.

Bolivar then gave over the command of the army to General Sucre, who on
December 9, 1824, fought the Battle of Ayacucho, completely defeating
the Royalist forces. This proved to be the final action of the war; the
last shred of Spanish authority had been torn from the Continent, the
last of the Spanish garrisons were now ploughing their sombre course
back to Europe, and it was left to Spanish America to shape its own
destiny.

CHAPTER XVIII

BRAZIL: FROM COLONY TO EMPIRE

Until the period of Napoleonic chaos which overwhelmed the two
westernmost countries of Europe, the South American colonies of Spain
and Portugal had continued their existence on similar lines. Both had
been entirely subservient to the Mother Country. The laws which governed
Brazil and the Spanish colonies were framed on the same model, and the
disadvantages under which the colonists of either nation had laboured
from the start had been practically identical.

With the upheaval which occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, a new order came into being, so far as the Spaniards and
Portuguese were concerned. The parting of the ways was now marked. It
is, indeed, curious to notice that, while Spanish South America was
strenuously engaged in transforming itself from the status of a royal
colony to that of a group of independent republics, an operation was
being carried out in Brazil, the effect of which was precisely the
reverse.

Brazil, in fact, in place of the neglect of centuries from which she had
suffered, now underwent a sudden, dazzling, and altogether unexpected
shower of honours and distinctions. That this did not come about
spontaneously affected the colony but little; the fact remained that she
was destined in a remarkably short space of time to rise from a colony
to a kingdom, and from a kingdom to an empire. The circumstances which
led to this transformation were sufficiently dramatic in themselves.

In order to preserve the thread of these rather complicated events, it