to the cause
of Mexican independence.

In the meanwhile a more prosperous and worthier contest was being
waged in South America. Besides the efforts of Miranda in Venezuela,
which were renewed between 1810 and 1812, when he was taken prisoner
and sent to Spain, there to die in a dungeon, a separate standard of
revolt was raised in Quito by Narinno and his friends in 1809. After
fighting desperately, in guerilla fashion, for five years, Narinno
was captured and forced to share Miranda's lot. A greater man, the
greatest hero of South American independence, Simon Bolivar, succeeded
them.

Bolivar, a native of Caraccas, had passed many years in Europe, when
in 1810, at the age of twenty-seven, he went to serve under Miranda
in Venezuela. Miranda's defeat in 1812 compelled him to retire to New
Granada, but there he did good service. He improved the fighting ways
and extended the fighting area, and in December, 1814, was appointed
captain-general of Venezuela and New Granada, soon, however, to be
driven back and forced to take shelter in Jamaica by the superior
strength of Morillo, the Spanish general, who arrived with a
formidable army in 1815. In 1816 Bolivar again showed himself in the
field at the head of his famous liberating army, which, crossing
over from Trinidad, and gaining reinforcements at every step, planted
freedom, such as it was, all along the northern parts of South
America, in which the new republic of Colombia was founded under his
presidency, in the neighbouring district of New Granada, and down to
the La Plata province, where he established the republic of Bolivia,
so named in his honour. With these patriotic labours he was busied
upon land, while Lord Cochrane was securing the independence of the
Spanish colonies by his brave warfare on the sea.

As the cause of liberty progressed in South America, it became
apparent that it had poor chance of permanence, while the
revolutionists were unable to cope with the Spaniards in naval
strife or to wrest from Spain her strongholds on the coast. This was
especially the case with the maritime provinces of Chili and Peru.
Peru, held firmly by the army garrisoned in Lima, to which Callao
served as an almost impregnable port, had been unable to share in the
contest waged on the other side of the Andes; and Chili, though
strong enough to declare its independence, was too weak to maintain it
without foreign aid.

The Chilian struggle began in 1810, when the Spani