and the independence of South America was in great part paid for by Spanish fortunes, wrested from their owners by forced loans and by confiscations. It was now the turn of the Spaniards of Peru to contribute their share. San Martin had made use of this system in Mendoza, he had recommended it in Chile. Sentimental characters do not lead great causes to victory in the struggle of life. All the same, the measure was unjustifiable in the absence of any overt act on the part of the Spaniards.
One result of this new system of persecution, was the banishment of the Archbishop of Lima, a man of eminent piety and eighty years of age, who, though a Royalist, had aided San Martin in quieting the city on his arrival; he had authorized with his presence the municipal council which had declared the country independent; he had assisted at the Te Deum which celebrated the declaration. Most of the Peruvian clergy were ardent Patriots, but not so the high dignitaries of the church. San Martin took advantage of a mere pretext to send him his passport and an order to leave the country in twenty-four hours.
On the 4th September, 1821, when San Martin was, as Protector of Peru, in the apogee of his power, his old enemy José Miguel Carrera, died cursing him in Mendoza. Associated with Artigas, Ramirez, Bustos, and others of the Gaucho chieftains of the Argentine Provinces, Carrera had distinguished himself among them for rancorous hatred of Buenos Ayres. Unfortunate in all his enterprises, he was at length captured, and shot as a bandit, upon the same bench where his brothers had perished before him.
