The Indians of Cangallo and Huamanga again rose in arms; but the former town was burned by Carratala, and the Viceroy issued a decree forbidding any attempt to rebuild it. The Government of Peru erected a monument to the memory of the unfortunate town, and Buenos Ayres named one of her principal streets Cangallo, as a lasting record of this barbarous deed.
But these transitory events had no effect upon the war itself, the Cordillera formed a barrier between the opposing forces which neither of them could pass. The Royalists still outnumbered the Patriots, two to one, but the territory occupied by them, extending from Pasco to the Argentine frontier, was so enormous, that they were nowhere strong.
Bolivar was on the march against Quito; success would enable him to assist San Martin to crush the Royalist forces in Peru, but no cordial alliance was possible with Bolívar until all these new nations had agreed upon one common form of government, and the unsettled state of Guayaquil, which was claimed as a province by both Columbia and Peru, threatened to produce discord between them.
San Martin rose to the emergency. He sent a contingent of 1,500 men from Peru to assist Bolivar in his operations against Quito, and so secured his success. Then, setting on one side his monarchical ideas, he, on the 27th December, 1821, issued a decree summoning a Congress:—
"To establish a definitive form of government, and to give to the country the constitution best adapted to it."
He at the same time appointed the Marquis of Torre-Tagle Deputy-Protector, while he himself went off to Guayaquil in the hope of obtaining an interview with Bolívar.
Not daring to leave La Serna unmolested while he arranged with the Liberator of the North the plans for united and decisive action, he despatched General Tristan
